Appellant was acquitted following a jury trial on a misdemeanor
indictment. Costs were assessed against him under an 1860
Pennsylvania statute permitting jurors to "determine, by their
verdict, whether the [acquitted] defendant shall pay the costs,"
and providing for his commitment to jail in default of payment or
security. The jury had been instructed that it could place the
prosecution costs on appellant though found guiltless of the
charges if nevertheless it found him guilty of "some misconduct"
less than that charged, but which had brought on the prosecution
and warranted some penalty short of conviction. The trial court
upheld appellant's contention that the statute violated due process
requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. The intermediate
appellate court reversed the trial court, and was sustained by the
State Supreme Court.
Held: The 1860 Act violates the Due Process Clause
because of vagueness and the absence of any standards that would
prevent arbitrary imposition of costs. Pp.
382 U. S.
402-405.
(a) Regardless of whether the Act is "penal" or "civil," it must
meet the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. P.
382 U. S.
402.
(b) The absence of any statutory standards is not cured by
judicial interpretations that allow juries to impose costs on a
defendant where they find the defendant's conduct, though not
unlawful, was "reprehensible" or "improper," or where the jury
finds that the defendant committed "some misconduct." Pp.
382 U. S.
402-405.
415 Pa. 139, 202 A.2d 55, reversed and remanded.
Page 382 U. S. 400
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant Giaccio was indicted by a Pennsylvania grand jury and
charged with two violations of a state statute which makes it a
misdemeanor to wantonly point or discharge a firearm at any other
person. [
Footnote 1] In a trial
before a judge and jury, appellant's defense was that the firearm
he had discharged was a starter pistol which only fired blanks. The
jury returned a verdict of not guilty on each charge, but acting
pursuant to instructions of the court given under authority of a
Pennsylvania statute of 1860, assessed against appellant the court
costs of one of the charges (amounting to $230.95). The Act of
1860, set out below, [
Footnote
2] provides, among other things, that:
". . . in all cases of acquittals by the petit jury on
indictments for [offenses other than felonies], the jury trying the
same shall determine, by their verdict, whether the county, or the
prosecutor, or the
Page 382 U. S. 401
defendant shall pay the costs . . . , and whenever the jury
shall determine, as aforesaid, that the . . . defendant shall pay
the costs, the court in which the said determination shall be made
shall forthwith pass sentence to that effect, and order him to be
committed to the jail of the county until the costs are paid,
unless he give security to pay the same within ten days."
Appellant made timely objections to the validity of this statute
on several grounds, [
Footnote
3] including an objection that the statute is
unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's
Due Process Clause because it authorizes juries to assess costs
against acquitted defendants, with a threat of imprisonment until
the costs are paid, without prescribing definite standards to
govern the jury's determination. The trial court held the 1860 Act
void for vagueness in violation of due process, set aside the
jury's verdict imposing costs on the appellant, and vacated the
"sentence imposed upon Defendant that he pay said costs
forthwith or give security to pay the same within ten (10) days and
to stand committed until he had complied therewith. [
Footnote 4]"
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania, one judge dissenting,
reversed the trial court, closing its opinion this way:
"We can find no reason that would justify our holding it [the
1860 Act] unconstitutional."
"Order reversed, sentence reinstated. [
Footnote 5]"
The State Supreme Court, again with one judge dissenting, agreed
with the Superior Court and affirmed its judgment. [
Footnote 6]
Page 382 U. S. 402
This left appellant subject to the judgment for costs and the
"sentence" to enforce payment. We noted jurisdiction to consider
the question raised concerning vagueness and absence of proper
standards in the 1860 Act. 381 U.S. 923. We agree with the trial
court and the dissenting judges in the appellate courts below that
the 1860 Act is invalid under the Due Process Clause because of
vagueness and the absence of any standards sufficient to enable
defendants to protect themselves against arbitrary and
discriminatory impositions of costs.
1. In holding that the 1860 Act was not unconstitutionally
vague, the State Superior and Supreme Courts rested largely on the
declaration that the Act "is not a penal statute," but simply
provides machinery for the collection of costs of a "civil
character" analogous to imposing costs in civil cases "not as a
penalty, but rather as compensation to a litigant for expenses. . .
." But admission of an analogy between the collection of civil
costs and collection of costs here does not go far towards settling
the constitutional question before us. Whatever label be given the
1860 Act, there is no doubt that it provides the State with a
procedure for depriving an acquitted defendant of his liberty and
his property. Both liberty and property are specifically protected
by the Fourteenth Amendment against any state deprivation which
does not meet the standards of due process, and this protection is
not to be avoided by the simple label a State chooses to fasten
upon its conduct or its statute. So here, this state Act, whether
labeled "penal" or not, must meet the challenge that it is
unconstitutionally vague.
2. It is established that a law fails to meet the requirements
of the Due Process Clause if it is so vague and standardless that
it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct it prohibits or
leaves judges and jurors free to
Page 382 U. S. 403
decide, without any legally fixed standards, what is prohibited
and what is not in each particular case.
See, e.g., Lanzetta v.
New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451;
Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360.
This 1860 Pennsylvania Act contains no standards at all, nor does
it place any conditions of any kind upon the jury's power to impose
costs upon a defendant who has been found by the jury to be not
guilty of a crime charged against him. The Act, without imposing a
single condition, limitation, or contingency on a jury which has
acquitted a defendant, simply says the jurors "shall determine, by
their verdict, whether . . . the defendant shall pay the costs,"
whereupon the trial judge is told he "shall forthwith pass sentence
to that effect, and order him [defendant] to be committed to the
jail of the county," there to remain until he either pays or gives
security for the costs. Certainly one of the basic purposes of the
Due Process Clause has always been to protect a person against
having the Government impose burdens upon him except in accordance
with the valid laws of the land. Implicit in this constitutional
safeguard is the premise that the law must be one that carries an
understandable meaning with legal standards that courts must
enforce. This state Act as written does not even begin to meet this
constitutional requirement.
