114
Thomas, J., dissenting
pose," see 177 Ill. 2d, at 445, 687 N. E. 2d, at 58—fails to provide adequate notice.11 "It is difficult to imagine," the plurality posits, "how any citizen of the city of Chicago standing in a public place . . . would know if he or she had an 'apparent purpose.' " Ante, at 56-57. The plurality underestimates the intellectual capacity of the citizens of Chicago. Persons of ordinary intelligence are perfectly capable of evaluating how outsiders perceive their conduct, and here "[i]t is self-evident that there is a whole range of conduct that anyone with at least a semblance of common sense would know is [loitering] and that would be covered by the statute." See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 584 (1974) (White, J., concurring in judgment). Members of a group standing on the corner staring blankly into space, for example, are likely well aware that passersby would conclude that they have "no apparent purpose." In any event, because this is a facial challenge, the plurality's ability to hypothesize that some individuals, in some circumstances, may be unable to ascertain how their actions appear to outsiders is irrelevant to our analysis. Here, we are asked to determine whether the ordinance is "vague in all of its applications." Hoffman Estates, supra, at 497. The answer is unquestionably no.
* * *
Today, the Court focuses extensively on the "rights" of gang members and their companions. It can safely do so— the people who will have to live with the consequences of
11 The Court asserts that we cannot second-guess the Illinois Supreme Court's conclusion that the definition " 'provides absolute discretion to police officers to decide what activities constitute loitering,' " ante, at 61 (quoting 177 Ill. 2d, at 457, 687 N. E. 2d, at 63). While we are bound by a state court's construction of a statute, the Illinois court "did not, strictly speaking, construe the [ordinance] in the sense of defining the meaning of a particular statutory word or phase. Rather, it merely characterized [its] 'practical effect' . . . . This assessment does not bind us." Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U. S. 476, 484 (1993).
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