State v. Cameron

• Citation: 498 A.2d 1217,100 N.J. 586
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Robert J. CAMERON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Decision Date: 19 June 1985
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

Page 586

100 N.J. 586

498 A.2d 1217

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Robert J. CAMERON, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 20, 1984.

Decided June 19, 1985.

Dwayne C. Vaughn, Newark, argued the cause for appellant (Frank J. Morelli, Bedminster, attorney).

Stanley Cutler, Somerset, argued the cause for respondent.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

HANDLER, Justice.

The question posed by this appeal is whether a municipal zoning ordinance that excludes "churches and similar places of worship" from a residential use district can be applied to prohibit a minister from temporarily using his home to hold a one-hour religious service each week for his congregation. The minister claims that the ordinance does not, with sufficient clarity, forbid this religious activity, and, as applied against him, it is unconstitutionally vague. We agree.

I.

The defendant, Robert J. Cameron, is a minister in the Reformed Episcopal Church, a denomination that includes some six or seven thousand adherents nationwide. When this litigation began, he was the spiritual leader of the Mount Carmel Reformed Episcopal Church congregation. Until the spring of 1981, this congregation met in a local school building. However, an increase in rent forced the group to relocate. The congregation decided to meet in the defendant's home until a permanent location could be found. Its services were attended by about twenty-five people and were conducted once each week for one-hour. These were the same services the congregation previously had held at the school, and included prayers, a sermon, and the taking of a collection.

The Franklin Township's zoning law designated seventeen zone classifications for land use in the municipality. Ordinance 832, § 404 (1976). The ordinance established single-family houses as the only permitted use in the R-15 zone, in which the Cameron property was located. Id., § 504.1. The ordinance also expressly allowed "churches and similar places of worship" in addition to single family homes in other residential zones. See, e.g., id., §§ 501.1.c, 502.1.b, 511.1.b. Thus, it is not disputed that "churches and similar places of worship" were excluded by the ordinance from the use district that included Cameron's neighborhood. ¹

On August 11, 1981 the Township charged the defendant with violating § 504.1 of the zoning ordinance by using his home "for activities other then [sic] permitted use." This complaint arose after one of the defendant's neighbors reported that the religious service could be heard eighty feet from the defendant's home, and that cars parked on the street by those attending the service hindered the passage of traffic. The Township's chief zoning official later testified that one Sunday he heard church music. Based on this evidence the Municipal Court of Franklin Township found the defendant to be in violation of the ban against "churches and similar places of worship." The judge ordered the defendant to cease holding a "worship service" in his home, subject to a $500 fine for each future violation.

Following an appeal and a trial de novo, the Law Division also held that defendant had violated the ordinance by using his home as a "church." State v. Cameron, 184 N.J. Super. 66, 445 A.2d 75 (1982). This decision was affirmed by the Appellate Division, with Judge Antell dissenting on the grounds that the ordinance's prohibition of churches was too vague to apply. 189 N.J.Super. 404, 460 A.2d 191 (1983). Defendant then appealed as of right to this Court under Rule 2:2-1(a).

II.

We begin our analysis by recounting the reasons that both the Federal and State Constitutions render vague laws unenforceable. See U.S. Const., Amend. V; N.J. Const. (1947) Art. I, par. 1. The evils of vague laws were explained in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-109, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2298-99, 33 L.Ed.2d 222, 227-28 (1972) (footnotes omitted):

Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.

Thus, the constitutional ban on vague laws is intended to invalidate regulatory enactments that fail to provide adequate notice of their scope and sufficient guidance for their application. Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162, 92 S.Ct. 839, 843, 31 L.Ed.2d 110, 115 (1972). The requirement of statutory clarity "is essentially a due process concept grounded in notions of fair play." State v. Lashinsky, 81 N.J. 1, 17, 404 A.2d 1121 (1979); accord State v. Lee, 96 N.J. 156, 165, 475 A.2d 31 (1984).

