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These examples undoubtedly were known to early American commentators and jurists, who often reiterated the importance of clarity in criminal statutes.

plainly and perspicuously penned.” A century later Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the English Constitution explained the requirement that every law clearly define and articulate “the right to be observed, and the wrongs to be eschewed.” (Blackstone relates that a man who stole one horse was not penalized under a statute which forbade “stealing horses.”) In France, Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws urged that laws be concise, simple, and devoid of “vague expressions.” English jurist Sir Edward Coke stated that all laws, but especially serious penal laws, “ought to be.

The void-for-vagueness doctrine probably has its roots in the ancient Roman law maxim, Nulla crimen sine lege (no crime without law). Lawson (1983), the Supreme Court explained that “the void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory treatment.” Void-for-vagueness doctrine has ancient roots Thus, in overturning a California loitering law that required persons who wander or loiter on the streets to provide “credible and reliable” identification in Kolender v.

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(1926), a law is unconstitutionally vague when people “of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” Whether or not the law regulates free speech, if it is unduly vague it raises serious problems under the due process guarantee, which is applicable to the federal government by virtue of the Fifth Amendment and to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Vague laws raise problems with due processĪccording to the U.S. Courts in the United States give particular scrutiny to vague laws relative to First Amendment issues because of their possible chilling effect on protected rights. Walter Green, used with permission from the Associated Press)Ī law that defines a crime in vague terms is likely to raise due-process issues. In this photo, Susanne Williams, 17, of Amherst, Mass., in police custody in Boston on March 31, 1966, before she was sentenced to 20 days in jail on charges of “sauntering and loitering.” Miss Williams and ten others participated in an anti-war demonstration on Saturday sponsored by pacifist Committee for Nonviolent Action.

Loitering laws are one example of laws that can be unconstitutionally vague. A law that defines a crime in vague terms is likely to raise due-process issues.

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