Rose v. Locke

• Decision Date: 17 November 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1451,74-1451
• Parties: J. H. ROSE, Warden v. Harold LOCKE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

423 U.S. 48

96 S.Ct. 243

46 L.Ed.2d 185

J. H. ROSE, Warden

v Harold LOCKE.

No. 74-1451.

Nov. 17, 1975.

PER CURIAM.

Respondent was convicted in the Criminal Court for Knox County, Tenn., of having committed a "crime against nature" in violation of Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-707 (1955).¹ The evidence showed that he had entered the apartment of a female neighbor late at night on the pretext of using the telephone. Once inside, he produced a butcher knife, forced his neighbor to partially disrobe, and compelled her to submit to his twice performing cunnilingus upon her. He was sentenced to five to seven years' imprisonment. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction, rejecting respondent's claim that the Tennessee statute's proscription of "crimes against nature" did not encompass cunnilingus, as well as his contention that the statute was unconstitutionally vague. 501 S.W.2d 826 (1973). The Supreme Court of Tennessee denied review.

Respondent renewed his constitutional claim in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.² The District Court denied respondent's petition, holding that when considered in light of previous interpretations by the courts of Tennessee, § 39-707 was "not unconstitutionally vague nor impermissibly overbroad."

Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and that court sustained his constitutional challenge. Believing that the statutory term "crimes against nature" could not "in and of itself withstand a charge of unconstitutional vagueness" and being unable to find any Tennessee opinion previously applying the statute to the act of cunnilingus, the Court of Appeals held that the statute failed to give respondent "fair warning." 514 F.2d 570 (1975).

It is settled that the fair-warning requirement embodied in the Due Process Clause prohibits the States from holding an individual "criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed." United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617, 74 S.Ct. 808, 812, 98 L.Ed. 989 (1954); see Wainwright v. Stone, 414 U.S. 21, 22, 94 S.Ct. 190, 38 L.Ed.2d 179 (1973). But this prohibition against excessive vagueness does not invalidate every statute which a reviewing court believes could have been drafted with greater precision. Many statutes will have some inherent vagueness, for "(i)n most English words and phrases there lurk uncertainties." Robinson v. United States, 324 U.S. 282, 286, 65 S.Ct. 666, 668, 89 L.Ed. 944 (1945). Even trained lawyers may find it necessary to consult legal dictionaries, treatises, and judicial opinions before they may say with any certainty what some statutes may compel or forbid. Cf. Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373, 33 S.Ct. 780, 57 L.Ed. 1232 (1913); United States v. National Dairy Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 83 S.Ct. 594, 9 L.Ed.2d 561 (1963). 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.³

Viewed against this standard, the phrase "crimes against nature" is no more vague than many other terms used to describe criminal offenses at common law and now codified in state and federal penal codes. The phrase has been in use among English-speaking people for many centuries, see 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *216, and a substantial number of jurisdictions in this country continue to utilize it. See Note, The Crimes Against Nature, 16 J.Pub.L. 159, 162 n. 19 (1967). Anyone who cared to do so could certainly determine what particular acts have been considered crimes against nature, and there can be no contention that the respondent's acts were ones never before considered as such. See, e. g., Comer v. State, 21 Ga.App. 306, 94 S.E. 314 (1917); State v. Townsend, 145 Me. 384, 71 A.2d 517 (1950).

Respondent argued that the vice in the Tennessee statute derives from the fact that jurisdictions differ as to whether "crime against nature" is to be narrowly applied to only those acts constituting the common-law offense of sodomy, or is to be broadly interpreted to encompass additional forms of sexual aberration. We do not understand him to contend that the broad interpretation is itself impermissibly vague; nor do we think he could successfully do so. We have twice before upheld statutes against similar challenges. In State v. Crawford, 478 S.W.2d 314 (1972), the Supreme Court of Missouri rejected a claim that its crime-against-nature statute was so devoid of definition as to be unconstitutional, pointing out that its provision was derived from early English law and broadly embraced sodomy, bestiality, buggery, fellatio, and cunnilingus within its terms. We dismissed the appeal from this judgment as failing to present a substantial federal question. Crawford v. Missouri, 409 U.S. 811, 93 S.Ct. 176, 34 L.Ed.2d 66 (1972); see Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 343-345, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2289, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975). And in Wainwright v. Stone, supra, we held that a Florida statute proscribing "the abominable and detestable crime against nature" was not unconstitutionally vague, despite the fact that the State Supreme Court had recently changed its mind about the statute's permissible scope.