To avoid the pitfall of vagueness, the terms of a zoning ordinance must enable a person of "common intelligence, in light of ordinary experience" to understand whether contemplated conduct is lawful. Lashinsky, supra, 81 N.J. at 18, 404 A.2d 1121. The determination of vagueness must be made against the contextual background of the particular law and with a firm understanding of its purpose. As noted in Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. 489, 498, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d 362, 371 (1982), the standard to determine the vagueness of a law is not one that can "be mechanically applied. The degree of vagueness that the Constitution tolerates--as well as the relative importance of fair notice and fair enforcement--depend in part on the nature of the enactment."

Not all statutes need attain the same level of definitional clarity under the vagueness doctrine. For example, a statute effecting "economic regulation is subject to a less strict vagueness test because its subject matter is often more narrow, and because businesses, which face economic demands to plan behavior carefully, can be expected to consult relevant legislation in advance of action." Id. at 498, 102 S.Ct. at 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d at 371-72. Indeed, the regulated enterprise may have the ability to clarify the meaning of the regulation by its own inquiry, or by resort to an administrative process. Penal laws, on the other hand, are subjected to sharper scrutiny and given more exacting and critical assessment under the vagueness doctrine than civil enactments. See, e.g., Lee, supra, 96 N.J. at 167, 475 A.2d 31; Town Tobacconist v. Kimmelman, 94 N.J. 85, 119 n. 16, 462 A.2d 573 (1983). As pointed out in Hoffman Estates, supra, 455 U.S. at 498-99, 102 S.Ct. at 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d at 371-72, greater imprecision can be tolerated in enactments with civil rather than criminal penalties because of differences in the likelihood, as well as in the consequences, of any misunderstanding.

Another material consideration that can elevate the level of judicial scrutiny for vagueness is the extent to which the regulatory law impacts on constitutional interests. "[P]erhaps the most important factor affecting the clarity that the Constitution demands of a law is whether it threatens to inhibit the exercise of constitutionally protected rights." Hoffman Estates, supra, 455 U.S. at 499, 102 S.Ct. at 1193, 71 L.Ed.2d at 372. In particular, the scrutiny to be accorded legislation that trenches upon first amendment liberties must be especially scrupulous. See, e.g., Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 573, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 1247, 39 L.Ed.2d 605, 612 (1974); Town Tobacconist, supra, 94 N.J. at 119 n. 16, 462 A.2d 573; see also In re Hinds, 90 N.J. 604, 618, 449 A.2d 483 (1982) (extra scrutiny for overbreadth in a first amendment context); New Jersey Chamber of Commerce v. New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Comm'n, 82 N.J. 57, 70, 411 A.2d 168 (1980) (same).

Judicial analysis of statutory vagueness also depends upon whether a law is challenged as applied, or facially. A statute that is challenged facially may be voided if it is "impermissibly vague in all its application," that is, there is no conduct that it proscribes with sufficient certainty. Hoffman Estates, supra, 455 U.S. at 495, 102 S.Ct. at 1192, 71 L.Ed.2d at 369; Lee, supra, 96 N.J. at 167, 475 A.2d 31; Town Tobacconist, supra, 94 N.J. at 119, 462 A.2d 573. A statute so lacking in definitional certainty can be characterized as "perfectly vague." L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 720 (1978). In Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 614, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214, 217 (1971), for example, a law that forbade groups of three or more persons to gather on sidewalks and "annoy" passers-by was considered to have no ascertainable standard for inclusion or exclusion by which to determine if particular conduct was forbidden, and was thus wholly void for vagueness. Similarly, in Smith v. Goguen, supra, 415 U.S. at 578, 94 S.Ct. at 1250, 39 L.Ed.2d at 614-15, a law that forbade "contemptuous treatment" of the American flag was found to so lack certainty of meaning as to be perfectly vague and unenforceable in its entirety.

A statute can be challenged "as applied" if the law does not with sufficient clarity prohibit the conduct against which it sought to be enforced. In Palmer v. City of Euclid, 402 U.S. 544, 91 S.Ct. 1563, 29 L.Ed.2d 98 (1971), for example, an ordinance providing for punishment of "suspicious persons" was deemed to have a clear core meaning and thus was not found wholly void for vagueness; nevertheless the law was found vague as applied in the particular case. A party may test a law for vagueness as applied only with respect to his or her particular conduct; if a statute is vague as applied to that...