Court Opinion

ID: 9712658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:58:05.87562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:13.566096
License: Public Domain

*259ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that the decision on the vagueness challenge must be postponed. The challenged statute clearly involves first amendment rights and, for that reason, a facial attack on the statute may be entertained. Thus, this Court should now decide whether this statute is vague and remanding the case is unnecessary.
In Commonwealth v. Heinbaugh, 467 Pa. 1, 354 A.2d 244 (1976), we relied on United States v. Powell, 423 U. S. 87, 96 S.Ct. 316, 46 L.Ed.2d 228 (1976), and United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 95 S.Ct. 710, 42 L.Ed.2d 706 (1975), for the proposition that attacks on the specificity of statutes are generally to be considered against the specific conduct involved in the case. 467 Pa. at-, 354 A.2d at 245. We quoted the U.S. Supreme Court in Mazurie that “vagueness challenges to statutes which do not involve First Amendment freedoms must be examined in light of the facts of the case at hand.” 419 U.S. at 550, 95 S.Ct. at 714. The majority misapplies this proposition by failing to realize that the question whether first amendment rights are involved must be determined with reference to the statutory language.
In Mazurie, the U.S. Supreme Court was dealing with a statute governing sale of alcoholic beverages in “Indian country.” It was clear that first amendment freedoms were not involved. In Powell, the statute proscribed the mailing of certain firearms. There, it was also clear that first amendment freedoms would not be chilled by enforcement of the statute. In both cases the decision whether first amendment freedoms were involved, i. e., whether a facial attack on the statute may be entertained, was made with reference to the conduct which the language of the statute may have reached. In the case before us the majority does not look to the language of the statute to determine if first amendment rights are “involved”. The majority attempts to look to the facts of *260this case for that determination. This method of analysis is, in my view, incorrect.
The fallacy of the majority’s position is apparent from an examination of its circuitous consequences. The majority says facial attacks — without reference to the facts of the case — can be considered only when first amendment rights are involved. Then it remands the case for proceedings to remedy the “factual vacuum” to determine if first amendment rights are involved. The majority’s result is tantamount to holding that the court needs facts to determine if a challenge to the statute without reference to the facts is allowed.
The vagueness doctrine encompasses two notions.1 The first is that one should be able to determine from reading the statute what conduct is proscribed. Precision in the language prevents courts from determining ad hoc what is a crime and what is not. Prosecutions based on imprecise statutes are too dependent on discretion and are rife with potential for abuse and inconsistent adjudications.2 The second prong of the vagueness doctrine deals with cases where the language of the statute is sufficiently precise yet it will frequently reach constitutionally protected conduct; its sweep will be overbroad.
It is clear, as to challenges based on overbreadth, that one whose conduct is not constitutionally protected in a given case may not assert that the statute could reach protected conduct in a hypothetical case. See, e. g., Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 111, 92 S.Ct. 1953, 1957, 32 L.Ed.2d 584 (1972). Similarly, in attacks based on imprecise statutory language, where first amendment rights are not involved, the facial attack will only be en*261tertained with reference to the facts of the case at hand. The question there becomes: does the alleged imprecision in the statute affect this defendant in this case.
However, when first amendment rights are involved in a case challenging the imprecision of the statutory language, the attack will be entertained without reference to the facts of the particular case. This is so because when a statute, by its terms, regulates first amendment freedoms there is a significant threat that the rights will be impinged either through direct proscription which the actor cannot anticipate by looking at the terms of the statute, or through a chilling effect because the actor will be less likely to exercise his rights for fear he will run afoul of a proscription whose dimensions are uncertain. When first amendment rights become intertwined with a statute whose language is vague there exists a constitutional issue which the court must resolve without deciding if the facts of the incident involved give the challenger standing. The mere fact that one is prosecuted under a statute which regulates conduct arguably within the ambit of the first amendment and whose terms are open to imprecise interpretation is sufficient to give the challenger standing to attack the statute as facially vague.
A constituent element of the offense with which appellees here were charged is that the person be involved in a course of disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct is defined in the Crimes Code as:
“§ 5508. Disorderly conduct
(a) Offense defined — A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he:
(1) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior;
(2) makes unreasonable noise;
*262(3) uses obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or
(4) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.”
Because the statute deals with expressions of various types, first amendment rights are involved and a facial attack on the statute may be made. By refusing to decide whether the language of the statute is unconstitutionally vague the Court unnecessarily expends judicial and professional resources by an unneeded remand, and inappropriately applies the “standing” requirement for such a vagueness claim.
JONES, C. J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. See Note, The Void-For-Vagueness Doctrine, 109 U.Pa.L.Rev. 67, 76 et seq. (1960). The Author of that Note, Anthony G. Amsterdam, classifies the vagueness cases as “true” uncertainty cases, e. g., United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81 (1921), and “spurious” uncertainty cases, e. g., Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 68 S.Ct. 665, 92 L.Ed. 840 (1948).

. See Note, The Void-For-Vagueness Doctrine, supra at 80-81.