Cite as: 527 U. S. 41 (1999)
Thomas, J., dissenting
n. 20. Apparently, the plurality believes it sufficient to rest on the proposition that antiloitering laws represent an anachronistic throwback to an earlier, less sophisticated, era. For example, it expresses concern that some antivagrancy laws carried the penalty of slavery. Ibid. But this fact is irrelevant to our analysis of whether there is a constitutional right to loiter for innocent purposes. This case does not involve an antiloitering law carrying the penalty of slavery. The law at issue in this case criminalizes the failure to obey a police officer's order to disperse and imposes modest penalties, such as a fine of up to $500 and a prison sentence of up to six months.
The plurality's sweeping conclusion that this ordinance infringes upon a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause withers when exposed to the relevant history: Laws prohibiting loitering and vagrancy have been a fixture of Anglo-American law at least since the time of the Norman Conquest. See generally C. Ribton-Turner, A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging (reprint 1972) (discussing history of English vagrancy laws); see also Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156, 161-162 (1972) (recounting history of vagrancy laws). The American colonists enacted laws modeled upon the English vagrancy laws, and at the time of the founding, state and local governments customarily criminalized loitering and other forms of vagrancy.2 Vagrancy laws
2 See, e. g., Act for the Restraint of idle and disorderly Persons (1784) (reprinted in 2 First Laws of the State of North Carolina 508-509 (J. Cushing comp. 1984)); Act for restraining, correcting, suppressing and punishing Rogues, Vagabonds, common Beggars, and other lewd, idle, dissolute, profane and disorderly Persons; and for setting them to work (re-printed in First Laws of the State of Connecticut 206-210 (J. Cushing comp. 1982)); Act for suppressing and punishing of Rogues, Vagabonds, common Beggars and other idle, disorderly and lewd persons (1788) (re-printed in First Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 347-349 (J. Cushing comp. 1981)); Act for better securing the payment of levies and restraint of vagrants, and for making provisions for the poor (1776)
103
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007