Court Opinion

ID: 9452664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:48:10.01333+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:18.739300
License: Public Domain

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In joining the opinion of the Court, I wish to add a few comments with respect to the arguments that the relatively new Illinois disorderly conduct statute (Ill. Rev.Stat.1965, Ch. 38, § 26-1 (a) (1)) is too vague to satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment and also unduly contravenes freedom of speech.
It is of course a court’s duty to strive for a construction of a statute that will support its constitutionality. Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 98, 100, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495; United States v. National Dairy Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 32, 83 S.Ct. 594, 9 L.Ed.2d 561, Amsterdam, “The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine in the Supreme Court”, 109 U. of Pa.L.Rev. 67, 86 (1960). If this were not a criminal case brought in the federal courts under the Assimilative Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 7 and 13), abstention might cause us to await authoritative construction of this statute by the Illinois courts. See Musser v. State of Utah, 333 U.S. 95, 68 S.Ct. 397, 92 L.Ed. 562.1 But this being a criminal case, without any available procedure for Illinois judicial construction of the statute before closing the case here, it now becomes necessary to construe the statute as the Illinois courts would. Cf. Hulburt Oil & Grease Co. v. Hulburt Oil & Grease Co., 371 F.2d 251, 254-255, 256 (7th Cir. 1966). It is to be presumed they would construe it to avoid doubtful constitutional questions. Fox v. State of Washington, 236 U.S. 273, 277, 35 S.Ct. 383, 384, 59 L.Ed. 573. As Mr. Justice Holmes there pointed out, “we see no reason to believe that the statute will be stretched beyond [the line drawn by the law]”. He added the following relevant comment:
“If the statute should be construed as going no farther than it is necessary to go in order to bring the defendant within it, there is no trouble with it for want of definiteness.” (236 U.S. at p. 277, 35 S.Ct. at p. 384.)
The legislative history of a statute may cast sufficient light to dispel arguments of vagueness. United States v. National Dairy Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 32, 83 S.Ct. 594; United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 620, 74 S.Ct. 808, 98 L.Ed. 989; Amsterdam, op. cit., pp. 73-74, 84. Here the Illinois Legislative Committee’s Comments revised by Professor Charles H. Bowman (set forth in part in Note 4 of the opinion of the Court) supply the gloss and delineate the scope of Section 26-1 (a) (1) of which he was the draftsman. In enacting the new disorderly conduct statute as part of the 1961 Illinois Criminal Code, the offense was intentionally made “considerably narrower” than its predecessor (Smith-Hurd Ann.Stat. c. 38 p. 391). Furthermore, the Court is warranted in drawing on the common law meaning of “breach of the peace” as used in this statute. Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 71 S.Ct. 703; Comments on Disorderly Conduct Section of American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code (Tentative Draft No. 13 (1961)) p. 4. The maximum penalty that may be *145imposed for a violation is a $500 fine. The absence of a severe sanction is relevant in weighing unconstitutional uncertainty and the likelihood that First Amendment rights will be chilled. Amsterdam, op. cit., p. 94.
As Professor Paul Freund has pointed out, even an over-broad statute can be saved by construction relatively simple and natural. As a reference, he mentions Supreme Court consideration of a statute involving a regulation of civil liberties in terms of its narrowed construction by an appellate court in the very case. Freund, “The Supreme Court and Civil, Liberties”, 4 Vanderbilt L.Rev. 533, 540, 541 (1951). The present construction of the Illinois disorderly conduct statute is to be contrasted with the fatally broad construction accorded by the Louisiana Supreme Court to that State’s breach of peace statute in Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 551-552, 85 S.Ct. 453. I believe the confining construction adopted by the opinion of the Court is justified and therefore agree that defendants’ due process arguments must fall.2
