Court Opinion

ID: 9848025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:11:33.176051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:55.610860
License: Public Domain

*733Dolliver, J.
(dissenting) — The majority states: "The term 'lawful order' in the Seattle criminal trespass ordinance is not sufficiently specific to inform persons of reasonable understanding of what conduct is proscribed." This misses the point of the ordinance. The conduct proscribed under the ordinance is: "not to enter or remain" on the premises. I would think this is stated in plain enough English and hardly requires further explanation. Surely, this ought to meet any standard of "fair notice".
The majority cites Bellevue v. Miller, 85 Wn.2d 539, 536 P.2d 603 (1975), for the proposition that "a statute or ordinance must be sufficiently specific to ensure that it will not be enforced arbitrarily." It then goes on to suggest that the term "lawful purpose" which was found constitutionally defective in Bellevue somehow is comparable to "lawful order" in the Seattle ordinance. An examination of the two ordinances will show this view to be inapposite. In Bellevue, the ordinance stated, at page 542:
Wandering or prowling. Any person who wanders or prowls in a place, at a time, or in a manner, and under circumstances, which manifest an unlawful purpose or which warrant alarm for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity is hereby declared to be a vagrant, and is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Here, Seattle ordinance No. 102843 states:
A person, who, regardless of his intent, enters or remains in or upon premises which are at the time open to the public does so with license and privilege unless he defies a lawful order not to enter or remain, personally communicated to him by the owner of the premises or some other authorized person.
In Bellevue, the term "lawful purpose" was directed toward the activities of the accused. We held the phrase void for vagueness since (1) it failed to give a person fair notice of the conduct being proscribed, and (2) it raised the prospect of arbitrary arrests and convictions. Here no such confusion exists. The action prohibited is clear and is concisely stated: Do not enter or remain on the premises. The majority shifts away from the actions of the defendant, i.e., what the *734defendant could or could not do, and asserts that, because the defendant could not know whether the police officer was an "authorized person" or whether the order was lawful, the ordinance somehow becomes constitutionally suspect. Given this line of reasoning, violators of criminal law may act with impunity in the presence of a police officer since they can always claim they were confused as to the authority of the police officer to give them an order.
The void for vagueness doctrine is to protect a person from a statute or ordinance which does not clearly define a proscribed activity. If the proscribed activity is clearly stated — as here — the violator cannot claim a constitutional protection under the void for vagueness doctrine by alleging confusion as to the authority of the police who seek to bar the activity proscribed.
I dissent.
Reconsideration denied September 26, 1980.