Court Opinion

ID: 9470895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:19:29.290824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:09.873747
License: Public Domain

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The standard to which my brethren correctly adhere is that a law is unconstitutionally vague only if it fails to make reasonably clear the distinction between what is forbidden and what is lawful conduct. The *179Texas law seems to me to meet that test. It proscribes only conduct that has six characteristics. What is made unlawful is:
1. A communication with another person
2. By telephone or in writing
3. In vulgar, profane, obscene, or indecent language, or in a coarse and offensive manner
4. That intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly
5. Annoys or alarms
6. The recipient.
In essence my brethren find that the statute is vague because it does not define two plain English words that are used in their ordinary sense. It is not necessary for the lawmaker, I submit, to define words in common usage if the statute uses them according to their everyday meaning, not as terms of art. We daily enforce federal statutes using such words as “willfully sets fire to”1 , “harbors or conceals”2, “interferes with any person”3, “false information”4, and a host of other like terms. Merely thumbing through the United States Code, we find that Congress uses, as indeed it should, short words of Anglo-Saxon origin that are not defined simply because there is no need for definition unless Congress intends to expand or to restrict their ordinary meaning. Indeed, two federal statutes that proscribe harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia, in interstate or foreign communication and in the course of debt collection, themselves use the word “annoy” without further definition to characterize the purpose of the forbidden call.5 If there is need for a definition of the words that trouble my brethren, any desk-size dictionary will do. The one I use, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate, has explication enough:
salarm also alarum vf 1 : to arouse to a sense of danger 2 : to strike with fear : terrify 3 : disturb, excite
an.noy \a-'nO>i\ W> [ME moten, fr. OF enuier, fr. LL inodiare to make loathsome, fr. L in + odium hatred — more at odium] vt 1 : to disturb or irritate csp. by repeated acts : vex 2 : harass, moi.fst ~ vf j to be a source of annoyance — an«noy«cr n
syn vex, irk. rothfr: annoy implies a wearing on the nerves by persistent petty unpleasantness; vex implies greater provocation and stronger disturbance and usu. connotes anger but sometimes perplexity or anxiety; irk stresses difficulty in enduring and result* Ing weariness or impatience of spirit; bother may imply cither a bewildering or upsetting but always suggests interference with comfort or peace of minu syn see in addition worry
We ought to praise the legislators who write so clearly and concisely, in terms that can be readily understood by those untutored in legal intricacies. We certainly should not condemn as unconstitutional their lack of complexity and convolution.
My brethren declare the statute invalid “in the absence of any judicial clarification.” While the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has not found it necessary to elaborate on the statutory language, it has repeatedly held that the words “annoy” and “alarm” in this statute and its predecessor *180are not vague and standardless because they do not “fail to give to a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden.” Collection Consultants, Inc. v. State, 556 S.W.2d 787, 794 (Tex.Cr.App.1977) (on rehearing). See Kramer v. State, 605 S.W.2d 861, 866 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (on rehearing en banc); LeBlanc v. State, 441 S. W.2d 847, 851 (Tex.Cr.App.1969). I think that court is correct.
Our course is not determined by Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971). The vagueness in the Cincinnati ordinance did not result from the use of the word “annoy” but from the imprecision of the phrase in which it appeared, “conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by.... ” There is a difference between conduct that might annoy some person who happens to walk by a given spot, a person who might be so young or old as to be unusually sensitive, dévout, or fastidious, and a communication using vulgar, profane, obscene, or indecent language that is intentionally designed to annoy a particular person. If the phrase used by the City of Cincinnati is juxtaposed with the one used by the State of Texas, a marked difference in specificity is evident.
It might “annoy” some persons passing by if I stood on a street corner and read the first and the fifth amendments to the Constitution in a normal tone of voice. It is almost impossible to determine what conduct is so inoffensive that it cannot annoy anyone who may pass by, whatever his or her age or sensibility. Moreover, the state of the communicator’s mind is relevant. The Texas statute proscribes only annoying a specific person when using vulgar, profane, obscene, or indecent language or a coarse and offensive manner of communication purposely or recklessly. This is clear enough to tell the untutored what is forbidden. What is unlawful is not a communication that might offend any of the myriad of persons who passes, regardless of the communicator’s purpose; the statute limits unlawful conduct to what not only “may” but is also intended to annoy or uttered heedless of its capacity to annoy a particular person.
The Texas statute is, therefore, significantly different from the Cincinnati ordinance: If the communicator knows the recipient, he will be accountable for conduct intended to offend the recipient’s known sensibilities. Even if the communicator does not know the recipient (e.g., if he is a crank caller who harasses a victim at a randomly chosen phone number), he will be accountable for conduct that recklessly disregards its effect on the sensibilities of the hypothetical reasonable person. The possibility of arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement is minimal because the statute requires that the state prove not only that the recipient was annoyed or alarmed but also that the communicator intentionally or recklessly caused that perturbation. The focus of the statute on two identifiable parties, and the requirement that the accused’s conduct be tailored to evoke a response in the victim or be reckless in its disregard of that impact removes the indefiniteness that was fatal to the ordinance in Coates.
Ms. Kramer also attacks the Texas Harassment Statute as facially overbroad. Although my brethren do not find it necessary to reach that issue, I discuss it because it is another basis for the charge of unconstitutionality. Ms. Kramer does not argue that her own conduct was protected. Her argument is merely that the statute proscribes both protected and unprotected speech, and that, because it may possibly permit unconstitutional applications, we should strike it down without reaching the question whether it was unconstitutionally applied in her case. The history, development, and curtailment of the overbreadth doctrine have been widely discussed,6 and it is not necessary here to retrace the decisional path. A full decade ago in Broadrick v. *181Oklahoma,7 the Court introduced the concept of “substantial overbreadth” as a limitation on earlier overbreadth applications and suggested that the function of the facial overbreadth doctrine “attenuates as the otherwise unprotected behavior that it forbids the State to sanction moves from ‘pure speech’ toward conduct .... To put the matter another way, particularly where conduct and not merely speech is involved, we believe that the overbreadth of a statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.”8 While Broadrick was directed at expressive conduct and not “pure” speech, it has been properly interpreted as requiring caution before even regulation of speech alone is condemned on the sole ground of overbreadth.9
While Ms. Kramer was convicted of sending Mrs. Keiser a written message of undeniably expressive content,10 the proscription of her communication was warranted. The state has a compelling interest in regulating talk or writing that has no objective but personal harassment of the recipient. This was an utterance that was no part of any exposition of ideas and no social value as a step to the truth.11 In this respect, it was like fighting words,12 or obscenity,13 or child pornography.14 A jury could properly find beyond reasonable doubt that the postcard was intended to annoy and to alarm.
It so clearly lies within the power of the legislature to forbid such a writing to a victim thus maliciously and callously selected that I would not sustain Ms. Kramer’s attack on the statute on the basis that the law might conceivably be applied to some other person for a constitutionally protected communication when there is no evidence of any instance in which it has been so applied *182and the risk of improper applications appears remote in relation to the statute’s legitimate sweep. Compare United States v. Margiotta, 688 F.2d 108, 129 (2d Cir. 1982), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 1891, 77 L.Ed.2d 282 (1983) (conduct charged in mail fraud indictment was within power of government to proscribe and application of statute in this case would not deter protected political activities in other contexts). If there be overbreadth, it is insubstantial.
For these reasons, I would reverse the decision below and I, therefore, respectfully dissent.