S Because of the “hard core” nature of these violations, it is clear that defendants had notice that their activities were within the ambit of the Illinois statute and therefore cannot successfully assail its purported vagueness. Dombrowski v. JPfister, 380 U.S. 479, 491-492, 85 S.Ct. 1116; United States v. Jones, 365 F.2d 675, 678 (2d Cir. 1966). The limiting statutory construction contained in the opinion of the Court can properly be applied to defendants’ prior conduct, for that conduct would obviously be prohibited under any construction. Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 382 U.S. 87, 99, 86 S.Ct. 211, 15 L.Ed.2d 176 (concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan).
The maintenance of order is vital to freedom in our society, and as the Legislative Committee’s Comments show, the subject matter being regulated here makes unfeasible any modes of administration other than those which invoke ad hoc judgments. Clearer methods of achieving the ends sought by this statute would not be feasible, for, as the draftsman recognized, disorderly conduct activity defies precise statutory definition.3 Given such a setting, judicial tolerance for the ad hoc judgment scheme is justified. Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 340, 72 S.Ct. 329, 96 L.Ed. 367. It would be manifestly unfair to invalidate a new statute, expertly drawn to cope with elusive subject matter, if the statute can be saved by judicious construction. See Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s celebrated dissent in Winters v. People of State of New York, 333 U.S. 507, 535, 68 S.Ct. 665, 92 L.Ed. 840.
In considering the New Jersey disorderly conduct statute, that State’s Supreme Court recognized that “the subject is such that greater specificity is not feasible”, thus requiring the courts to see to it that the statute is “not applied beyond a fair understanding of the legislative intent”. State v. Smith, 46 N.J. 510, 218 A.2d 147, 152 (1966), certiorari denied, 385 U.S. 838, 87 S.Ct. 85. Here a man of ordinary intelligence would certainly know what kind of behavior comports with an orderly legislative hearing. This standard suffices to justify the application of the Illinois statute to the facts of this case. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322.
Most of the First Amendment cases relied upon by defendants involved peaceful protests against discrimination because of race and occurred in public places or places of public service. Similarly, People v. Turner, 17 N.Y.2d 829, 271 N.Y.S.2d 274, 218 N.E.2d 316 (1966), certi-*146orari dismissed 386 U.S. 773, 87 S.Ct. 1417, 18 L.Ed.2d 522 and Carmichael v. Alien, 267 F.Supp. 985 (N.D.Ga.1966), involved protests in public streets, and in Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, the phonograph playing in the street was a religious exercise. None of these cases resembles the situation before us where defendants were engaged in disturbing a legislative hearing. As noted in State v. Smith, 46 N.J. 510, 218 A.2d 147 (1966), certiorari denied, 385 U.S. 838, 87 S.Ct. 85:
“Whether the forum be the courtroom or the chamber of the legislature itself or of a political subdivision of the State, there must be order. It is frivolous to suggest the First Amendment stands in the way of that imperative.” (218 A.2d at p. 150.)
Defendants have not demonstrated that the existence of this statute would have an inhibiting effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights. No showing has been made that persons would be chary about exercising those rights because of the existence of this statute. In truth, there have been many marches and demonstrations permitted in Illinois subsequent to this enactment. Therefore, there is no need to nullify this statute in order to protect freedom of speech.

. Abstention is usually confined to equitable cases. See Note, “Federal-Question Abstention: Justice Frankfurter’s Doctrine in an Activist Era”, 80 Harv.L.Rev. 604, 606, note 16 (1967). The use of the abstention doctrine in vagueness cases has been criticized. Idem, pp. 611-613; see also Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 491-492, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 14 L.Ed.2d 22.

. Defendants attack the use of the term “unreasonable” in the Illinois statute. However, the use of that term in criminal statutes was approved in United States v. National Dairy Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 83 S.Ct. 594; United States v. Ragen, 314 U.S. 513, 523, 524, 62 S.Ct. 374, 86 L. Ed. 383, and Levy Leasing Co. v. Siegel, 258 U.S. 242, 249-250, 42 S.Ct. 289, 66 L.Ed. 595.

. See Note 4 of the opinion of the Court; see also Comments on Disorderly Conduct Section of American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code (Tentative Draft No. 13 (1961)) pp. 6-7.