Opinion ID: 1134497
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The majority has improperly approved of subsequent case-by-case judicial definition of legislatively created crimes.

Text: As indicated above, it was the clear intent of the legislature to establish criminal penalties for the crime of prostitution and to describe the nature of the crime in such vague terms that the judiciary, of necessity, must provide subsequent case-by-case definition. This is an unconstitutional approach to the legislative development of criminal law. In striking down such a congressional enactment, the Supreme Court said in United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214, 221, 23 L.Ed. 563 (1875): 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. This would, to some extent, substitute the judicial for the legislative department of the government.... To limit this statute in the manner now asked for would be to make a new law, not to enforce an old one. This is no part of our duty. We must, therefore, decide that Congress has not as yet provided by appropriate legislation for the punishment of the offence [ sic ] charged in the indictment ... In this regard legislative attempts to pass on to the courts the task of resolving, on a case-by-case basis, the definition of legislatively created criminal offenses have met with stiff judicial opposition. Due Process Requirements of Definiteness in Statutes 62 Harv. L. Rev. 77 (1948), a landmark treatment of the subject, considers statutory definiteness and case-by-case judicial interpretation or definition of vague statutes. It first points out that two major statutory functions may be fundamentally affected by indefiniteness or vagueness: (1) the function of guiding adjudication of rights and duties, and (2) the guiding of individuals so they may plan their own future conduct. The latter being of primary importance in this case I shall discuss it alone. As explained in 62 Harv. L. Rev. 77, to the extent a statute places a penalty on completed acts judicial concepts of fair notice require that the statute be sufficiently definite to give notice of what conduct is violative so that penalties may be avoided. In gauging the sufficiency of a statute to serve as a guide to future conduct, the notice provided therein must be looked at through the eyes, first, of those who may be impacted thereby, and second, of their lawyers. For example, a judicial interpretation can add definiteness for guidance of an individual only if rendered before the act in question was committed. Judicial interpretations made after the time of the act come too late to warn the individual of the need to seek legal advice and, if he has already sought it, too late to aid his lawyer in rendering such advice. In fact, vagueness, unresolved by a prior court decision, may even prevent an individual from knowing whether he should seek legal advice in the first place. Such is the problem before us. Even the prosecuting attorneys involved herein could not agree upon a definition of prostitution or sexual conduct. Even assuming this court should properly step into the breach, even assuming this court should rectify the statutory ambiguity by supplying its own definition, thus deciding who should fall within the net of criminality and who should not, one must not forget that the definition was not supplied until today. This is well over a year subsequent to the time these defendants were charged with the crimes herein. Thus, even accepting the validity of the majority's judicially supplied definition as to future acts (which I do not) it is clear these defendants had no such definition available to them at the critical time. Whether the instant judicial definition will provide an adequate definition for other persons in the future is of no real moment in the case at hand. The fact is these defendants had no adequate notice that their conduct was criminal at the time they acted. It is essential that defendants have a fair warning, whether legislatively or judicially supplied, at a point in time prior to the state court litigation and contemporaneous with the act which the state seeks to punish. [5] Consequently, at the very least RCW 9A.88.030 and .080 are unconstitutionally vague as to these defendants. [6]