Jones v. Peyton

• Decision Date: 02 June 1969
• Docket Number: No. 12165,12288.,12165
• Parties: James Lee JONES, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee. William IPOCK, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

411 F.2d 857 (1969)

James Lee JONES, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee.

William IPOCK, Appellant, v. C. C. PEYTON, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary, Appellee.

Nos. 12165, 12288.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued April 10, 1969.

Decided June 2, 1969.

John D. Johnston, Jr., Durham, N. C. (Court-appointed counsel), for appellants.

W. Luke Witt, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia (Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, and Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia, on brief), for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, BOREMAN and BRYAN, Circuit Judges.

SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge:

Appellants William Ipock and James Lee Jones were arrested "for being of ill fame for being night-prowlers"¹ in the circumstances detailed below. Shortly after the arrests, they were searched by the police and evidence was discovered incriminating them in a burglary the commission of which had not yet become known to the police. The ill fame or prowling charges were abandoned, but indictments for statutory burglary were returned. At their respective trials the inculpatory items were offered by the State and admitted over objection. Upon conviction they sought writs of error from the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, which were denied.² They then instituted habeas corpus proceedings in the District Court,³ each unsuccessfully contending that the warrantless search which produced the incriminating evidence was unreasonable because the antecedent arrest was unlawful.

Because the two appellants raise an identical point arising from the same events, their appeals have been consolidated. In each instance the challenge is to the legality of the arrest and is predicated upon two alternative grounds. The appellants' position is that the statute under which the arrests were made is void for vagueness, and further, that even if the statute is constitutionally valid the arrests were without probable cause. We agree with the latter contention and hold that writs of habeas corpus should issue.

I

The underlying facts are virtually undisputed. At approximately 6:30 p. m. on October 29, 1966, Detectives Boyer and Bernhard of the Richmond police force saw the appellants and another man walking in an area of Richmond which had recently been the scene of a number of burglaries. The officers testified that they were in an unmarked police car when they saw the two appellants and their companion proceeding north on Bainbridge Street. The detectives pulled into the parking lot of a Safeway store from which point they hoped to observe the three again. The store was open for business at the time. From the parking lot Boyer and Bernhard saw the appellants emerge from an alley and enter a car parked on the Safeway lot in which a fourth person was waiting. When this vehicle immediately departed from the lot, the officers followed.

It has been admitted that the officers then had no intention and no reason to arrest the occupants. After following for about 30 minutes, they lost the car in traffic. One of the officers claimed that during this surveillance the car drove through three or four gas stations without stopping; however, this testimony was somewhat contradicted by the other officer who stated the driver stopped in the stations but made no purchases. There is no evidence that the appellants or their comrades knew they were being followed, and therefore this is not a case in which evidence of "flight" may become an element in assessing whether the police had probable cause for making arrests.⁴ Having lost sight of the vehicle, Boyer and Bernhard issued an all-unit broadcast, in which they said they wanted the men picked up for investigation only, not for arrest.

The next contact between the Richmond police and the appellants was almost five hours later, shortly before midnight. Detective H. L. Coleman, who had been assigned to the area which had been victimized by a series of burglaries, observed three men walking together who he thought answered the descriptions furnished in the all-unit broadcast by Officers Boyer and Bernhard. Coleman approached and briefly questioned them, asking their names and the reason for their presence there. Jones was unable to furnish identification satisfactory to Coleman, and Ipock and the other person apprehended gave Coleman names which were later determined to be false, but the falsity he did not then know. Receiving what he termed "conflicting stories" in answer to his questions, Coleman told the appellants he was arresting them for night-prowling.

At the suppression hearing Coleman admitted that the three men were walking on the sidewalk in orderly fashion, not making loud noises or otherwise drawing attention to themselves. He further testified that the street was well-lighted and that a number of establishments in the area were open for business. After the arrests, Coleman called Boyer and Bernhard to the scene by radio, and they identified the arrested persons as three of the four seen earlier in the evening.

