A Chester, Pa., ordinance making it illegal to loiter in a “high drug activity area” is too vague, a split panel of the Commonwealth Court has ruled, in addition to deciding the city had applied the law in a manner violating a teen’s Fourth Amendment rights.
The 2-1 panel, however, declined to endorse the theory of Lawrence Crews, now in his 20s, that the ordinance was overbroad. Crews, along with his mother, had sought damages alleging the city violated his civil rights. But the court decided he had abandoned that claim because he only named the officer who had charged him — who was dismissed from the case — in that part of the complaint.
