context: Commentators have suggested that one of the reasons for the absence of a clear framework for determining when the indefinite reach of laws invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement may be that the Supreme Court framed vagueness as a procedural doctrine, but used it to invalidate statutes on implicit substantive grounds.
citation_a.signal: see also
citation_a.parenthetical: striking down ordinance making it a crime for "three or more persons to assemble ... on any of the sidewalks ... and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by," and citing Kemer Commission Report for proposition that "alleged discriminatory enforcement of this ordinance figured prominently in the background of the serious civil disturbances that took place in Cincinnati in June 1967"
citation_a.sentence: Id. at 604-05; see, e.g., Robert C. Post, Reconceptualizing Vagueness: Legal Rules and Social Orders, 82 Cal. L.Rev. 491 (1994) (arguing that the Supreme Court used the vagueness doctrine to prevent the police from imposing certain kinds of middle class norms on citizens and citing as an example Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972) (invalidating a vagrancy ordinance classifying “rogues and vagabonds” and others as subject to punishment)); see also Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 616 n. 6, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971) (striking down ordinance making it a crime for “three or more persons to assemble ... on any of the sidewalks ... and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by,” and citing Kemer Commission Report for proposition that “alleged discriminatory enforcement of this ordinance figured prominently in the background of the serious civil disturbances that took place in Cincinnati in June 1967”).
citation_b.signal: see
citation_b.parenthetical: invalidating a vagrancy ordinance classifying "rogues and vagabonds" and others as subject to punishment
citation_b.sentence: Id. at 604-05; see, e.g., Robert C. Post, Reconceptualizing Vagueness: Legal Rules and Social Orders, 82 Cal. L.Rev. 491 (1994) (arguing that the Supreme Court used the vagueness doctrine to prevent the police from imposing certain kinds of middle class norms on citizens and citing as an example Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S.Ct. 839, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972) (invalidating a vagrancy ordinance classifying “rogues and vagabonds” and others as subject to punishment)); see also Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 616 n. 6, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971) (striking down ordinance making it a crime for “three or more persons to assemble ... on any of the sidewalks ... and there conduct themselves in a manner annoying to persons passing by,” and citing Kemer Commission Report for proposition that “alleged discriminatory enforcement of this ordinance figured prominently in the background of the serious civil disturbances that took place in Cincinnati in June 1967”).