Locklin v. Pridgeon
| Decision Date | 18 April 1947 |
| Parties | LOCKLIN v. PRIDGEON. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Hugh L McArthur, of Tampa, for petitioner.
J. Tom Watson, Atty. Gen., and Reeves Bowen, of Tallahassee, for respondent.
This is an original proceeding in habeas corpus.
Petitioner was indicted in the Circuit Court of Lafayette County, Florida for an alleged violation of Chapter 22761, Acts of 1945, which was brought forward as Section 839.22, 1946 Cumulative Supplement to Fla.Statutes 1941, same F.S.A. The indictment charged:
'That W. B Thomas and J. B. Locklin on the 15th day of June, A.D. 1946 in the County and State aforesaid; said W. B. Thomas being then and there an officer of Lafayette County, Florida, to-wit: A Deputy Sheriff of said Lafayette County, Florida, and said J. B. Locklin being then and there an officer of the State of Florida, towit: a Florida Highway Patrol Officer; did unlawfully commit acts under color of authority as such Officers aforesaid, by him, the said W. B. Thomas as Deputy Sheriff aforesaid, and him, the said J. B. Locklin as Florida Highway Patrol Officer aforesaid, unlawfully and without being authorized by law, unlawfully entering the home of one Glenn Sapp and then and there forcibly and against the will of said Glenn Sapp, unlawfully arrest him and incarcerate the said Glenn Sapp in the County Jail of said County, at Mayo, in Lafayette County, Florida.'
Sections 1 and 2 of the Act provide:
Section 3 of the Act provides the penalty for violation of Section 1.
There are two questions presented for our determination, which are as follows:
'1. Is Chapter 22761, Acts of 1945 Laws of Florida, unconstitutional?
violates Sec. 1 of Article III of our Constitution. only the first question in this opinion because we must reach the conclusion that the legislative Act involved is violative of the due process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions, Const.Declaration of Rights, § 12, U.S.Const. Amend. 14, and violates Sec. 11 of our Declaration of Rights and violates Sec. 1 of Article III of our Constitution.
That the sufficiency of the indictment may be challenged in habeas corpus proceedings when it totally fails to charge an offense under any valid law is settled by our opinion and judgment in the case of Jones v. Cook, 146 Fla. 253, 200 So. 856.
The infirmity in the statute is that it is too vague, indefinite and uncertain to constitute notice of the crime or crimes or unlawful acts which it purports to prohibit. The statute prescribes no ascertainable standard of guilt. Under the provisions of this Act an officer or employee is just as amenable to prosecution for an act done in good faith, when that act is not specifically authorized by law, as he would be for the commission of an act done with evil intent and wilfully done in violation of law. So the determination of a standard of guilt is left to be supplied by courts or juries. This is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
The Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Screws et al. v. United States, 325 U.S. 91-161, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 1035, 89 L.Ed. 1495, had under consideration Sec. 20 of the Federal Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 52. In the opinion prepared by Mr. Justice Douglas and concurred in by Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Reed, it was said:
We hesitate to say that when Congress sought to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in this fashion it did a vain thing. We hesitate to conclude that for 80 years this effort of Congress, renewed several times, to protect the important rights of the individual guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment has been an idle gesture. Yet if the Act falls by reason of vagueness so far as due process of law is concerned, there would seem to be a similar lack of specificity when the privileges and immunities clause (Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 60 S.Ct. 406, 84 L.Ed. 590, 125 A.L.R. 1383) and the equal protection clause (Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84; Hill v. Texas, 316 U.S. 400, 62 S.Ct. 1159, 86 L.Ed. 1559,) of the Fourteenth Amendment are involved.'
Mr. Justice Rutledge wrote a concurring opinion in that case agreeing with the result reached in the opinion by Mr. Justice Douglas but nowhere in any of the several opinions written in that case is it intimated that a statute so vague and lacking in establishing a standard of guilt as the one here under consideration can be sustained.
It appears to be generally conceded that a statute, especially a penal statute, must be definite to be valid. In 12 Am. Juris., Constitutional Law, page 282, Sec. 585, it is said:
'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.'
In Vallat v. Radium Dial Co., 360 Ill. 407, 196 N.E. 485, 99 A.L.R. 607, it is held:
'Law must be complete in all its terms, and definite and certain enough to enable every person, by reading it, to know what his rights and obligations are and how the law will operate when put into execution.'
In that case it was also said:
'If the statute leaves it to a ministerial officer to define the thing to which the statute is to be...
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Ryan v. Ryan
...nervous reaction or moral sense.' The principles set forth in State ex rel. Lee v. Buchanan, 191 So.2d 33 (Fla.1966); Locklin v. Pridgeon, 158 Fla. 737, 30 So.2d 102 (1947); Franklin v. State, 257 So.2d 21 (Fla.1971); and State v. Barquet, 262 So.2d 431 (Fla.1972), declaring certain statute......
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...of vagueness and unconstitutionality of penal statutes in several cases. One such case is Locklin v. Pridgeon, found at 158 Fla. 737, 30 So.2d 102 (1947). In that case the Supreme Court of Florida recognized that a penal statute must be definite to be valid. As the Court "It appears to be g......
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...of the United States in Yu Cong Eng et al. v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500, 46 S.Ct. 619, 70 L.Ed. 1059, this court, in Locklin v. Pridgeon, 158 Fla. 737, 30 So.2d 102 (1947), 'The court cannot, in order to bring a statute within the fundamental law, amend it by construction.' 'A statute which re......
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State v. Foster
...Statutes, with a presumption of validity. "[A] statute, especially a penal statute, must be definite to be valid." Locklin v. Pridgeon, 158 Fla. 737, 30 So.2d 102 (1947). The appropriate standard for applying the vagueness doctrine embedded in the Fourteenth Amendment was addressed in Arnet......