Supreme Court to Rule on Gang Loitering Curbs

The Supreme Court, in a case that could prove important to anti-gang efforts in California, announced Monday that it will consider giving the police broad powers to target gang members who gather on city streets.

The justices said they would consider reviving a sweeping anti-loitering ordinance in Chicago that empowered officers to break up groups that might “reasonably” include one gang member. Those who failed to quickly disperse could be arrested on the spot.

The Illinois Supreme Court had declared the law unconstitutional.

But if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the ordinance, it is likely to be widely copied. Officials of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Leagues of Cities and state prosecutors--including California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren--were among those urging the high court to give such anti-loitering laws a second look.

In recent years, local prosecutors in California, including Los Angeles, have gone after gangs by obtaining court orders naming particular groups and certain neighborhoods. These injunctions are credited with breaking up gang activity in some areas and they were upheld as constitutional last year by the California Supreme Court.

But the Chicago approach goes further by empowering the police to act directly and wherever they see the need, rather than requiring city prosecutors to get specific court orders.

“We looked at the California injunctions but we wanted to avoid the lengthy, burdensome process of trying to get targeted court orders. Plus, we wanted an across-the-board ordinance that would cover the whole city,” said Chicago deputy corporation counsel Lawrence Rosenthal, who drafted the measure.

Los Angeles County District Atty. Gil Garcetti said he would push to enact a similar ordinance if the Chicago measure wins the high court’s approval.

“The downside to the civil injunction process is that it takes a long time,” four to five months on average, Garcetti said. An ordinance similar to Chicago’s would streamline the anti-gang effort and allow officers to move quickly in areas where gangs congregate, he said.

Mike Qualls, a spokesman for Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, said the city has an anti-loitering ordinance that targets prostitutes and their customers but not one focused on gangs.

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Chicago lawyers, in appealing to the Supreme Court to restore the city’s ordinance, characterized criminal street gangs as an “expanding cancer” that eats away at neighborhoods. The gathering of young toughs on street corners and in parks intimidates law-abiding residents and promotes violent confrontations, they said.

The anti-loitering ordinance “restores a very traditional power to the police officer. When he sees a potential problem, he can just say to everyone, ‘Move along,’ ” said Rosenthal.

During the 1960s and 1970s, most such laws were struck down as unconstitutional because, courts ruled, they gave police too much power. Civil libertarians complained that innocent people, especially minorities and the poor, were targeted for abusive treatment.

But the tide of opinion has turned in recent years and city officials have sought to improve the quality of urban life by allowing police to take strong action against minor offenders, such as panhandlers and vagrants.

Chicago officials claimed that their ordinance cut crime and saved lives during the brief time it was in effect. In 1995, for instance, homicides among gang members fell by 26%, officials told the court.

“The great irony is that the most direct effect of this law was to save the lives of gang members, as well as those unlucky enough to be nearby when the shooting started,” Rosenthal said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, challenged the law on grounds that it allowed police to target innocent people engaged in harmless behavior.

The state high court agreed. “We hold the gang loitering ordinance is an arbitrary restriction on personal liberty,” the state judges said. “It punishes status rather than conduct and it allows arrest without probable cause.”

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The state judges relied heavily on a 1972 opinion by the late Justice William O. Douglas, one of the court’s most prominent liberals, which condemned anti-vagrancy laws for allowing the police “to round up social undesirables.” Such laws cannot stand in a free society, Douglas said.

The high court has not directly revisited the issue in the quarter century since then. And the more conservative court, led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, is not likely to follow Douglas’ lead.

The court will hear arguments in the case (Chicago vs. Morales, 97-1121) during the fall.

Times staff writer Greg Krikorian in Los Angeles contributed to this story.