Court Opinion

ID: 9567323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:52:16.149026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:32.520267
License: Public Domain

Collins, L,
dissenting:
Our duty is clear that we must uphold the constitutionality of a statute (or ordinance of the City of Reno in this case) if we can. To put it another way, if there is any doubt upon the constitutionality of a law it ought to be sustained. State v. McClear, 11 Nev. 39, 68 (1876). All statutes (and ordinances) come to this court clothed with a presumption of constitutionality. We should not declare them unconstitutional unless we have no choice. Here we have another choice.
*207A comparable ordinance was constitutionally upheld in People v. Pieri, 199 N.E. 495 (N.Y. 1936). A similar ordinance was discussed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in State v. Salerno, 142 A.2d 636 (N.J. 1958), which refused to pass upon the constitutionality of the ordinance but reversed the conviction on other grounds.
The New York ordinance, discussed in Pieri, supra, reads in part:
“Section 722: Any person who with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or whereby a breach of the peace may be occasioned, commits any of the following acts shall be deemed to have committed the offense of disorderly conduct: * * *
“Who bears an evil reputation and with an unlawful purpose consorts with thieves and criminals * * * consorting with persons of like evil reputation, thieves or criminals shall be prima facie evidence that such consorting was for an unlawful purpose.”
Interpreting the elements of the crime necessary to be proved to sustain a conviction, the court said in Pieri, supra, at page 497:
“Here then is the crime] If a person of bad reputation, with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, keeps company with criminals, makes them his associates, for an unlawful purpose, he is guilty of disorderly conduct. Nothing unconstitutional about such a statute. [Emphasis supplied.] There may be difficulty in finding the evidence or in proving the case, but when proved, an offense is committed not unlike ‘vagrancy,’ which has been in the statute books for many a day.”
That is the touchstone of Reno’s problem. One can envision great difficulty in securing evidence and in getting it admitted at the trial, but we should let Reno try and not strike down the ordinance before any experience is had with it. This court, the district court and the Reno municipal court would still have the obligation to require the city attorney to comply with constitutional requirements of due process in its enforcement.
The Reno City Council, in its wisdom, saw fit to adopt the measure in an effort to combat crime attributable to persons of “evil reputation.” Thus, when a municipality such as Reno undertakes to experiment with programs and techniques to deal with the problem, we should not prevent that undertaking unless it is our clear, legal and constitutional duty to do so.
The United States Supreme Court has not seen fit yet to hold unconstitutional vagrancy statutes, including the “status” question presented here. Hicks v. District of Columbia, 383 *208U.S. 252 (1966). Hence, in the absence of any decisive mandate from that court, we should hold unconstitutional only those ordinances and statutes where we have no choice.
We must be extremely careful that our dedication to pure constitutional principal does not destroy the very thing we are trying to protect. Society has to adjust to the rules of the game being played, and if that game is ruthless, brutal crime, society has to have ingenious, but lawful techniques to deal with it.
I respectfully dissent.