Opinion ID: 77679
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appellant's Alternative Facial Challenge: Vagueness

Text: 72 L.C. also urges the court to invalidate section 21-28(b) of the County Code because it is unconstitutionally vague and thereby violates due process. A vaguely worded statute can trap innocent parties by failing to give notice of what is prohibited, and allow enforcement officials to defer to their own standards of what constitutes a violation. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972). 73 Ordinarily, a court must evaluate a vagueness challenge by the facts of the particular case before it. Konikov v. Orange County, 410 F.3d 1317, 1330 (11th Cir.2005) (citing United States v. Fisher, 289 F.3d 1329, 1333 (2002)). When an ordinance restricts or penalizes speech, however, it can also exert a chilling effect that discourages individuals who are not present before the Court from exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of arbitrary enforcement. Grayned, 408 U.S. at 109, 92 S.Ct. 2294. Accordingly, in such cases, courts may consider evidence of discriminatory or arbitrary enforcement that would be likely to chill expression by others. Konikov, 410 F.3d at 1330 (citing Grayned, 408 U.S. at 109 & n. 5, 92 S.Ct. 2294). 74 To prove that 21-28(b) of the County Code is vague, L.C. must either show that the ordinance fails to give fair warning of what constitutes a wrongdoing or that the statute lacks objective enforcement standards. Id. The traditional test for whether a statute or regulation is void on its face is if it is so vague that persons of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application. Connally v. Gen. Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926). See also Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Borough of Oradell, 425 U.S. 610, 620, 96 S.Ct. 1755, 48 L.Ed.2d 243 (1976). Courts apply this test even more strictly to statutes that inhibit free speech. Id.
75 Applying the Connally test to section 21-28(b) of the County Code, we find that it is not so vague that persons of ordinary intelligence would have to guess at its meaning. Indeed, the Supreme Court has upheld a number of the terms that appear here in other cases involving noise ordinances. In Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, for example, a noise ordinance prohibited any noise or diversion which disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of [a] school session or class thereof. The Supreme Court upheld this language, cautioning that: 76 Condemned to the use of words, we can never expect mathematical certainty from our language. The words of the [] ordinance are marked by flexibility and reasonable breadth, rather than meticulous specificity, but we think it is clear what the ordinance as a whole prohibits. 77 Id. at 110, 92 S.Ct. 2294 (internal citation omitted). Employing language that is clearly analogous to the language in Grayned, section 21-28(b) of the County Code states that it is unlawful to play a device that reproduces sound in such manner as to disturb the peace, quiet and comfort of the neighboring inhabitants. 78 Alternatively, the County noise ordinance states that it is unlawful to play such a device with louder volume than is necessary for convenient hearing for those voluntary listeners in the room, vehicle, or chamber where the device is being operated. Convenient hearing is a term that is marked by flexibility and reasonable breadth, but as we have noted previously, we think the ordinance requires flexibility here. 79 Although the word convenient may be somewhat abstract, the Supreme Court upheld similarly abstract terms such as loud and raucous in a case that challenged controls on the volume of amplified sound. See Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77, 79, 69 S.Ct. 448, 93 L.Ed. 513 (1949). While these are abstract words, the Court noted, they have through daily use acquired a content that conveys to any interested person a sufficiently accurate concept of what is forbidden. Id. See also Reeves v. McConn, 631 F.2d 377, 386 (5th Cir.1980), where the Fifth Circuit approved the abstract terms jarring and nuisance on the same ground. 80 We believe that any interested person would know how to gauge what sound volume would be louder than necessary for convenient hearing when that standard is applied to persons who are present by design at the source of the sound. Convenient hearing means the listening comfort of those assembled.
81 Nevertheless, the overarching standard at play in this ordinance is the reasonable personable standard since the statute begins by prohibiting unreasonably loud, excessive, unnecessary or unusual noises. The Supreme Court has approved the use of the word unreasonably in statutes that are otherwise precise and narrowly drawn. Reeves, 631 F.2d. at 386 (citing Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 615-16, 88 S.Ct. 1335, 20 L.Ed.2d 182 (1968)). 82 Here, the County noise ordinance also provides an additional standard to guide those tasked with enforcing the ordinance. The additional standard is phrased as a rebuttable presumption. Operating a sound reproduction device between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. in such a manner as to be plainly audible at a distance of one hundred (100) feet from the building, structure or vehicle in which it is located is considered prima facie evidence of a violation under section 21-28(b). This is an objective standard. Thus, we find that the language of the ordinance does not carry an inherent risk of arbitrary enforcement either, and we affirm the district court ruling that the County noise ordinance is not void for vagueness. 83