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A law can also be "void for vagueness" if it imposes on First Amendment freedom of speech, assembly, or religion. The "void for vagueness" legal doctrine does not apply to private law (that is, laws that govern rights and obligations as between private parties), only to laws that govern rights and obligations vis-a-vis the government. [citation ...
"'[A] law fails to meet the requirements of the Due Process Clause if it is so vague and standardless that it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct it prohibits,'" noted Justice Stevens, "[i]f the loitering is in fact harmless and innocent, the dispersal order itself is an unjustified impairment of liberty." —
Solomon (1973), 33 Cal.App.3d 429 construed the law to require "credible and reliable" identification that carries a "reasonable assurance" of its authenticity. Using this construction, the U.S. Supreme Court held the law to be void for vagueness in Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983). [40]
The courts have generally determined that laws which are too vague for the average citizen to understand deprive citizens of their rights to due process. If an average person cannot determine who is regulated, what conduct is prohibited, or what punishment may be imposed by a law, courts may find that law to be void for vagueness. See Coates v.
Laws that did not would not be invalidated as overbroad. Next, a court considering vagueness "should uphold the challenge only if the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others". [35]
He declared that individuals are unconstitutionally deprived of due process when they are convicted under "a criminal law so vague that it fails to give ordinary people fair notice of the conduct it punishes." [2] The Court had raised the specter of unconstitutional vagueness in two prior cases regarding the residual clause—James v.
Case history; Prior: 658 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1981): Holding; The statute, as drafted and as construed by the state court, is unconstitutionally vague on its face within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to clarify what is contemplated by the requirement that a suspect provide a "credible and reliable" identification.
The legal principle is that delegated power cannot be used more broadly than the delegator intended. Therefore, a regulation may not be so vague as to regulate areas beyond what the law allows. Any such regulation would be "void for vagueness" and unenforceable.