vagueness
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 344 U.S. 174 - United States v. Cardiff · 1952Most cited · 323 citing opinions
criminal statutes
The vice of vagueness in criminal statutes is the treachery they conceal either in determining what persons are included or what acts are prohibited. Words which are vague and fluid may be as much of a trap for the innocent as the ancient laws of Caligula.
How often courts cite the cases defining “vagueness”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “vagueness” — 591 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1952–1971
The underlying principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.
underlying principle