Parker v. Municipal Judge of City of Las Vegas

The court rules unconstitutional the Las Vegas vagrancy ordinance because it makes a crime of status. In other words, society is not punishing an overt act coupled with intent, classically the elements of a crime, but the “status or being” of a person at a given time, such as indigency, addiction to narcotics or alcohol, being a tramp or bum or idle or dissolute person.

The ordinance is declared unconstitutional on the authority of City of Reno v. District Court, 83 Nev. 201, 427 P.2d 4 (1967) (to which I dissented, and in which dissent I persist); Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962);…