Kolender v Lawson is a court case that started in San Diego California and was taken all the way to the Supreme Court. This case changed the California Penal Code 647(e) which originally allowed law enforcement to unfairly discriminate against Black people. This change made it more difficult for cops to discriminate and brought the law into question-based on the 4th Amendment. Edward Lawson was key in bringing national attention to this case and raised awareness about discrimination and police brutality. Lawson represented himself in this case and built a platform for his activism which he continued until he passed away.

This case started between 1975 and 1977. During this time, there were many legal changes regarding racial injustice. This was only about twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education which determined that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. It was also only about thirty years after the Supreme Court case that ruled enforcing covenants used in housing as unconstitutional. Although these changes in the law had been shaped, the ideas, beliefs, and practices behind these laws had been institutionalized into society. This caused change to happen very slowly, as it is still changing today. One issue that is still being dealt with today is the police force’s prejudice towards people of color. This was especially an issue between 1975 and 1977 for Edward Lawson. He was an African American businessman in San Diego and police arrested or detained him fifteen times within these two years. He was prosecuted twice and convicted once. This was all based on California Penal Code 647(e).¹ This law stated that if someone was loitering or wandering, if stopped by police “with probable cause” they must provide identification and have a reason for being there.² This law is considered a vagrancy law.

Vagrancy laws make it a criminal offense to wander without visible means of work or without a home if they are able-bodied. These laws usually impact homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Originating in England, these laws were being enforced well before settlers came to the United States and brought them along. In the California Law Review, Arthur Sherry discusses the vagrancy law of California and says, “It is faithful to the concept of status as a basis for punishment… it is just as vague, just as indiscriminate and just as subject to abuse as any of the others”.³ Sherry also discusses the slight changes made to the wording of the law and how reluctant people were to make any changes. A new draft of the statute was set to be voted on in 1961. There was specificity added to this draft, as California had run into many problems involving the vagueness of the previous version. The wording was also changed to get rid of penalization based on someone’s status and instead enforced penalization based on actions.

Although some changes were made to the law, it was still too vague. This led to the incidents involving Lawson who was taken to court. According to the Supreme Court case document, Lawson brought the case to the District Court. In this decision, the court found that the law was too broad because “a person who is stopped on less than probable cause cannot be punished for failing to identify himself”.⁴ It was also ruled that Lawson would not be able to recover damages from the officers. After this decision, the Deputy Chief Commander appealed the decision and Lawson cross-appealed. The appeals court then determined that the law was unconstitutional because it violated the 4th Amendment (Cannot search or seize without good reason), enforcement standards were too vague, and the type of conduct that was prohibited had inadequate notice. It was also decided that Lawson could have a jury trial to establish what the officers owed in damages. This case was then taken to the U.S. Supreme Court. Linda Greenhouse wrote an article about the U.S. Supreme Court decision which was published in the New York Times the day after the decision was made. In this article, she wrote that the vote was 7 to 2, against the vagrancy law. It was determined that the law was unconstitutional based on the 14^th Amendment and the void-for-vagueness doctrine. In her article, Greenhouse quotes Justice O’Connor who says, “The void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement”. The case was won in regard to the 14^th Amendment, but not when it came to the 4th Amendment. There were many people, including Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. who felt that the court should have also ruled the law unconstitutional based on the 4^th Amendment.⁵ This would have made it more difficult for police to search and seize. This case was a big stride not only legally, in California and the United States as a whole, it also helped raise awareness.

