The conversation echoes that which surrounded a 1972 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of. In that case, the court ruled the city’s vagrancy ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.
Jacobson said that earlier case law had established that any law imposed on people must pass three tests, which News4JAX has paraphrased for clarity:The law must also be clear enough so that those charged with enforcing it can do so consistently. “The Jacksonville vagrancy ordinance, under which petitioners were convicted, is void for vagueness, in that it ‘fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute,’ it encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions, it makes criminal activities that, by modern standards, are normally innocent, and it places almost unfettered discretion in the hands of the police,” Associate Justice Supreme Court Justice William...