Court Opinion

ID: 9428667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:22.900109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.562749
License: Public Domain

*296Justice White,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the Court’s holding that Mesquite’s ordinance directing the Chief of Police to consider whether a license applicant has any “connections with criminal elements” is not void for vagueness.*
Like Justice Powell, however, I dissent from the Court’s remand of the challenge to the age requirements in §5 of the Mesquite ordinance. The sentiment to avoid unnecessary constitutional decisions is wise, but there is no reason in this case to suspect that the Fifth Circuit’s standard for evaluating appellee’s due process and equal protection claims under the Texas Constitution differed in any respect from federal constitutional standards. I agree with Justice Powell that “the inclusion of three cursory state-law citations in a full discussion of federal law by a federal court is neither a reference to nor an adoption of an independent state ground. ” Post, at 299-300 (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I refrain from joining Justice Powell’s detailed discussion in support of this position only because I would prefer not to engage in debate over the present health of “the Roys-*297ter Guano standard.” As I understand it, and as expressed in the opinion of the Court, ante, at 292 and 294, the rationale for inquiring into the presence of independent and adequate state grounds is to avoid an unnecessary “abstract opinion,” United States v. Hastings, 296 U. S. 188, 193 (1935), and to refrain from “unnecessary adjudication of federal constitutional questions.” Ante, at 294. This is the sole justification for remanding the case to the Court of Appeals. To justify that disposition, however, the Court finds it necessary to speculate as to whether a formulation of the rational-basis test initially stated in F. S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415 (1920), and reiterated in Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 76 (1971), remains good law in light of more recent decisions. Ante, at 294. Justice Powell, in response, declares that “[t]his Court has never rejected either Royster Guano or Reed v. Reed.” Post, at 301, n. 6.
I fear that we have lost sight of the fact that our reason for pursuing this inquiry is to avoid rendering advisory opinions on federal constitutional law. It is ironic that in seeking to skirt a relatively narrow issue of whether the Mesquite age requirement is constitutional, an issue decided by the Court of Appeals and fully briefed, the Court has instead entered into highly abstract, totally advisory, speculation as to the continuing validity of one of our earlier statements on a matter of no small constitutional importance. If it is necessary to interpret a case twice removed and totally unrelated to the matter before us in order to justify a remand to the Court of Appeals, I would think it clear that no independent nonfed-eral basis for the decision is present. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 652 (1979).

 I agree that this issue has not been mooted by the city’s revision of the ordinance. This conclusion is not inconsistent with our recent disposition of Princeton University v. Schmid, ante, p. 100 (per curiam). In that case, Princeton University's regulations governing solicitation and similar activity on University property were held invalid by the New Jersey Supreme Court. While the case was pending before the New Jersey court, Princeton substantially amended the contested regulations. On appeal to this Court, we held that the validity of the old regulations had become a moot issue. Unlike the city of Mesquite, Princeton gave no indication that it desired to return to the original regulatory scheme and would do so absent a judicial barrier. In this case, as noted in the Court’s opinion, Mesquite “has announced just such an intention.” Ante, at 289, n. 11. Because the test of whether the cessation of allegedly illegal action moots a case requires that we evaluate the likelihood that the challenged action will recur, County of Los Angeles v. Davis, 440 U. S. 625 (1979), it is on this basis that our disposition of the two cases is consistent.