## Facts

- Chicago enacted a 1992 “Gang Congregation Ordinance” making it unlawful to disobey a police dispersal order issued to persons “loitering” in public with someone an officer reasonably believed to be a criminal street gang member.
- The ordinance defined “loitering” as “to remain in any one place with no apparent purpose.”
- If an officer observed such loitering, the officer was required to order all persons present to disperse and leave the area; disobedience was punishable by fine and up to six months’ imprisonment.
- The police department issued an internal order describing enforcement limits (designated officers, identification criteria, and enforcement areas not publicly disclosed).
- Enforcement was extensive, with tens of thousands of dispersal orders and thousands of arrests.
- Multiple defendants were arrested and convicted under the ordinance; several trial courts found the ordinance unconstitutionally vague.
- The Illinois Appellate Court consolidated cases, invalidated the ordinance, and reversed convictions; the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed on due process vagueness grounds.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the ordinance was facially void for vagueness under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.
2. Whether the ordinance failed to give ordinary people fair notice of prohibited conduct.
3. Whether the ordinance authorized arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by granting police excessive discretion.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment invalidating the ordinance.
- The Court held the ordinance facially violated due process because it was impermissibly vague.
- The definition of loitering (“no apparent purpose”) was inherently subjective and, as construed by the state supreme court, gave officers essentially unfettered discretion to decide what conduct triggered dispersal orders.
- The dispersal-order mechanism did not cure vagueness because the power to issue the order depended on the vague “no apparent purpose” standard.
- The ordinance burdened a protected liberty interest in remaining in public places for lawful purposes and swept broadly across “any public place,” reaching substantial innocent conduct.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal law is void for vagueness if it (1) fails to provide ordinary people fair notice of what is prohibited or (2) authorizes or encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
- Due process requires minimal, objective enforcement guidelines; laws that delegate basic lawmaking to an officer’s on-the-spot judgment are constitutionally defective.
- A statute can be facially invalid when vagueness is pervasive and the law lacks a clearly defined core of prohibited conduct separable from unconstitutional applications.
- Penalizing disobedience of a police order does not save an ordinance when the authority to issue the order is triggered by vague, standardless criteria.

## Conclusion

The Court held Chicago’s anti-gang loitering ordinance facially void for vagueness because “no apparent purpose” provided inadequate notice and conferred excessive discretion on police to order dispersal and arrest, resulting in an arbitrary restriction on liberty in public places.


City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999)