GIACCIO v. PENNSYLVANIA
No. 47
Supreme Court of the United States
January 19, 1966
382 U.S. 399
Argued December 6, 1965.
John S. Halsted argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Walter E. Alessandroni, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Graeme Murdock, Deputy Attorney General, and A. Alfred Delduco.
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.1 In a trial bеfore 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,2 provides among other things that:
“... in all cases of acquittals by the petit jury on indictmеnts for [offenses other than felonies], the jury trying the same shall determine, by their verdict, whether the county, or the prosecutor, or the
defendant shall pay the costs . . . and whenever the jury shall determine as aforesaid, thаt 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 pаid, unless he give security to pay the same within ten days.”
Appellant made timely objections to the validity of this statute on several grounds,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 рay said costs forthwith or give security to pay the same within ten (10) days and to stand committed until he had complied therewith.”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.”5
The State Supreme Court, again with one judge dissenting, agreed with the Superior Court and affirmed its judg-
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 maсhinery 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 аn 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
3. The State cоntends 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
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 judgmеnts 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 whiсh standing alone is void for vagueness.
Reversed and remanded.
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 somеwhat 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 mаny 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 thаt 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 hаs been charged.
Notes
“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 whеther 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 thе 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 prоsecutor 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.”