This story started in San Diego and made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Because it went so far, the case caught attention from the media. It was written about in many major magazines, for example, the New York Times article mentioned previously was one of multiple published in the New York Times. That does not include several other newspapers that published articles about the case. This attention also brought awareness of discrimination in general and more specifically the prejudice used in the police force towards people of color. Dan Stormer and Paul Bernstein discuss this issue in depth in their article The Impact of Kolender v. Lawson on Law Enforcement and Minority Groups. In this article, they discuss the Terry v Ohio case which decided that an officer could stop and question a person with reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. For Lawson and other Black people, this meant police could stop and question them just for walking through a neighborhood. It also determined that “The officer may arrest the suspect only if the questioning elicits additional evidence that raises his reasonable suspicion to probable cause”.⁶ This part of the ruling caused police to believe they could arrest someone simply for not providing identification. This ruling was meant to help but still made it easy for police to arrest people based on the penal code. This article points out that based on the penal code, the court stated that the cops have to make moment-to-moment judgments which can lead to “harsh and discriminatory enforcement”.⁷ This article goes on to discuss the lack of training and guidance for the police force, how police target minority groups, and how police are more likely to stop and arrest minorities based on their own prejudice. Not only did this case receive a lot of attention from the media, but so did Edward Lawson.

Edward Lawson won this case at the level of the U.S. supreme court and did so while representing himself. These two aspects combined put the spotlight on him. This helped him raise his platform as an activist which he used until he passed away in 2011. He helped in other court cases and went on national television to discuss issues about the law, the constitution, police brutality, and discrimination. He was on many well-known shows like the Oprah show and CNN. For example, he appears on CNN’s Sonya Live Show. He discusses the constitution with the dean of Northwestern University.⁸ This shows that many others considered Lawson to be reputable. He was known as an activist and continued to work towards change for the rest of his life.

This court case changed the California Penal Code 647(e) which needed to be changed for a long time and was a stepping stone to change other laws and raise awareness about discrimination towards Black people. Lawson played a substantial role in this decision and continued to do everything he could to continue making a change. Although this was helpful, changing laws can only do so much. What really needs to change is racist and prejudice mindsets. Lawson worked hard to change racism and discrimination and did so in many ways, including changing the penal code and through his discussions. However, this specific change is one that will likely take a long time. What can we do as a society to get rid of these mindsets and create a truly integrated and equal country?

Notes

1. Kolender v Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983).
2. Kolender v Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983).
3. Arthur H. Sherry, Vagrants, Rogues and Vagabonds- -Old Concepts in Need of Revision, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 557 (1960), page 562.
4. Kolender v Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983).
5. Greenhouse, Linda. “Justices Overturn Vagrancy Law Requiring Identification for Police.” New York Times, May 3, 1983.
6. Dan Stormer and Paul Bernstein, The Impact of Kolender v. Lawson on Law Enforcement and Minority Groups, 12 Hastings Bus L.J. 105 (1984), 110.
7. Stormer and Bernstein, The Impact of Kolender v. Lawson on Law Enforcement and Minority Groups, 111.
8.  ECL2012. Edward C. Lawson on CNN’s SONYA LIVE, April 1987 Part 1/3. Filmed [April 1987]. Youtube video, 09:59. Posted [November 2011]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z72pA95o28.

Bibliography

Arthur H. Sherry, Vagrants, Rogues and Vagabonds–Old Concepts in Need of Revision, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 557 (1960).

Dan Stormer and Paul Bernstein, The Impact of Kolender v. Lawson on Law Enforcement and Minority Groups, 12 Hastings Bus L.J. 105 (1984).

ECL2012. Edward C. Lawson on CNN’s SONYA LIVE, April 1987 Part 1/3. Filmed [April 1987]. Youtube video, 09:59. Posted [November 2011]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z72pA95o28

ECL2012. Edward C. Lawson on CNN’s SONYA LIVE, April 1987 Part 2/3. Filmed [April 1987]. Youtube video, 07:25. Posted [November 2011]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex8kqzplT8Q&t=83s

ECL2012. Edward C. Lawson on CNN’s SONYA LIVE, April 1987 Part 3/3. Filmed [April 1987]. Youtube video, 04:27. Posted [November 2011]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bbv-ZSwp80

Greenhouse, Linda. “Justices Overturn Vagrancy Law Requiring Identification for Police.” New York Times, May 3, 1983. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/03/us/justices-overturn-vagrancy-law-requiring-identification-for-police.html

Kolender v Lawson, 461 U.S. 352 (1983)