Opinion ID: 199885
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ripeness Doctrine

Text: 33 When citizens cannot determine what conduct a law proscribes, the law's vagueness may raise constitutional due process concerns. The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954). The principle underlying the doctrine is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed. Id. 34 Alleging that the Act is unconstitutionally vague, the plaintiffs complain about the threat of enforcement, but not any particular instances of enforcement. Such facial challenges raise special justiciability concerns. Particularly relevant here is the doctrine of ripeness, which asks whether an injury that has not yet happened is sufficiently likely to happen to warrant judicial review. 13A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller, and Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 3531.12, at 50 (2d ed.1984) (citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499 n. 10, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (defining ripeness inquiry as whether the harm asserted has matured sufficiently to warrant judicial intervention.)). The requirement of ripeness is particularly relevant in the context of actions for preenforcement review of statutes, because it focuses on the timing of the action. Navegar, Inc. v. United States, 103 F.3d 994, 998 (D.C.Cir. 1997). 35 In determining ripeness, we apply a familiar test: `the question in each case is whether ... there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.' Lake Carriers' Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U.S. 498, 506, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 32 L.Ed.2d 257 (1972) (quoting Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941)). There are several important reasons for a court to exercise the passive virtue 4 of waiting for a controversy to mature before passing judgment on the merits: 36 [C]ourts should not render decisions absent a genuine need to resolve a real dispute. Unnecessary decisions dissipate judicial energies better conserved for litigants who have a real need for official assistance.... Defendants, moreover, should not be forced to bear the burdens of litigation without substantial justification, and in any event may find themselves unable to litigate intelligently if they are forced to grapple with hypothetical possibilities rather than immediate facts. 37 Wright, Miller, and Cooper, § 3532.1, at 114-5; see also United States v. Hilton, 167 F.3d 61 (1st Cir.1999) (declining to entertain overbreadth challenge to the Child Online Privacy Protection Act for similar reasons). These concerns often militate against preenforcement review. 38 Nevertheless, threats of enforcement of a vague statute can support a facial challenge to a statute when certain conditions are met. `[O]ne does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief. If the injury is certainly impending that is enough.' Babbitt v. United Farm Workers Nat'l Union, 442 U.S. 289, 298, 99 S.Ct. 2301, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979) (quoting Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U.S. 553, 593, 43 S.Ct. 658, 67 L.Ed. 1117 (1923)); see also Wright, Miller & Cooper, § 3532.5, at 183 (explaining that the opportunity to offer a constitutional defense at a criminal proceeding simply is not an adequate remedy.). To determine whether the threat of enforcement of an allegedly vague statute is ripe for judicial review, we examine the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration. Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). [F]itness typically involves subsidiary queries concerning finality, definiteness, and the extent to which resolution of the challenge depends upon facts that may not yet be sufficiently developed, whereas hardship typically turns upon whether the challenged action creates a direct and immediate dilemma for the parties. Rhode Island Ass'n of Realtors, Inc., v. White-house, 199 F.3d 26, 33 (1st Cir.1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). We turn to these hardship and fitness considerations.
39 In all of the vagueness counts, the main hardship alleged by the plaintiffs is the threat of prosecution. A threatened prosecution is only immediate enough to satisfy the hardship prong of the ripeness inquiry when the challenged action creates a `direct and immediate' dilemma for the parties. W.R. Grace & Co. v. United States Envtl. Prot. Agency, 959 F.2d 360, 364 (1st Cir., 1992) (quoting Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 152, 87 S.Ct. 1507 (1967)). Such a dilemma exists when threatened prosecution puts the party seeking preenforcement review between a rock and a hard place — absent the availability of preenforcement review, she must either forego possibly lawful activity because of her well-founded fear of prosecution, or willfully violate the statute, thereby subjecting herself to criminal prosecution and punishment. Navegar, 103 F.3d at 998 (citing Babbitt, 442 U.S. at 298-99, 99 S.Ct. 2301). The plaintiffs allege that they face such a dilemma because they must choose between costly compliance (giving up possession of all guns that might be large capacity weapons) or risky noncompliance (keeping their guns and worrying about prosecution for possessing large capacity weapons). 40 That argument might have some force if the Act banned large capacity weapons outright instead of licensing them. For example, in Peoples Rights Organization, Inc. v. City of Columbus, 152 F.3d 522 (6th Cir.1998), where the plaintiffs challenged successfully on vagueness grounds a municipal ordinance banning assault weapons, the preenforcement challenge was ripe for review because the law presented those plaintiffs with a Hobson's choice[:][t]hey [could] either possess their firearms in Columbus and risk prosecution under the City's law, or, alternatively, they [could] store their weapons outside the City, depriving themselves of the use and possession of the weapons. 5 Peoples Rights Org., 152 F.3d at 529 (holding that city ordinance's ban on assault weapons was vague because the ordinance lacked a scienter requirement and its definitions of assault weapons, inter alia, unfairly required gun consumers to ascertain the developmental history of particular weapons or monitor the precise types of ammunition available for their weapons). Here, the plaintiffs have a third option: obtaining a license for their weapons. 6 41 Confronted with this licensing argument, the plaintiffs respond that they do not know whether they need a license. However, we have long held that all owners of firearms are on notice that they are subject to regulation, including licensing. See United States v. DeBartolo, 482 F.2d 312, 316 (1st Cir.1973) (internal quotation marks omitted) (rejecting a gun transferor's due process challenge to a conviction for transferring a gun without a license because where, as here ... dangerous or deleterious devices ... are involved, the probability of regulation is so great that anyone who is aware that he is in possession of them or dealing with them must be presumed to be aware of the regulation). Here, the regulation of large capacity weapons provides a process for resolving uncertainty about the scope of the regulation — the application for a license. The hardship alleged by the plaintiffs — being forced to dispose of possibly lawful weapons or risking prosecution under the statute — dissolves in light of that licensing option.
