Opinion ID: 1258862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the void for vagueness test

Text: An ordinance is void for vagueness when it fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute and permits arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. See United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940). The basis for this rule of law is that [all persons] are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids. Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453, 59 S.Ct. 618, 619, 83 L.Ed. 888 (1939) (footnote omitted). While courts recognize that [i]n most English words and phrases there lurk uncertainties, Rose v. Locke, 423 U.S. 48, 50, 96 S.Ct. 243, 244, 46 L.Ed.2d 185 (1975) (quoting Robinson v. United States, 324 U.S. 282, 286, 65 S.Ct. 666, 668, 89 L.Ed. 944 (1945)), a statute written in terms so ambiguous that persons of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application is unconstitutionally vague. Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926). See also Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972). A more recent pronouncement of the reasons for the void for vagueness doctrine is included in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972): It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-09, 92 S.Ct. at 2298-299 (footnotes omitted). Grayned has been cited with approval by this Court. In Voyles v. City of Nampa, 97 Idaho 597, 548 P.2d 1217 (1976), we explained: The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States requires that a city ordinance must be definite and certain in its statement of prohibited conduct to enable a person of ordinary intelligence who reads the ordinance to understand what activity is proscribed and govern his actions accordingly. E.g., Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972); Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972). The Constitution of the State of Idaho also requires that city ordinances demonstrate a definiteness and certainty sufficient to permit a person to conform his conduct thereto. Idaho Const. Art. I, § 13; City of Lewiston v. Mathewson, 78 Idaho 347, 303 P.2d 680 (1956). See also State v. Evans, 73 Idaho 50, 245 P.2d 788 (1952); State v. Musser, 67 Idaho 214, 176 P.2d 199 (1946). An ordinance which fulfills the requirements of certainty and definiteness still may be constitutionally infirm if its prohibition is overbroad, restricting constitutionally protected conduct. [Citation omitted.] Voyles, 97 Idaho at 599, 548 P.2d at 1219. See also State v. Newman, 108 Idaho 5, 12, 696 P.2d 856, 863 (1985). While the reasons for such a doctrine may be obvious, the steps in a test for vagueness have never been presented in a clear and unambiguous manner by the United States Supreme Court. See Note, The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine in the Supreme Court, 109 U.Pa.L.Rev. 67 (1960). [2] Moreover, the steps announced by the federal Supreme Court do not quickly and easily translate into our state system of jurisprudence. Unlike the posture of the cases before the United States Supreme Court in Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974), and Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, 455 U.S. 489, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982), where no prosecution was pending and no showing of bad-faith enforcement or other special circumstances had been made, an earlier case which was before us in State v. Newman, 108 Idaho 5, 696 P.2d 856 (1985), and the case before us now both involve active prosecutions. This Court's attempt at a translation of the federal vagueness test in State v. Newman will now be clarified. Newman relies upon Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974). The question presented in Steffel was whether declaratory relief is precluded when a state prosecution has been threatened, but is not pending, and a showing of bad-faith enforcement or other special circumstances has not been made. Steffel, 415 U.S. at 454, 94 S.Ct. at 1213. The test Steffel applied to determine if declaratory relief is warranted is extremely difficult for the party requesting declaratory judgment to satisfy: Indeed, the State's concern with potential interference in the administration of its criminal laws is of lesser dimension when an attack is made upon the constitutionality of a state statute as applied. A declaratory judgment of a lower federal court that a state statute is invalid in toto  and therefore incapable of any valid application  or is overbroad or vague  and therefore no person can properly be convicted under the statute until it is given a narrowing or clarifying construction, [citations omitted]  will likely have a more significant potential for disruption of state enforcement policies than a declaration specifying a limited number of impermissible applications of the statute. Steffel, 415 U.S. at 474, 94 S.Ct. at 1223. This Court in Newman, in a footnote, quoted just a portion of the test announced in Steffel. 