Court Opinion

ID: 9722222
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:21:16.409823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:32.344346
License: Public Domain

Spencer, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent for the reason that all the courts which have heretofore construed this particular statute have found it to be constitutional. I feel it is our duty to find a statute to be constitutional, if, by a proper construction we can reasonably do so. California, Florida, and Massachusetts have done so with this specific statute.
As the United States Supreme Court said in Rose v. Locke (1975), 423 U. S. 48, 96 S. Ct. 243, 46 L. Ed. 2d *85185: (The) “prohibition against excessive vagueness does not invalidate every statute which a reviewing court believes could have been drafted with greater precision. Many statutes will have some inherent vagueness, for ‘in most English words and phrases there lurk uncertainties.’ ”
In United States v. Powell (Dec. 2, 1975), 423 U. S. 87, 96 S. Ct. 316, 46 L. Ed. 2d 228, the Supreme Court of the United States held: “That Congress might have chosen ‘clearer and more precise language’ equally capable of achieving its objective does not mean that the statute is unconstitutionally vague.” Further, “While doubts as to the applicability of the language in marginal fact situations may be conceived, we think that the statute gave respondent adequate warning * * *. Even as to more doubtful cases than that of respondent, we have said that ‘the law is full of instances where a man’s fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree.’ ”
Clinton, J.,
responding to the dissent of Spencer, J.
The dissent of Spencer, J., calls for a brief response on two points. First, the primary constitutional deficiency of the provision of the statute in question is that it is overbroad, not that it is vague. The majority opinion amply demonstrates this overbreadth. Second, the Massachusetts, California, and Florida cases upon which the dissent relies completely disregard proper judicial functions and simply rewrite the statute. If we are to do.that then we violate the principle of separation of powers of our own Constitution by a completely unwarranted intrusion into the legislative domain. We have said many times in somewhat varying language that: “A court cannot, under the guise of its powers of construction, rewrite a statute, supply omissions, or make other changes . . . .” Bessey v. Board of Educational Lands & Funds, 185 Neb. 801, 178 N. W. 2d 794.
It is far more important that we adhere to our own *86salutary principles of statutory construction, which are a recognition of the fundamental constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, than that we defend the police power of the state by arbitrarily restricting the operation of the general words of our present statute.
We cannot remedy the overbreadth short of rewriting the statute. If we can do that in this case, we can do it in any other. That is beyond our constitutional power as a court.