Bouie v. City of Columbia

Background

Two Black college students sat at the restaurant counter of a drugstore in Columbia, South Carolina, where the store served Black customers in other departments but kept the restaurant for whites. After they took seats, an employee put up a chain and a "no trespassing" sign, the manager called the police, and the students refused to leave. They were arrested and convicted under a state trespass statute that on its face punished “entry upon the lands of another . . . after notice.” The State Supreme Court, however, read the law to include remaining after being told to leave and affirmed the convictions.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether the students had fair warning that staying after a request to leave would be criminal. It held they did not. The statute’s words punished entry after notice, not the separate act of remaining after being asked to leave. The state court’s unexpected judicial expansion of the statute was unforeseeable and, when applied retroactively, deprived the students of fair notice. The majority said such retroactive enlargement is like an after-the-fact change in the criminal law and violates the constitutional guarantee of fair warning in criminal cases, so the convictions were reversed.

Real world impact

The decision prevents state courts from reaching back to turn conduct that was lawful when done into a crime by sudden judicial reinterpretation. Peaceful protesters and other citizens gain protection against surprise criminal liability based on post hoc readings of narrow statutes. The opinion notes the state legislature later enacted a separate law to make refusing to leave a crime prospectively.

Dissents or concurrances

Three Justices dissented and would have upheld the convictions, believing the statute and state practice gave fair notice; two other Justices joined the reversal but stated separate reasons.