108 Idaho at 11 n. 7, 696 P.2d at 861. Newman also cited with approval to another United States Supreme Court case, Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, 455 U.S. 489, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982), which involved another pre-enforcement facial challenge in federal court of a city ordinance, as the first sentence of the Supreme Court's opinion in Flipside states. The reasons for having a hard test for a party challenging a state statute or city ordinance in federal court through a declaratory judgment proceeding include considerations of federalism, comity, and the abstention doctrine. States should be allowed to interpret and place judicial gloss on a state statute without this interpretation process being pre-empted by a binding judgment in federal court. Thus, Steffel provides no authority for the granting of any injunctive relief nor does it provide authority for the granting of any relief at all when prosecutions are pending. 415 U.S. at 479, 94 S.Ct. at 1226 (Rehnquist, J., concurring). In other words, the relief provided by a federal court in these instances will be minor, even though the barrier to that relief is great: A declaratory judgment is simply a statement of rights, not a binding order supplemented by continuing sanctions. State authorities may choose to be guided by the judgment of a lower federal court, but they are not compelled to follow the decision by threat of contempt or other penalties. Steffel, 415 U.S. at 482, 94 S.Ct. at 1227 (Rehnquist, J., concurring). Contrary to our statement of the federal test in Newman, the federal Supreme Court has recognized that a vagueness challenge is more readily acknowledged if the statute challenged carries criminal penalties. In Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983), the United States Supreme Court case that struck down a criminal statute analogous to the Pocatello ordinance, Justice White in dissent wrote: None of our cases suggests that one who has received fair warning of the criminality of his own conduct from the statute in question is nonetheless entitled to attack it because the language would not give similar fair warning with respect to other conduct which might be within its broad and literal ambit. One to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness. Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2561-2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974). The correlative rule is that a criminal statute is not unconstitutionally vague on its face unless it is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 497, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982). Kolender, 461 U.S. at 369-70, 103 S.Ct. at 1865 (White, J., dissenting). The Kolender majority, after recognizing that Kolender was a declaratory judgment case in which no prosecution was pending, 461 U.S. at 355 n. 3, 103 S.Ct. at 1857, responded to the dissent's allegation that the Court had applied the wrong test: The description of our holdings [by the dissent] is inaccurate in several respects... . [W]here a statute imposes criminal penalties, the standard of certainty is higher. This concern has, at times, led us to invalidate a criminal statute on its face even when it could conceivably have had some valid application. Kolender, 461 U.S. at 358 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. at 1859 (citations omitted). Keeping in mind the cases we have discussed, the steps in a test for vagueness may now be stated. First, the court must ask whether the ordinance regulates constitutionally protected conduct. If the answer to this first step is in the affirmative, then the next step asks whether the ordinance precludes a significant amount of the constitutionally protected conduct. If the answer to this step is also in the affirmative, then the ordinance is quite likely overbroad and must be restricted in its application or rewritten. But if the ordinance does not regulate constitutionally protected conduct, or if the ordinance does not preclude a significant amount of such conduct, then the next and last step is to ask whether (a) the ordinance gives notice to those who are subject to it, and (b) whether the ordinance contains guidelines and imposes sufficient discretion on those who must enforce the ordinance. This last step can be satisfied and the enactment found constitutional with a recognition by the reviewing court, or by the party that urges the Court to find the statute or ordinance constitutional, of a core of circumstances to which the statute or ordinance could be unquestionably constitutionally applied. Where a constitutional ordinance is involved, such recognition should be a simple matter. The reason a reviewing court prefers a recognition of the core of the activity targeted as criminal by the statute or ordinance is explained by the reference which the United States Supreme Court made in 1983, with approval, to a statement they made in 1876: It would certainly be dangerous if the Legislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained and who should be set at large. Kolender, 461 U.S. at 358, n. 7, 103 S.Ct. at 1858, quoting United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214, 221, 23 L.Ed. 563, 566 (1876). In other words, if the statute or ordinance is broad enough to catch everyone, it has no core of circumstances to which it applies and is therefore unconstitutionally vague.