The Court of Appeals, relying on language in Stone, apparently believed these cases turned upon the fact that the state courts had previously construed their statutes to cover the same acts with which the defendants therein were charged. But although Stone demonstrated that the existence of previous applications of a particular statute to one set of facts forecloses lack-of-fair-warning challenges to subsequent prosecutions of factually identical conduct, it did not hold that such applications were a prerequisite to a statute's withstanding constitutional attack. If that were the case it would be extremely difficult ever to mount an effective prosecution based upon the broader of two reasonable constructions of newly enacted or previously unapplied statutes, even though a neighboring jurisdiction had been applying the broader construction of its identically worded provision for years.

Respondent seems to argue instead that because some jurisdictions have taken a narrow view of "crime against nature" and some a broader interpretation, it could not be determined which approach Tennessee would take, making it therefore impossible for him to know if § 39-707 covered forced cunnilingus. But even assuming the correctness of such an argument if there were no indication which interpretation Tennessee might adopt, it is not available here. Respondent is simply mistaken in his view of Tennessee law. As early as 1955 Tennessee had expressly rejected a claim that "crime against nature" did not cover fellatio, repudiating those jurisdictions which had taken a "narrow restrictive definition of the offense." Fisher v. State, 197 Tenn. 594, 277 S.W.2d 340. And four years later the Tennessee Supreme Court reiterated its view of the coverage intended by § 39-707. Emphasizing that the Tennessee statute's proscription encompasses the broad meaning, the court quoted from a Maine decision it had earlier cited with approval to the effect that " 'the prohibition brings all unnatural copulation with mankind or a beast, including sodomy, within its scope.' " Sherrill v. State, 204 Tenn. 427, 429, 321 S.W.2d 811, 812 (1959), quoting from State v. Cyr, 135 Me. 513, 198 A. 743 (1938). And the Maine statute, which the Tennessee court had at that point twice equated with its own, had been applied to cunnilingus before either Tennessee decision. State v. Townsend, supra. Thus, we think the Tennessee Supreme Court had given sufficiently clear notice that § 39-707 would receive the broader of two plausible interpretations, and would be applied to acts such as those committed here when such a case arose.

This also serves to distinguish this case from Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), a decision the Court of Appeals thought controlling. In Bouie, the Court held that an unforeseeable judicial enlargement of a criminal statute narrow and precise on its face violated the Due Process Clause. It pointed out that such a process may lull "the potential defendant into a false sense of security, giving him no reason even to suspect that conduct clearly outside the scope of the statute as written will be retroactively brought within it by an act of judicial construction." 378 U.S., at 352, 84 S.Ct., at 1702. But as we have noted, respondent can make no claim that § 39-707 afforded no notice that his conduct might be within its scope. Other jurisdictions had already reasonably construed identical statutory language to apply to such acts. And given the Tennessee court's clear pronouncements that its statute was intended to effect broad coverage, there was nothing to indicate, clearly or otherwise, that respondent's acts were outside the scope of § 39-707. There is no possibility of retroactive lawmaking here. See 378 U.S., at 353-354, 84 S.Ct., at 1702. Accordingly, the petition for certiorari and respondent's motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

Judgment of Court of Appeals reversed.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice BRENNAN, with whom Mr. Justice MARSHALL concurs, dissenting.

I dissent from the Court's summary reversal. The offense of "crimes against nature" at common law was narrowly limited to copulation per anum. American jurisdictions, however, expanded the term some broadly and some narrowly to include other sexual "aberrations." Of particular significance for this case, as the Court of Appeals accurately stated, "courts have differed widely in construing the reach of 'crimes against nature' to cunnilingus." 514 F.2d 570, 571.

The Court holds, however, that because "(o)ther jurisdictions had already reasonably construed identical statutory language to apply...