holding statute prohibiting wandering at night violated due process where it did not distinguish between “conduct calculated to harm and that which is essentially innocent”
How later courts described this case
- holding statute prohibiting wandering at night violated due process where it did not distinguish between “conduct calculated to harm and that which is essentially innocent”
- Seattle loitering ordinance making it a crime to be “wandering or loitering abroad,” to be “abroad under other suspicious circumstances,” and to “fail to give a satisfactory account of himself upon the demand of any police officer” held invalid for vagueness
- ruling on ordinance very similar to A.C.O. 138.26
- “The right to be let alone is inviolate; interference with that right is to be tolerated only if it is necessary to protect the rights and the welfare of others.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*413 Finley, C. J.
(concurring in the result) — I concur in the result on the basis that the words, “wandering or loitering abroad,” and perhaps even the phrase, “fail to give a satisfactory account of himself,” are too broad and vague to provide an understandable and workable constitutional standard respecting the interpretation and application of the ordinance in question. I reach this conclusion, although I am not convinced that in terms of final legal application and effect the ordinance involves a police rather than a judicial determination as to what would constitute a satisfactory account of himself by a person interrogated or apprehended under the ordinance. In this connection, it is my view that a “loitering ordinance” could very well be a valuable law enforcement tool, in fact perhaps a necessary police measure, for the protection of society and for the preservation of public peace and order. I would hope that the majority opinion will not make it unreasonably difficult and certainly will not be construed as an insurmountable obstacle to the drafting of a “loitering ordinance” which would conform to reasonable and rational standards apropos of constitutional validity. In this connection, reference to and quotation by the majority opinion from the Model Penal Code, Proposed Official Draft § 250.6 of The American Law Institute (1962) seems to me to be both constructive and encouraging.