Martin v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 29 June 2006
• Docket Number: C/A No. 2:06-400-DCN.
• Citation: 438 F.Supp.2d 603
• Parties: Jimmy MARTIN and Lucky Strike LLC, Plaintiffs, v. Robert STEWART, as Chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division; Henry McMaster, as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; and Ralph Hoisington, as Solicitor of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina

Page 603

438 F.Supp.2d 603

Jimmy MARTIN and Lucky Strike LLC, Plaintiffs, v. Robert STEWART, as Chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division; Henry McMaster, as Attorney General of the State of South Carolina; and Ralph Hoisington, as Solicitor of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, Defendants.

C/A No. 2:06-400-DCN.

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Charleston Division.

June 29, 2006.

James Mixon Griffin, James M. Griffin Law Office, Richard A. Harpootlian, Richard A. Harpootlian PA, Columbia, SC, for Plaintiffs.

Clyde Havird Jones, Jr., Henry Dargan McMaster, John W. McIntosh, Robert Dewayne Cook, SC Attorney General's Office, Columbia, SC, for Defendants.

ORDER and OPINION

NORTON, District Judge.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Jimmy Martin ("Martin") and Lucky Strike, LLC ("Lucky Strike") assert constitutional challenges to portions of the South Carolina Video Game Machines Act, S.C.Code Ann. §§ 12-21-2710-2712 (2000), and request this court enjoin the statutes, enforcement. Defendants Robert Stewart, Henry McMaster and Ralph Hoisington are named in their official capacities¹ as law enforcement officers under the rubric of Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908).

Martin manufactures video amusement machines in South America and seeks to design and import a machine which can be used legally under South Carolina's video gaming statutes. Lucky Strike owns and operates video amusement devices in the state. Both allege that South Carolina's statute prohibiting certain video gaming machines is void for vagueness, and that enforcement of that statute violates due process and equal protection guarantees. Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss asserting the court should abstain, or alternatively, dismiss for failure to state a claim.

South Carolina's video gaming statute provides:

It is unlawful for any person to keep on his premises or operate or permit to be kept on his premises or operated within this State any vending or slot machine, or any video game machine with a free play feature operated by a slot in which is deposited a coin or thing of value, or other device operated by a slot in which is deposited a coin or thing of value for the play of poker, blackjack, keno, lotto, bingo, or craps, or any machine or device licensed pursuant to Section 12-21-2720 and used for gambling or any punch board, pull board, or other device pertaining to games of chance of whatever name or kind, including those machines, boards, or other devices that display different pictures, words, or symbols, at different plays or different numbers, whether in words or figures or, which deposit tokens or coins at regular intervals or in varying numbers to the player or in the machine, but the provisions of this section do not extend to coin-operated nonpayout pin tables, in-line pin games, or to automatic weighing, measuring, musical, and vending machines which are constructed as to give a certain uniform and fair return in value for each coin deposited and in which there is no element of chance.

Any person violating the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five hundred dollars or imprisoned for a period of not more than one year, or both. S.C.Code Ann. § 12-21-2710. Enforcement of § 12-21-2710 is provided as follows:

Any machine, board, or other device prohibited by Section 12-21-2710 must be seized by any law enforcement officer and at once taken before any magistrate of the county in which the machine, board, or device is seized who shall immediately examine it, and if satisfied that it is in violation of Section 12-21-2710 or any other law of this State, direct that it be immediately destroyed.

S.C.Code Ann. § 12-21-2712.²

According to plaintiffs, the distinction between a legal and illegal video gaming machine depends on a determination of whether the device is a "game of chance." There is no regulation defining the difference between a legal and illegal video gaming device. The only way to determine a machine's legality is for the machine to be seized and examined by a magistrate, as provided in § 12-21-2712. This process subjects the owner to possible forfeiture, destruction of the machine, and criminal prosecution.

Plaintiffs assert the definition of illegal gaming machines is so broad as to give no notice of which device may be prohibited. Under plaintiffs' interpretation, the literal prohibition of any "device pertaining to games of chance of whatever name or kind" outlaws Monopoly, card games, mine sweeper, computer solitaire, and other popular pastimes. Due to this alleged vagueness, plaintiffs contend defendants' enforcement of § 12-21-2710 is inconsistent and at times contradictory and discriminatory. Plaintiffs recount instances where a solicitor's office has determined a game to be legal, while state officials found the same device illegal, or where the Attorney General's opinions have differed with those of SLED as to the same machine. If true, this haphazard enforcement can be seen as a serious threat to plaintiffs' economic rights.

