Steffens v. State ex rel. Lugo, 76--393
| Decision Date | 08 March 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 76--393,76--393 |
| Citation | 343 So.2d 90 |
| Parties | Earl STEFFENS, as Chief of Police, City of Miami Springs, Dade County, Florida, and Honorable William Fann, as Judge of the Municipal Court, City of Miami Springs, Dade County, Florida, Appellants, v. The STATE of Florida ex rel. Elsa Iris LUGO, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Weintraub & Weintraub, Miami, for appellants.
Jerome M. Rosenblum, Leonard Robbins, Hollywood, Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Before HENDRY, C.J., and PEARSON and HUBBART, JJ.
This case is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in which the petitioner was discharged from arrest and prosecution under a municipal ordinance. The respondents appeal.
The issue presented for review is whether a municipal ordinance which prohibits female waitresses, entertainers or other employees of a public business to expose themselves above the waist to the extent that the breasts are bare or so thinly covered by mesh, transparent net or lawn skin tight materials which are flesh colored and worn skin tight so as to appear uncovered is unconstitutional as being void for vagueness under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and of Article I, Section 9, of the Florida Constitution (1968). We hold that such an ordinance is unconstitutional as being void for vagueness under the aforesaid federal and state constitutional provisions and affirm.
The petitioner-appellee (Elsa Iris Lugo) was arrested and charged with a violation of Section 16--14.01 of the City of Miami Springs Municipal Code. 1 After having been released on bail, she was detained in the constructive custody of the respondent-appellant Chief of Police of the City of Miami Springs (Earl Steffens). The petitioner thereafter filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Dade County Circuit Court against the respondent chief of police contending that her constructive custody was unlawful since it was accomplished under the above municipal ordinance which she alleged was unconstitutional. 2 The learned circuit judge below conducted a full hearing and entered a final order of discharge in favor of the petitioner on the ground that the above municipal ordinance was unconstitutional as being void for vagueness. We entirely agree.
The law is well-settled that a penal statute or ordinance which forbids the doing of an act in terms so vague that people of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 9, of the Florida Constitution (1968). Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); State ex rel. Lee v. Buchanan, 191 So.2d 33 (Fla.1966). It is fundamental that such laws must be sufficiently definite in describing...
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...the conduct prohibited in order that the ordinary person may know how to comply with its provisions." Steffens v. State ex rel. Lugo, 343 So.2d 90, 91 (Fla. 3d DCA 1977). "An assault on the constitutionality of a statute vel non must necessarily succeed if the language does not convey suffi......
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