COURT RULES CHICAGO LOITERING LAW IS UNCONSTITUTIONALLY VAGUE

WASHINGTON -- Chicago's loitering law, which other cities looked to as a
model for reclaiming the streets in gang-infested neighborhoods, was
declared

unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on Thursday on the grounds that it
gave

police too much discretion to target innocent people. The vote was 6-3.

Chicago police arrested more than 42,000 people under the law during the
three years it was in effect, from 1992 to 1995, when it was struck down by
a

state appellate court. The law made it a crime to "remain in any one place
with no apparent purpose" in the presence of a suspected gang member when
ordered by a police officer to move on.

In his opinion for the court Thursday, Justice John Paul Stevens focused on
the absence of adequate guidance to police officers. Under the law, he said,
"it matters not whether the reason that a gang member and his father, for
example, might loiter near Wrigley Field is to rob an unsuspecting fan or
just to get a glimpse of Sammy Sosa leaving the ball park."

In either case, he said, as long as their purpose was "not apparent" in a
police officer's "inherently subjective" judgment, the pair were subject to
arrest for refusing the officer's order to disperse. And by the same token,
Stevens said, "the entire ordinance fails to give the ordinary citizen
adequate notice of what is forbidden and what is permitted."

The opinion suggested that Chicago could repair the law's unconstitutional

vagueness by defining the prohibited behavior more precisely or by limiting
the law's scope. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in a concurring opinion that
Justice Stephen G. Breyer also signed, made this point more explicitly,
asserting that "there remain open to Chicago reasonable alternatives to
combat the very real threat posed by gang intimidation and violence." Among
the justices' suggestions were requiring that loiterers have some "harmful
purpose" before they could be arrested, or targeting only gang members
themselves rather than people who are simply standing nearby.

In Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley said Thursday morning that the city would
try to draft a new ordinance to overcome the court's objections. But Harvey
Grossman, an ACLU lawyer who argued the case for the defendants, said in an
interview that he doubted whether a law aimed at sweeping gang members off
the streets could be both effective and constitutional. Grossman said that
while a law that prohibited loitering when coupled with specific conduct,
like loitering to commit prostitution or to sell drugs, would be
unobjectionable, such a law would require the very proof of individualized
wrongdoing that the Chicago law sought to avoid.

The Chicago City Council adopted the law in 1992 after witnesses testified

at public hearings that street gangs, using loitering as a strategy to claim
territory, were taking over neighborhoods and terrifying the residents.

However measured the majority's approach Thursday, it provoked a stinging
dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, who attacked the majority's analytic
method as well as its conclusion.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented as well, in an opinion that Scalia and
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist also signed.

Thomas' opinion included some pointed language. "By invalidating Chicago's

ordinance, I fear that the court has unnecessarily sentenced law-abiding
citizens to lives of terror and misery," he said, adding that the court had
the luxury of focusing on the " 'right' of gang members and their
companions" because "the people who will have to live with the consequences
of today's opinion do not live in our neighborhoods." * * * OTHER SUPREME
COURT DECISIONS:

The Supreme Court also took these actions Thursday:

- - Limited the use during criminal trials of out-of-court statements by
alleged accomplices who admit some wrongdoing but try to pin the blame on
the

defendant. The justices' divided ruling said Virginia courts violated a
murder defendant's constitutional right to confront the witnesses against
him by allowing such statements by his brother to be used as evidence, even
though the brother did not testify in court.

- - Made it harder for prosecutors to prove federal cases alleging bank, wire
or mail fraud. The court unanimously ruled in a Florida case that
prosecutors

in such cases must prove that an allegedly fraudulent act affected the
outcome of the transaction. However, the court also ruled, 6-3, that in tax
fraud cases - where proof of legal relevance also is required - a judge's
failure to submit the question to the jury can be considered harmless.

- - Ruled for the government in a patent-law dispute, narrowing a specialized
court's authority to second-guess federal officials' decisions on which
inventions deserve patent protection. The 6-3 ruling said a federal appeals
court that specializes in technical cases must give more deference to
decisions by the Patent and Trademark Office.