Court Slams Chicago Gang Law

Few Supreme Court cases are simple, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart, but this one was. Tired of gang violence, Chicago had passed a law giving cops the right to bust up any group of people just standing around if they thought even one was a gang member. On Thursday, the Supreme Court said: you can't do that.

The court ruled the 1992 anti-loitering ordinance, which resulted in 45,000 arrests in the three years it was enforced, violated the rights of the people police arrested under it because it did not give them adequate notice what was forbidden.

The ruling limits communities' options in battling problems caused by street gangs.

The ordinance required police to order any group of people standing around "with no apparent purpose" to move along if an officer believed at least one of them belonged to a street gang. Those who disregarded the order would be arrested.

The Illinois Supreme Court had struck down the law, calling its language too vague and ruling that it gave police officers too much discretion in deciding whether there had been a violation.

Thursday's decision said the state court was right.

In a 6-3 vote, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority: "(Chicago) has enacted an ordinance that affords too much discretion to the police, and too little notice to citizens."

Stevens, the highest court's only Chicago native, said the law required police to tell people to move on without inquiring about their purpose in standing around.

"It matters not whether the reason that a gang member and his father, for example, might loiter near Wrigley Field is to rob an unsuspecting fan or just to get a glimpse of Sammy Sosa leaving the ballpark," he said. "In either, if their purpose is not apparent to a nearby police officer, she (the officer) indeed, she 'shall' order them to disperse."

In finding fault with the law, Stevens was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

O'Connor, Kennedy and Breyer wrote separate opinions explaining their views.

Conservatives, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, disagreed. "The citizens of Chicago have decided that depriving themselves of the freedom to 'hang out' with a gang member is necessary (in order) to eliminate gang crime Â… This court has no business second-guessing (that decision)," wrote Scalia.

The Clinton administration, 31 states, the National League of Cities, U.S. Mayors Conference and National Governors Association sided with Chicago and urged the court to reinstate the ordinance.

The ordinance's opponents included the NAACP and other civil rights groups, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Black Police Association.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley immediately promised to draft another anti-gang law, saying residents just want to walk the street in safety. "They can't go there - the gangs and drug delers own the corners - and that's what this is all about," said Daley.

Pointing to the gang graffiti in many neighborhoods, activist Jeffrey Haynes agreed. "You can drive down any street on the south side of Chicago, the west side of Chicago, and you can't even get through," said Haynes. "You have to wait for these thugs to finish their dope business."

Now it's back to the drawing board. Chicago or any other city that wants to target gang members on city streets is free to do so, the court seemed to be saying, but only after you've answered one simple question: How do you tell who's a real gang member and who isn't?