Specific Application
There are at least two ways a law might be attacked for being unconstitutionally vague:
- When a law does not specifically enumerate the practices that are either required or prohibited. In this case, the ordinary citizen does not know what the law requires. Also see Coates v. Cincinnati.
- When a law does not specifically detail the procedure followed by officers or judges of the law. As a guard, a law must particularly detail what officers are to do, providing both for what they must do and what they must not do. Judges must, under the doctrine, have a clear understanding of how they are to approach and handle a case.
Read more about this topic: Void For Vagueness
Famous quotes containing the words specific and/or application:
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island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)