Opinion ID: 2508648
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: remain

Text: Under the Anchorage Municipal Code, a minor commits an offense if he or she remains in any public place or on the premises of any establishment within the municipality during curfew hours. [16] The plaintiffs claim that the operative word, remain, is vague because someone in a moving automobile must be characterized as lingering or staying in order to find a violation. They assert that the Ninth Circuit came to the same conclusion in Nunez ex rel. Nunez v. City of San Diego [17] when faced with an ordinance's use of the words loiter, idle, wander, stroll or play. [18] But the language used in the San Diego ordinance struck down in Nunez loiter, idle, wander, stroll or playand the ordinance's lack of meaningful exceptions to enforcement make it wholly different from the ordinance at issue in this case. The juvenile curfew ordinance struck down in Nunez was enacted in 1947 and made it unlawful for a minor to loiter, idle, wander, stroll or play in public during nighttime hours. [19] The ordinance allowed for only four limited exceptions. [20] The Ninth Circuit held that the phrase loiter, wander, idle, stroll or play was unconstitutionally vague and instead construed the ordinance as prohibiting minors' presence in public during curfew hours. [21] The court ultimately struck down the ordinance because it lacked exceptions sufficient to protect the constitutional rights of minors and their parents. [22] As we discuss in the sections that follow, we find that the exceptions to enforcement of the Anchorage ordinance are sufficient to withstand a facial challenge. Nunez is, therefore, inapposite. The plaintiffs also rely on Brown v. Municipality of Anchorage [23] to support their argument that remain is vague. Brown is also inapplicable as it is a loitering case. Here, the violation comes not from loitering, but because juveniles are in public places during curfew hours. To analogize to Brown, the ordinance at issue would have to prohibit juveniles from loitering at any time, not only during curfew hours. The use of the word remain presents no vagueness problem. It has been used in other curfew ordinances [24] and upheld after challenge. [25] The plaintiffs do not provide sufficient reason to conclude that it is incapable of being understood by ordinary people. The Anchorage ordinance makes it an offense for a minor to remain in a public place or on the premises of an establishment during curfew hours. The import of this prohibition is that minors must be at home during curfew hours unless they qualify for an exception, to which we turn next. The ordinance contains several exceptions to prosecution under specified circumstances. For example, a minor will not be prosecuted under the ordinance if he or she is: accompanied by a parent or guardian, on an errand at the written instruction of a parent or guardian, involved in an emergency, at work, immediately outside of his or her own home, attending a supervised activity, exercising First Amendment rights, or either married or an emancipated minor. [26] The plaintiffs attack four of these exceptions as impermissibly vague.