State v. Aucoin

CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)
Citation278 A.2d 395
PartiesSTATE of Maine v. Stephen R. AUCOIN.
Decision Date17 June 1971

Robert T. Coffin, County Atty., Portland, for appellant.

Jack H. Simmons, of Berman, Berman & Simmons, Lewiston, R. John Wuesthoff, Kennebunkport, for appellee.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEBBER, WEATHERBEE, POMEROY and WERNICK, JJ.

WERNICK, Justice.

This case on report before us from the Superior Court, for this Court to make such disposition as the rights of the parties require, seeks decision of the constitutionality of that portion of an ordinance of the City of Portland which reads:

'No person shall loiter in, on, or adjacent to any of the streets, ways, or public places, in the City of Portland, * * *.'

The case was commenced in District Court, Ninth District, Division of Southern Cumberland upon a complaint charging defendant with a crime in that

'* * * Stephen R. Aucoin, did loiter in a public place, to wit: second floor of City Hall, 389 Congress Street, in said Portland, after having been forbidden to do so.'

Defendant appealed the case to the Superior Court and there filed a motion to dismiss the complaint.

The motion to dismiss asserts the complaint to be legally insufficient because the ordinance upon which it is based is a nullity as violative of the 'due process' clauses of the Constitution of Maine and of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

We are without a delineation of specific behavior of the defendant which is claimed to be criminal as 'loitering', except that the complaint adds an allegation, unrequired by the ordinance itself, that the 'loitering' occurred after it had been 'forbidden' (whether with, or without, lawful authority being undisclosed). Defendant, therefore, directly affected by the ordinance, is aiming to prevail by reliance upon an attack upon the constitutionality of the ordinance taken on its face.

Decision of the case is controlled by the principles as to vagueness recently announced, and applied, by the Supreme Court of the United States in Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971).

'Loitering', utilized as it is in the Portland ordinance without more as a criterion of criminal conduct, provides an 'incomprehensible standard' and, hence, is constitutionally inadequate to delimit a class of human behavior which shall be the subject of punishment. As understood in ordinary usage, it is

'vague not in the sense that it requires a person to conform his...

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10 cases
  • S**** S**** v. State
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • January 22, 1973
    ...equate the reference language to that found unconstitutionally vague in Knowlton v. State, Me., 257 A.2d 409 (1969) and in State v. Aucoin, Me., 278 A.2d 395 (1971). The arguments advanced prompt us to reexamine our juvenile law The social problem created by the conduct of the deviant child......
  • People v. Superior Court (Caswell)
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • August 22, 1988
    ...1389; Hall v. United States (D.C.Cir.1972) 459 F.2d 831, 840; State v. Starks (1971) 51 Wis.2d 256, 186 N.W.2d 245, 250; State v. Aucoin (Me.1971) 278 A.2d 395, 397; State v. Grahovac (1971) 52 Haw. 527, 556, 480 P.2d 148, 153; Hayes v. Municipal Court of Oklahoma City (Okla.1971) 487 P.2d ......
  • Shapiro Bros. Shoe Co., Inc. v. Lewiston-Auburn Shoeworkers Protective Ass'n
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • May 28, 1974
    ...most recently analyzed the vagueness issue where penal statutes were involved in State v. Denis, Me., 304 A.2d 377 (1973); State v. Aucoin, Me., 278 A.2d 395 (1971); Knowlton v. State, Me., 257 A.2d 409 (1969); Swed v. Inhabitants of Bar Harbor, 158 Me. 220, 182 A.2d 664 (1962); State v. Ka......
  • State v. Falcone
    • United States
    • Maine Supreme Court
    • July 27, 2006
    ...of the provision and thus to a "loss of his conditional liberty." State v. Cote, 539 A.2d 628, 628-29 (Me.1988); see also State v. Aucoin, 278 A.2d 395, 396 (Me.1971) (declaring a city ordinance prohibiting "loitering" to be unconstitutionally vague because use of the undefined prohibition ......
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