Kolender v. Lawson

Lawson (defendant) was detained or arrested fifteen times between 1975 and 1977 under a California statute requiring street loiterers to provide "credible and reliable identification" to any officer who asked, but he was convicted only once. After that conviction, he sued to have the statute declared unconstitutional. The district court agreed, and the court of appeals affirmed, finding the statute lacked a specific enforcement standard and failed to give fair notice of the prohibited conduct as required by the Due Process Clause.