Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566 (1974)

Smith v. Goguen

No. 72-1254

Argued November 12-13, 1973
Decided March 25, 1974
415 U.S. 566

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

Syllabus

Appellee, for wearing a small United States flag sewn to the seat of his trousers, was convicted of violating the provision of the Massachusetts flag-misuse statute that subjects to criminal liability anyone who "publicly . . . treats contemptuously the flag of the United States. . . ." The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed. The District Court in appellee’s habeas corpus action found the "treats contemptuously" phrase of the statute unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held:

The challenged statutory language, which had received no narrowing state court interpretation, is void for vagueness under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since, by failing to draw reasonably clear lines between the kinds of nonceremonial treatment of the flag that are criminal and those that are not, it does not provide adequate warning of forbidden conduct, and sets forth a standard so indefinite that police, court, and jury are free to react to nothing more than their own preferences for treatment of the flag. Pp. 572-576, 578.

2. By challenging in state courts the vagueness of the "treats contemptuously" phrase as applied to him, appellee preserved his due process claim for purposes of federal habeas corpus jurisdiction, Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, since the challenged language is void for vagueness as applied to appellee or to anyone else. A "hard-core" violator concept has little meaning with regard to the challenged language, because the phrase at issue is vague not in the sense of requiring a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible standard, but in the sense of not specifying any ascertainable standard of conduct at all. Pp. 576-578.

3. Even if, as appellant contends, the statute could be said to deal only with "actual" flags of the United States, this would not resolve the central vagueness deficiency of failing to define contemptuous treatment. Pp. 578-579.

4. That other words of the desecration and contempt portion of the statute address more specific conduct (mutilation, trampling, and defacing of the flag) does not assist appellant, since appellee was tried solely under the "treats contemptuously" phrase, and the highest state court in this case did not construe the challenged phrase as taking color from more specific accompanying language. Pp. 579-50.

5. Regardless of whether restriction by that court of the scope of the challenged phrase to intentional contempt may be held against appellee, such an interpretation nevertheless does not clarify what conduct constitutes contempt of the flag, whether intentional or inadvertent. P. 580.

471 F.2d 88, affirmed.

POWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, STEWART, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 583. BLACKMUN, J., post, p. 590, and REHNQUIST, J., post, p. 591, filed dissenting opinions, in which BURGER, C.J., joined.