The Law: Voiding Vagrancy

The way the tide of the law is flowing, it is likely that local vagrancy and similar statutes will soon fall under the disapproving glare of the courts. The contention is that such laws are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, violate the First and 14th Amendments, and lend themselves to misuse by law-enforcement officials. Last month, a three-judge U.S. District Court struck Kentucky’s vagrancy laws a heavy blow. By so doing, it put similar laws in other states in jeopardy.

The court acted after a group of open-housing demonstrators in Louisville had aroused the ire of local citizens. To prevent trouble, the police had made arrests on several charges, including vagrancy and loitering. The demonstrators countered by challenging the constitutionality of all the laws they had been accused of violating.

As a result, by a 2-to-l ruling, Kentucky’s vagrancy statute was declared null and void because of vagueness. Louisville’s loitering and disorderly-conduct ordinances went down on the same ground. An ordinance requiring permits for parades was found to contain no standards to guide the licensing authorities. A state law against criminal syndicalism included a ban on counseling an unlawful method to accomplish a political end; this, said the court, violated the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee. And since the state conspiracy law could be read to outlaw “such functions as peaceable assembly,” it too was declared unconstitutional.

N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund Lawyer Mel Zarr, who argued the case, naturally was pleased. “Carrying these laws on the books is dangerous,” he said. “They grant too much discretion to police. This is the front wave of legal decisions to come.”