42 The fitness component of ripeness addresses whether the factual and legal dimensions of the challenge to the Act are developed enough to permit adjudication of the plaintiffs' claim. The Act empowers an agency of the Commonwealth — the Executive Office of Public Safety (EOPS) — to promulgate regulations clarifying its meaning and to publish a list of weapons proscribed by the statute. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131 ¾. The statute charges the EOPS to publicize these clarifications widely: 43 The secretary shall, not less than three times annually, publish the roster in newspapers of general circulation throughout the commonwealth, and shall send a copy thereof to all dealers licensed in the commonwealth under the provisions of said section 122 of said chapter 140; and further, the licensing authority shall furnish said roster to all cardholders and licensees upon initial issuance and upon every renewal of the same. 44 Id. 45 The statute also provides for citizen input into the process of promulgating and updating the roster: The secretary may amend the roster upon his own initiative or with the advice of [the Gun Control Advisory Board]. A person may petition the secretary to place a weapon on, or remove a weapon from, the roster, subject to the provisions of this section. Id. The Gun Control Advisory board, appointed by the Governor, has seven members, one of whom shall be a member of the Gun Owners Action League. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 140, § 131½. Thus, one of the members of the board must be a representative from the lead associational plaintiff in this case, GOAL. Id. 46 Both the clarifying language and the roster assist law enforcement officers and laymen in interpreting the statute. For example, the plaintiffs complain that the term `capable of accepting' does not inform the owner whether she must actually possess the feeding device, or whether the manufacture, somewhere in the world, of some feeding device that her gun is capable of accepting would suddenly render the gun a large capacity weapon (and thus require its owner to obtain a Class A license). The clarifying language issued with the roster addresses this question: 47 Capable of accepting shall mean any firearm, rifle or shotgun in which a large capacity feeding device is capable of being used without alteration of the weapon; provided, however, that said large capacity feeding device is fully or partially inserted into the weapon or attached thereto, or is under the direct control of a person who also has direct control of a weapon capable of accepting said feeding device. 48 Executive Office of Public Safety, Large Capacity Weapon Roster Effective February 15, 2002, available at http://www. state.ma.us/chsb/download/frb/largecap_ 2002.pdf. Similar administrative clarifications may well answer other questions raised by the plaintiffs. Observing a similar clarification process on the federal level, the Sixth Circuit in Magaw, 132 F.3d 272 (6th Cir.1997), refused to review a statute (18 U.S.C. § 926) similar to the Massachusetts law challenged by the plaintiffs, in part because the plaintiffs there had not given the relevant rulemaking authority a chance to clarify the statute: 49 [T]he Crime Control Act delegates rulemaking authority to the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary, in turn, has delegated that authority to the BATF, which has the authority to make rules designating in greater specificity the requirements of the statute .... We believe a federal court should not intervene and determine whether a statute enacted by Congress is unconstitutionally vague on its face before the agency with rulemaking authority has had an opportunity to interpret the statute. 50 Id. at 292. This reasoning applies to the Act as well. The process of administrative clarification, begun even before the Act took effect, has continued during the pendency of this litigation. 7 We see no basis for precluding future good faith efforts by professionals in the Executive Office of Public Safety to clarify the statute. 51 In summary, the opportunity for licensing minimizes the alleged hardship, and the continuing administrative clarification of the Act reduces uncertainty. Neither Count Four nor Count Six is ripe for review. 52