Lanzetta v. New Jersey - 306 U.S. 451, 59 S. Ct. 618 (1939)

Rule:

If on its face a challenged provision is repugnant to the Due Process Clause, specification of details of the offense intended to be charged will not serve to validate it. It is the statute, not the accusation under it, that prescribes the rule to govern conduct and warns against transgression. No one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids. That the terms of a penal statute creating a new offense must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties, is a well-recognized requirement, consonant alike with ordinary notions of fair play and the settled rules of law. And a statute which either forbids or requires 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, violates the first essential of due process of law.

Facts:

The defendants were accused of violating § 4, c. 155, Laws 1934, which provided that “any person not engaged in any lawful occupation, known to be a member of any gang consisting of two or more persons, who has been convicted at least three times of being a disorderly person, or who has been convicted of any crime in this or in any other State, is declared to be a gangster.” A judgment of conviction was rendered against defendants, and each was sentenced to be imprisoned in the state prison for not more than ten years and not less than five years, at hard labor. The court of errors and appeals affirmed. Defendants challenged their convictions. 

Issue:

Could the defendants’ conviction under the statute be upheld? 

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

The Court held that the statute under which the defendants were convicted violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by reason of vagueness and uncertainty. The meanings of the word "gang" indicated in dictionaries and in historical and sociological writings were numerous and varied. The meaning was not derivable from the common law. No other statute attempted to make it criminal to be a member of a gang. The lack of certainty of the challenged provision was not limited to the word "gang" or to its dependent "gangster." The statute employed the expression, "known to be a member." It was ambiguous. There immediately arose the doubt whether actual or putative association was meant. Moreover, the statute failed to indicate what constituted membership or how one could join a gang.