Cite as: 520 U. S. 259 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
tected by the Constitution or laws of the United States," is matched by the breadth of its companion conspiracy statute, § 241,4 which speaks of conspiracies to prevent "the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to [any person] by the Constitution or laws of the United States." Thus, in lieu of describing the specific conduct it forbids, each statute's general terms incorporate constitutional law by reference, see United States v. Kozminski, 487 U. S. 931, 941 (1988); United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 797, 805 (1966), and many of the incorporated constitutional guarantees are, of course, themselves stated with some catholicity of phrasing. The result is that neither the statutes nor a good many of their constitutional referents delineate the range of forbidden conduct with particularity.
The right to due process enforced by § 242 and said to have been violated by Lanier presents a case in point, with the irony that a prosecution to enforce one application of its spacious protection of liberty can threaten the accused with deprivation of another: what Justice Holmes spoke of as "fair warning . . . in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed. To make the warning fair, so far as possible the line should be clear." McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25, 27 (1931). " 'The . . . principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.' " Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347, 351 (1964) (quoting United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 617 (1954)).5
4 Insofar as pertinent: "If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same," they shall be subject to specified criminal penalties.
5 The fair warning requirement also reflects the deference due to the legislature, which possesses the power to define crimes and their punishment. See United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820); United
265
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007