Court Opinion

ID: 9676922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:38:24.214884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:52.347340
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no citizen shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
And a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law.
Connally v. General Const. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926).
I find the statutes, § 195.020.3, RSMo Cum.Supp.1984; § 195.010(11), RSMo Cum. Supp.1984, defining the crime of possession of drug paraphernalia too vague for men of common intelligence to agree on their meaning.
The number of words required to explain and ascertain their meaning renders the statutes suspect. Such overreaction to the current drug problem can quickly erode the basic fibers of our constitutional safeguards.