3. The State contends that, even if the Act would have been void
for vagueness as it was originally written, subsequent state court
interpretations have provided standards and guides that cure the
former constitutional deficiencies. We do not agree. All of the
so-called court-created conditions and standards still leave to the
jury such broad and unlimited power in imposing costs on acquitted
defendants that the jurors must make determinations of the crucial
issue upon their own notions of what the law should be, instead of
what it is. Pennsylvania decisions have from time to time said
expressly, or at least implied, that juries, having found a
defendant not
Page 382 U. S. 404
guilty, may impose costs upon him if they find that his conduct,
though not unlawful, is "reprehensible in some respect,"
"improper," outrageous to "morality and justice," or that his
conduct was "not reprehensible enough for a criminal conviction,
but sufficiently reprehensible to deserve an equal distribution of
costs," or that, though acquitted, "his innocence may have been
doubtful." [
Footnote 7] In this
case, the trial judge instructed the jury that it might place the
costs of prosecution on the appellant, though found not guilty of
the crime charged, if the jury found that
"he has been guilty of some misconduct less than the offense
which is charged, but nevertheless misconduct of some kind as a
result of which he should be required to pay some penalty short of
conviction [and] . . . his misconduct has given rise to the
prosecution."
It may possibly be that the trial court's charge comes nearer to
giving a guide to the jury than those that preceded it, but it
still falls short of the kind of legal standard due process
requires. At best, it only told the jury that, if it found
appellant guilty of "some misconduct" less than that charged
against him, it was authorized by law to saddle him with the
State's costs in its unsuccessful prosecution. It would be
difficult, if not impossible, for a person to prepare a defense
against such general abstract charges as "misconduct," or
"reprehensible conduct." If used in a statute which imposed
forfeitures, punishments or judgments for costs, such loose and
unlimiting terms would certainly cause the statute to fail to
measure up to the requirements of the Due Process Clause. And these
terms are no more effective to make a statute valid which standing
alone is void for vagueness.
Page 382 U. S. 405
We hold that the 1860 Act is constitutionally invalid both as
written and as explained by the Pennsylvania courts. [
Footnote 8] The judgment against appellant is
reversed, and the case is remanded to the State Supreme Court for
further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
[
Footnote 1]
Act of June 24, 1939, Pub.L. 872, § 716, Pa.Stat.Ann., Tit. 18,
§ 4716.
[
Footnote 2]
Act of March 31, 1860, Pub.L. 427, § 62, Pa.Stat.Ann., Tit. 19,
§ 1222, provides:
"In all prosecutions, cases of felony excepted, if the bill of
indictment shall be returned ignoramus, the grand jury returning
the same shall decide and certify on such bill whether the county
or the prosecutor shall pay the costs of prosecution; and in all
cases of acquittals by the petit jury on indictments for the
offenses aforesaid, the jury trying the same shall determine, by
their verdict, whether the county, or the prosecutor, or the
defendant shall pay the costs, or whether the same shall be
apportioned between the prosecutor and the defendant, and in what
proportions; and the jury, grand or petit, so determining, in case
they direct the prosecutor to pay the costs or any portion thereof,
shall name him in their return or verdict; and whenever the jury
shall determine as aforesaid, that the prosecutor or defendant
shall pay the costs, the court in which the said determination
shall be made shall forthwith pass sentence to that effect, and
order him to be committed to the jail of the county until the costs
are paid, unless he give security to pay the same within ten
days."
[
Footnote 3]
One objection was that the Act violates the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminates against
defendants in misdemeanor cases by imposing greater burdens upon
them than upon defendants in felony cases and cases involving
summary offenses. We do not reach or decide this question.
[
Footnote 4]
30 Pa.Dist. & C.2d 463 (Q.S.Chester, 1963).
[
Footnote 5]
202 Pa.Super. 294, 310, 196 A.2d 189, 197.
[
Footnote 6]
415 Pa. 139, 202 A.2d 55.
[
Footnote 7]
The foregoing quotations appear in a number of Pennsylvania
cases, including
Commonwealth v. Tilghman, 4 S. & R.
127;
Baldwin v. Commonwealth, 26 Pa. 171;
Commonwealth
v. Daly, 11 Pa.Dist. 527 (Q.S.Clearfield); and in the opinion
of the Superior Court in this case, 202 Pa.Super. 294, 196 A.2d
189.
[
Footnote 8]
In so holding, we intend to cast no doubt whatever on the
constitutionality of the settled practice of many States to leave
to juries finding defendants guilty of a crime the power to fix
punishment within legally prescribed limits.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring.
I concur in the Court's determination that the Pennsylvania
statute here in question cannot be squared with the standards of
the Fourteenth Amendment, but for reasons somewhat different from
those upon which the Court relies. It seems to me that, despite the
Court's disclaimer,
* much of the
reasoning in its opinion serves to cast grave constitutional doubt
upon the settled practice of many States to leave to the unguided
discretion of a jury the nature and degree of punishment to be
imposed upon a person convicted of a criminal offense. Though I
have serious questions about the wisdom of that practice, its
constitutionality is quite a different matter. In the present case,
it is enough for me that Pennsylvania allows a jury to punish a
defendant after finding him not guilty. That, I think, violates the
most rudimentary concept of due process of law.
* See n. 8, ante.
MR. JUSTICE FORTAS, concurring.
In my opinion, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment does not permit a State to impose a penalty or costs upon
a defendant whom the jury has found not guilty of any offense with
which he has been charged.