Alfred Wright, .V the City of Montgomery, Alabama

406 F.2d 867, 1969 U.S. App. LEXIS 9193
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 27, 1969
Docket26314
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 406 F.2d 867 (Alfred Wright, .V the City of Montgomery, Alabama) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alfred Wright, .V the City of Montgomery, Alabama, 406 F.2d 867, 1969 U.S. App. LEXIS 9193 (5th Cir. 1969).

Opinion

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge.

“Our Constitution protects the right of protest and dissent within broad limits. * * * It broadly protects the right to assemble, to picket, to stage ‘freedom walks’ or mass demonstrations, if these activities are peaceable and if the protesters comply with reasonable regulations designed to protect the general public without substantially interfering with effective protest. * * * [However] If the right to protest, to dissent, or to assemble peaceably is exercised so as to violate valid laws reasonably designed and administered to avoid interference with others, the Constitution’s guarantees will not shield the protester.” 1 (Emphasis added.) Appellants attack the “Disorderly Conduct,” “Loitering,” and “Failure to Obey” ordinances of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, 1 2 as being unconstitutional on their face *869 on the grounds that they are impermis-sively vague and broad in scope. See, e. g., Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 85 S.Ct. 453,13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965). 3 Appellants also seek an injunction against their prosecution in state court under these ordinances'. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 14 L.Ed.2d 22 (1965). 4 The District Court denied the requested relief, and we affirm.

The subject matter of this suit has been extensively litigated; 5 and, indeed, the present case, despite its difference *870 in title, “ * * * is an extension of the proceedings with which this Court dealt in Forman v. City of Montgomery, * * * ” M.D.Ala., 1965, 245 F.Supp. 17, affirmed, 5 Cir., 1966, 355 F.2d 930, cert. denied, 384 U.S. 1009, 86 S.Ct. 1983, 16 L.Ed.2d. 1022 (1966), where the appellants unsuccessfully attempted to remove their criminal prosecutions from the state courts to the federal courts pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1443. Wright v. City of Montgomery, Alabama, M.D.Ala., 1968, 282 F.Supp. 291, 292. The present phase of this litigation was commenced on November 8, 1966, and on November 9, 1966, the District Court entered an order denying a temporary injunction restraining the state prosecutions. On appeal to this Court, we vacated the order of the District Court and remanded for adjudication of the issues not previously decided in Forman v. City of Montgomery, supra. Upon consideration of our order of remand, the District Court found —and we agree — that the only issues not foreclosed by Forman v. City of Montgomery, supra, are the following:

“(1) Whether Sections 18, 36 and 59, Chapter 20, Montgomery City Code, are unconstitutional on their face in that they (a) are so vague and lacking in standards as to compel men of ordinary intelligence to guess at their meaning, and/or (b) are so broad in their sweep as to have a chilling and deterring effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights;
“(2) Whether this is a proper case for the exercise of federal equity jurisdiction and the granting of an injunction enjoining the prosecution of these plaintiffs under the said statutes, and further enjoining the defendants from the enforcement of or prosecution under the said statutes generally.” Wright v. City of Montgomery, Alabama, M.D.Ala., 1968, 282 F.Supp. 291, 294. 6

*871 I.

The District Court, while inferentially holding that the ordinances in question could be construed narrowly in a manner which would sustain their constitutionality, abstained from ruling on the constitutional questions and on the propriety of an injunction to restrain the state prosecutions. While we find the District Court’s reasoning compelling, 7 in light of the recent Supreme Court decisions in Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 88 S.Ct. 1335 (1968), and Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391 (1967), 8 we proceed to the merits of the present controversy.

II.

Appellants argue that the ordiances under which they are being prosecuted are void for vagueness 9 in that they either forbid or require “ * * * the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application * * * Connally v. General Const. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127 (1926). See also Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 615-616, 88 S.Ct. 1335, 1338 (1968); Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 249, 88 S.Ct. 391, 396 (1967) (dicta); Ashton v. Kentucky, 384 U.S. 195, 200-201, 86 S.Ct. *872 1407, 1410, 16 L.Ed.2d 469 (1966); Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 366-367, 84 S.Ct. 1316, 1320 (1964); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 238, 83 S.Ct, 680, 685 (1963); Cramp v. Board of Pub. Inst., Orange County, Fla., 368 U.S. 278, 287, 82 S.Ct. 275, 280 (1961); Devine v. Wood, M.D.Ala., 1968, 286 F.Supp. 102, 104 (three-judge court) (per curiam); Landry v. Daley, N.D.Ill., 1968, 280 F.Supp. 938, 951 (three-judge court); United States v. Woodard, 7 Cir., 1967, 376 F.2d 136, 140, citing United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 8, 67 S.Ct. 1538, 1542, 91 L.Ed. 1877 (1947). The essence of the vagueness doctrine is that the ordinance or statute must be sufficiently clear to give reasonable notice of the prohibited conduct and to apprise the judge and jury of the proper standards for determining guilt. Landry v. Daley, N.D.Ill., 1968, 280 F.Supp. 938, 951 (three-judge court), citing Col-lings, Unconstitutional Uncertainty-An Appraisal, 40 Cornell L.Rev. 195, 196-197 (1955); United States v. Jones, 2 Cir., 1966, 365 F.2d 675, 678. See generally Amsterdam, The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine in the Supreme Court, 109 U.Pa.L.Rev. 67 (1960).

Aside from the allegations of vagueness, appellants urge that the Montgomery ordinances are void for overbreadth in that they offend “ * * * the constitutional principle that ‘a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.’ ” Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 249-250, 88 S.Ct. 391, 396 (1967), citing N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 288, 307, 84 S.Ct. 1302,1314 (1964). See also Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 616-617, 88 S.Ct. 1335, 1338 (1968); Keyishian v. Board of Regents of U. of St. of N. Y., 385 U.S. 589, 602, 87 S.Ct. 675, 683 (1967); Ashton v. Kentucky, 384 U.S. 195, 200-201, 86 S.Ct. 1407, 1410 (1966) ; Shuttlesworth v.

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