United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385 (1926)

Connally v. General Construction Company

No. 314

Argued November 30, December 1, 1925

Decided January 4, 1926

269 U.S. 385

Syllabus

1. A criminal statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must guess at its meaning and differ as to its application lacks the first essential of due process of law. P. 269 U. S. 391.

2. Oklahoma Comp.Stats. 1921, §§ 7255, 7257, imposing severe, cumulative punishments upon contractors with the State who pay their workmen less than the "current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed" held void for uncertainty. P. 269 U. S. 393.

Appeal from a decree of the District Court awarding an interlocutory injunction, upon the bill and a motion to dismiss it (demurrer), in a suit to restrain state and county officials of Oklahoma from enforcing a statute purporting, inter alia, to prescribe a minimum for the wages of workmen employed by contractors in the execution of contracts with the State, and imposing fine or imprisonment for each day's violation.

Page 269 U. S. 388