Price v. State
| Decision Date | 06 September 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 40809,40809 |
| Citation | 319 S.E.2d 849,253 Ga. 250 |
| Parties | Walter R. PRICE v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Stephen E. Garner, Murphy, Witcher & Murphy, Bremen, for Walter R. price.
Willaim A. Foster III, Dist. Atty., Buchanan, Jeffrey L. Ballew, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the State.
Price and several others were arrested and charged with shooting over baited land in violation of OCGA § 27-3-9(b). Demurrers to the indictments were filed alleging the statute in question was unconstitutional. The trial court overruled the demurrers holding the law to be constitutional. We granted an application for interlocutory appeal and now affirm.
1. Price contends that the language of the statute itself violates due process because its vagueness and failure to give fair notice as to the proscribed activity. OCGA § 27-3-9 provides: "(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to place, expose, deposit, distribute, or scatter any corn, wheat, or other grains, salts, apples, or other feeds or bait so as to constitute a lure or attraction or enticement for any game bird or game animal on or over any area where hunters are or will be hunting.
Price was charged with violating subsection (b); the indictment alleges that he did "unlawfully hunt doves upon, over, around and near a field where feed and baiting material was exposed, deposited, and scattered so as to constitute a lure and enticement to such doves." He contends that the statute which forbids hunting "upon, over, around or near any place where such feed or bait has been placed, exposed, deposited, distributed or scattered" is void for vagueness in "that it 'fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute' ... and because it encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions." Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162, 92 S.Ct. 839, 843, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972).
Due process mandates that criminal laws give adequate warning of what conduct will constitute a crime. "[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 v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); see also Bullock v. City of Dallas, 248 Ga. 164, 281 S.E.2d 613 (1981).
Papachristou and Bullock dealt with vagrancy ordinances which classified broad and nonspecific conduct as criminal resulting in arbitrary prosecution. In this case we are concerned with a classification of persons, hunters, who are prohibited from hunting in a particular manner.
We have held that a criminal statute is not void for vagueness "if its terms furnish a test based on knowable criteria which men of common intelligence who come in contact with the statute may use with reasonable safety in determining its command." Stull v. State, 230 Ga. 99, 100, 196 S.E.2d 7 (1973). As stated by the United States Supreme Court, "All the Due Process Clause requires is that the law give sufficient warning that men may conduct themselves so as to avoid that which is forbidden." Rose v. Locke, 423 U.S. 48, 50, 96 S.Ct. 243, 244, 46 L.Ed.2d 185 (1975).
Subsection (a) of the statute is aimed at the person who actually engages in the act of baiting the land by placing any type feed to lure game birds for hunting. Subsection (b), under which appellant is charged, focuses on the hunter who takes advantage of the baited area. The section is part of the state's overall regulatory and licensing system relating to fish and game found in OCGA Title 27.
When section 9 is read as a whole we find the language gives sufficient notice of the acts so as to comply with the requirements of due process. The language of subsection (b) "any such feed or bait" refers to feed or bait placed "so as to constitute a lure" for hunting as defined in subsection (a). We do not agree with appellant's argument that the statute appears to prohibit the planting and harvesting of farm crops. Nor do we find that the terms "around or near" in subsection (b) render the statute void. The prohibition is that hunters shall not place themselves in an area in order to take advantage of bait that has been set out in violation of subsection (a).
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