In sum, plaintiffs contend the process for determining legality improperly subjects them to forfeiture and possible criminal prosecution, in violation of Ex Parte Young. As such, plaintiffs argue the statute offends equal protection by subjecting video game/amusement operators to obstacles not encountered by other business pursuits in South Carolina. Plaintiffs also contend the statute is void for vagueness and violates due process rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs seek preliminary and permanent injunctive relief prohibiting enforcement of S.C.Code Ann. §§ 12-21-2710 and 12-21-2712.

II. DISCUSSION

Defendants contend that two abstention doctrines require this court to refrain from considering plaintiffs' claims.

a. Burford Abstention

Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943) generally applies to federal review of state regulatory decisions:

Where timely and adequate state-court review is available, a federal court sitting in equity must decline to interfere with the proceedings or orders of state administrative agencies: (1) when there are "difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar;" or (2) where the "exercise of federal review of the question in a case and in similar cases would be disruptive of state efforts to establish a coherent policy with respect to a matter of substantial public concern."

New Orleans Public Service, Inc. v. Council of City of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350, 361, 109 S.Ct. 2506, 105 L.Ed.2d 298 (1989) ("NOPSI"). Typical Burford cases concern a plaintiff's assertion that a state agency's decision violated federal constitutional protections. See, e.g., Front Royal and Warren County Indus. Park Corp. v. Town of Front Royal 945 F.2d 760 (4th Cir.1991) (abstaining from constitutional challenge to land annexation orders).

Not all Burford abstentions involve a specific underlying state order. In Johnson v. Collins Entertainment, 199 F.3d 710 (4th Cir.1999), plaintiffs alleged RICO claims against a variety of video poker operators. Plaintiffs' challenge did not arise from a specific state administrative or regulatory ruling. Nonetheless, the Fourth Circuit ultimately concluded abstention was warranted because the equitable relief requested intruded into "the legislative, administrative, and judicial processes of South Carolina and ... matters of state law and regulatory policy that are best left to resolution by state bodies." Id. at 719-20.³ Resolution of the federal claim required interpretation of state gaming law since the RICO claims "depend on alleged violation of state gaming law for their predicate acts." Id. at 722. Whether defendants violated state video gaming laws ultimately depended on interpretations of "such state statutory provisions as the payout limit and the prohibition on special inducements." Id. As such, the federal claims were "entangled in a skein of state law that must be untangled before federal rights can be adjudicated." Id. (quoting NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361, 109 S.Ct. 2506.). Resolution of the federal claim depended on the court's interpretation of state law; i.e., whether state law allowed or prohibited an act.

Plaintiff's void for vagueness/due process claims are similarly contingent on a court's interpretation of state law. "Vagueness may invalidate a criminal law for either of two independent reasons. First, it may fail to provide the kind of notice that will enable ordinary people to understand what conduct it prohibits; second, it may authorize and even encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement." City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 56, 119 S.Ct. 1849, 144 L.Ed.2d 67 (1999). "A regulation is not void for vagueness unless it is so unclear with regard to what conduct is prohibited that it `may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning,' or it is so standardless that it enables `arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.'" Greenville Women's Clinic v. Comm., S.C. Dep't of Health and Envtl. Control, 317 F.3d 357, 366 (4th Cir.2002) (quoting Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972)). In sum, the inquiry considers whether the law "fails to provide the kind of notice that will enable citizens to conform their behavior to that law." Lytle v. Doyle, 326 F.3d 463 (4th Cir.2003).

Plaintiffs assert they ask the court to void, not to interpret. But in dissecting the void for vagueness claim, this court would have to determine what "other device pertaining to games of chance" means. The court cannot mull § 12-21-2710's clarity without delving into the statute's meaning, interpretations, and the general regulatory context. See, e.g., Greenville Women's Clinic, 317 F.3d at 367 ("we are satisfied that a...