The police then searched the petitioners and seized some cash, a jacket and a penknife. The incriminating nature of these articles was discovered later. The State does not dispute the fact that the police were unaware of the occurrence of the burglary which became the basis of the prosecutions until the day following the arrests. As already noted, after the arrests for night-prowling and the searches, the prowling charges were not pressed by the authorities.

II

We consider first the appellants' argument that the ill fame or night-prowling statute is unconstitutionally vague. The statute authorizes the requirement of behavior bonds for a term of up to one year from "persons not of good fame."⁵ If the phrase "not of good fame" was without judicial gloss, we would readily agree that the statute is impermissibly vague, because "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." Connally 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926). See Giaccio v. Pennsylvania, 382 U.S. 399, 86 S.Ct. 518, 15 L.Ed.2d 447 (1966); Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 59 S.Ct. 618, 83 L.Ed. 888 (1939). However, we have the benefit of a definitive construction of this statutory language by Virginia's highest court, whose construction must be accepted in assessing the validity of the statute. In Fedele v. Commonwealth, 205 Va. 551, 138 S.E.2d 256 (1964), the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia reviewed a trial court's adjudication that the defendant was a night prowler who could be required to post a behavior bond. We note in passing that the proceeding was not a criminal prosecution, and was characterized by the appellate court as "quasi-criminal." The judgment was reversed upon the view that the evidence was insufficient to support the charge. In so holding, the court defined the statute's reach:

The phrase "ill fame," as defined in Black\'s Law Dictionary, 3d ed., at p. 916, means "evil repute; notorious bad character." "Fame" has been held to be synonymous with "reputation." Harrison v. Lakenan, 189 Mo. 581, 88 S.W. 53, 58. Thus the phrase "ill fame," or "not of good fame," implies bad reputation.

The word "prowl," as defined in Webster\'s Third New International Dictionary, at p. 1828, means "to move about or wander stealthily * * *; roam in search or as if in search of whatever may be found." A "prowler" is defined as "one who prowls." Thus it may be said that a "night prowler" is one whose habit is to move about at night for the purpose of committing some crime, or disturbing the peace, or doing some wrongful or wicked act.

In Mayo\'s Guide to Magistrates, 1892, (Flournoy & Brown edition) at p. 532, under Title II, "Surety for Good Behavior," the author said that before a justice should require a party to find sureties for his good behavior under Code § 3912 (now § 19.1-20) "where no actual breach of the peace has been committed or is apprehended, that he should be satisfied by evidence on oath, not only that the individual is not of good fame or reputation, but that his conduct and actions have been so scandalous as to justify his interference. (Emphasis supplied by the court.)

The Supreme Court of the United States declared in Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 514, 68 S.Ct. 665, 669, 92 L.Ed. 840 (1948): "The interpretation by * * * the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia puts these words in the statute as definitely as if it had been so amended by the legislature."

The plain teaching of the Virginia Court in Fedele is that a person may not be required to post bond under § 19.1-20 merely because he has a "bad reputation." If this alone were to subject a person to possible penalty, the statute would unquestionably be unconstitutionally vague, for what is a "bad reputation" and from whose viewpoint is reputation to be judged? The difficulty these questions pose demonstrates the constitutional inadequacy of a statute penalizing "bad reputation" alone.

Fedele, however, expressly held that the statute comes into play only if it is shown that the accused is one whose "habit is to move about at night for the purpose of committing some crime, or disturbing the peace, or doing some wrongful or wicked act." (Emphasis supplied.) The word "habit" is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed., as "a settled tendency of behavior." This is a rigorous standard, and we think use of this term by the Virginia court was deliberate and well advised. Recognizing the possibilities for abuse, the court interpreted the statute in a manner to preserve the rights of innocent persons who might fall within its scope if given an unduly broad application.

We assume for the purposes of this case that the court's narrow construction supplied requisite definiteness,...