Opinion ID: 1598169
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Florida, Pre-Papachristou

Text: The appellants' contentions, as regards the vagueness and overbreadth of the statute, mirror those presented by the appellant in In re Fuller. [1] Consequently, this is not a novel question before this Court. In Fuller , although the appellant attacked the statute on its face, [2] this Court did not reach that issue because it found for the appellant that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to the facts of the case. The Court did, however, take occasion to give some indication of its views as to the statute's facial constitutionality: Furthermore, we are not as confident as Appellant that when and if the exact question of the constitutionality vel non of Section 877.03 is decided by the Supreme Court of the United States it will be found unconstitutional. Florida Courts in recent years have upheld statutes employing general language similar in nature to the language in Section 877.03, and these decisions have not been overturned by the nation's highest court. [3] This Court did have occasion to pass on the facial constitutionality of the statute in State v. Magee. [4] In Magee , in reversing the trial judge's holding that the verbiage, whoever commits such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the public morals or outrage the sense of public decency, was unconstitutional, we said: We find that the language does meet the test of common understanding [and] is constitutional... . ... [N]ot every detail is required to be set forth in such a statute so long as the prohibitive conduct is in such language that it is understood by the average citizen. The terms `public decency' and `corrupt the public morals' are terms of general understanding... . Under such generally understood language, the specific conduct will of course vary and is made fully known to a defendant in the charges filed against him, so that he is made aware against what conduct he must defend. [5]