Boyce Motor Lines v. United States/Dissent Jackson

by Robert H. Jackson

United States Supreme Court

342 U.S. 337

Boyce Motor Lines  v.  United States

 Argued: Dec. 4, 1951. --- Decided: Jan 28, 1952

Mr. Justice JACKSON, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER join, dissenting.

Congress apparently found the comprehensive regulation needed for the transportation of explosives and inflammables too intricate and detailed for its own processes. It delegated the task of framing regulations to the Interstate Commerce Commission and made a knowing violation of them criminal. Where the federal crimemaking power is delegated to such a body, we are justified in requiring considerable precision in its exercise. Kraus & Bros. v. United States, 327 U.S. 614, 621-622, 66 S.Ct. 705, 707-708, 90 L.Ed. 894.

This regulation does not prohibit carriage of explosives. It presupposes that they must be transported, and, therefore, attempts to lay down a rule for choice of routings. Petitioner was admonished to avoid congested thoroughfares, places where crowds are assembled, streetcar tracks, tunnels, viaducts and dangerous crossings. Nobody suggests that it was possible to avoid all of these in carrying this shipment from its origin to its destination. Nor does the regulation require that all of any one of them be avoided except 'so far as practicable.' I do not disagree with the opinion of Chief Justice Hughes and the Court in Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 52 S.Ct. 581, 76 L.Ed. 1167, that, in the context in which it was used, "Shortest practicable route' is not an expression too vague to be understood.' A basic standard was prescribed with definiteness-distance. That ordinarily was to prevail, and, if departed from, the trucker was to be prepared to offer practical justifications.

But the regulation before us contains no such definite standard from which one can start in the calculation of his duty. It leaves all routes equally open and all equally closed. The carrier must choose what is 'practicable,' not, as in the Sproles case, by weighing distance against obstacles to passage. We may, of course, take judicial notice of geography. Delivery of these goods was impossible except by passing through many congested thoroughfares and either tunnels, viaducts or bridges. An explosion would have been equally dangerous and equally incriminating in any of them. What guidance can be gleaned from this regulation as to how one could with reasonable certainty make a choice of routes that would comply with its requirements?

It is said, however, that definiteness may be achieved on the trial because expert testimony will advise the jury as to what routes are preferable. Defects in that solution are twofold: first, there is no standard by which to direct, confine and test the expert opinion testimony and, second, none to guide a jury in choosing between conflicting expert opinions.

It is further suggested that a defendant is protected against indefiniteness because conviction is authorized only for knowing violations. The argument seems to be that the jury can find that defendant knowingly violated the regulation only if it finds that it knew the meaning of the regulation he was accused of violating. With the exception of Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495, which rests on a very particularized basis, the knowledge requisite to knowing violation of a statute is factual knowledge as distinguished from knowledge of the law. I do not suppose the Court intends to suggest that if petitioner knew nothing of the existence of such a regulation its ignorance would constitute a defense.

This regulation prescribes no duty in terms of a degree of care that must be exercised in moving the shipment. The utmost care would not protect defendant from prosecution under it. One can learn his duty from such terms as 'reasonable care' or 'high degree of care.' Of course, one may not be sure whether a trier of fact will find particular conduct to measure up to the requirements of the law, but he may learn at least what he must strive for, and that is more than he can learn from this regulation.

This question is before this Court on the indictment only. In some circumstances we might feel it better that a case should proceed to trial and our decision be reserved until a review of the conviction, if one results. But a trial can give us no better information than we have now as to whether this regulation contains sufficiently definite standards and definition of the crime. An acquittal or disagreement would leave this unworkable, indefinite regulation standing as the only guide in a matter that badly needs intelligible and rather tight regulation. It would remain, at least to some extent, as an incoherent barrier against state enactment or enforcement of local regulations of the same subject. Would it not be in the public interest as well as in the interest of justice to this petitioner to pronounce this vague regulation invalid, so that those who are responsible for the supervision of this dangerous traffic can go about the business of framing a regulation that will specify intelligible standards of conduct?

Notes