. 18 U.S.C. § 32 (1976).

. 18 U.S.C. § 792 (1976).

. 18 U.S.C. § 111 (1976).

. 18 U.S.C. § 35 (1976).

. 15 U.S.C. § 1692(d) (Supp. V 1981), part of the federal consumer credit protection laws, provides:
A debt collector may not engage in any conduct the natural consequence of which is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person in connection with the collection of a debt. Without limiting the general application of the foregoing, the following conduct is a violation of this section:
(2) The use of obscene or profane language or language the natural consequence of which is to abuse the hearer or reader.
(5) Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number. (Emphasis added.)
♦ * :fc sf: $ *
47 U.S.C. § 223 (1976) states:
Whoever—
(1) in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communication by means of telephone—
(A) makes any comment, request, suggestion or proposal which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent;
(B) makes a telephone call, whether or not conversation ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number;
shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. (Emphasis added.)

. See, e.g., G. Gunther, Cases and Materials on Constitutional Law 1185 et seq. (10th ed. 1982).

. 413 U.S. 601, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973).

. Id. at 615, 93 S.Ct. at 2917-18, 37 L.Ed.2d at 841-42. See also Kolender v. Lawson,-U.S. -,-n. 8, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 1859 n. 8, 75 L.Ed.2d 903, 910 n. 8 (1983) (invalidation for overbreadth appropriate if statute reaches substantial constitutionally protected conduct); id., - U.S. at -, 103 S.Ct. at 1865, 75 L.Ed.2d at 917 (White, J., dissenting) (substantial overbreadth not established by showing that statute is vague as applied to conduct other than the defendant’s); Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 760, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2563, 41 L.Ed.2d 439, 460 (1974) (“[Ejven if there are marginal applications in which a statute would infringe on First Amendment values, facial invalidation is inappropriate if the ‘remainder of the statute ... covers a whole range of easily identifiable and constitutionally proscribable ... conduct----’ ” (citation omitted)).

. For a discussion of the “substantial over-breadth” test, expanding the applicability of the test to the production or distribution of books and films containing visual depictions of child pornography, see New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 767-73, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 3360-63, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982). Professor Gunther has labeled Ferber an arguable extension of the “substantial overbreadth” test to direct regulation of speech. G. Gunther, Cases and Materials on Constitutional Law and Individual Rights in Constitutional Law 227 (1982 Supp.). For recent applications of the “substantial overbreadth” doctrine to first amendment questions in this circuit, see Basiardanes v. City of Galveston, 682 F.2d 1203, 1217 (5th Cir. 1982) (ordinance zoning adult theaters); Beckerman v. City of Tupelo, 664 F.2d 502, 507 (5th Cir.1981) (ordinances regulating parades and use of sound equipment); Fernandes v. Limmer, 663 F.2d 619, 633 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied,-U.S. ——, 103 S.Ct. 5, 73 L.Ed.2d 1395 (1982) (airport regulation prohibiting solicitation of funds or distribution of literature without permit); Johnson v. City of Opelousas, 658 F.2d 1065, 1072 (5th Cir.1981) (ordinance imposing nighttime curfew on juveniles).

. The court noted that Ms. Kramer knew Mr. Reiser’s work schedule and knew that she could preveht Mrs. Keiser from intercepting mail by employing “restricted delivery” postal service, as she had in the past, with letters sent • to Mr. Keiser. Instead, in this case she sent a postcard, which was, of course, simply placed in the Keiser mail box. Although the postcard was addressed to Mr. Keiser, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that, because it was addressed to his home, the jury might infer that Ms. Kramer intended Mrs. Keiser to read the message. Kramer v. State, 605 S.W.2d at 865.

. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031, 1035 (1942).

. Id.

. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 485, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1309, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498, 1507 (1957).

. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982).