336 U.S. 77 (1949)
Kovacs was found guilty in the Trenton police court of violating section 4 of Ordinance No. 430 of the City of Trenton, New Jersey, which made it unlawful to operate sound trucks or similar devices emitting loud and raucous noises on public streets.1
A city patrolman testified at trial that he heard a sound truck broadcasting music on a public street near the municipal building. As he approached the truck, the music stopped and he heard a man's voice broadcasting from the truck. Kovacs admitted that he operated the mechanism for the music and spoke into the amplifier, and the broadcasting concerned a labor dispute then in progress in Trenton.2
Kovacs's conviction was upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Kovacs v. Cooper, 135 N.J.L. 64, 50 A.2d 451. The judgment was affirmed without a majority opinion by the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals in an equally divided court, with the dissents reported at 135 N.J.L. 584, 52 A.2d 806. The United States Supreme Court took jurisdiction to review the constitutional challenges.3
Kovacs challenged the ordinance on its face and as applied on the ground that it violated rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assemblage, and freedom to communicate information and opinions under the Fourteenth Amendment. He also challenged the ordinance as violative of the Due Process Clause on the ground that it was so obscure, vague, and indefinite as to be impossible of reasonably accurate interpretation.4
Whether the section and the conviction are in contravention of rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assemblage and freedom to communicate information and opinions to others under the Fourteenth Amendment?5
The Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and communication of information, but these rights are not absolute; a municipality may exercise its police power to prohibit sound trucks emitting loud and raucous noises on public streets when the regulation reasonably protects community tranquility and well-being without imposing prior censorship on the content of speech.6
No. The Trenton ordinance, as construed by the New Jersey courts, applies only to vehicles equipped with sound amplifiers that emit loud and raucous noises while operated or standing on public streets, alleys, or thoroughfares.7 Kovacs was found guilty after a patrolman located his sound truck on a public street near the municipal building, heard music followed by a voice broadcast concerning a labor dispute, and Kovacs admitted operating the music mechanism and speaking into the amplifier.8 This constitutes a permissible regulation of the time, place, and manner of amplified speech rather than an absolute ban or prior restraint of the type invalidated in Saia v. New York, because the ordinance leaves open alternative channels such as unamplified speech, pamphlets, and newspapers while addressing the evil of intrusive noise that renders unwilling listeners practically helpless.9 The police power extends to protecting the quiet and safety of city streets from mechanical amplification that would otherwise be dangerous to traffic and destructive of residential tranquility.10
The ordinance and Kovacs's conviction do not contravene the freedoms of speech, assembly, or communication protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.11
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Frankfurter concurred in the judgment on the ground that the Constitution does not bar New Jersey from authorizing Trenton to address the aural aggressions of sound trucks through the chosen means.12 He rejected any presumption of invalidity for legislation touching communication and emphasized that the phrase preferred position of freedom of speech is mischievous if it implies that laws affecting speech carry a presumptive constitutional infirmity.13 Instead, he viewed the case as requiring vigilant judicial self-restraint in accommodating liberty and order, noting that sound trucks raise problems distinct from natural speech and that legislative judgment, not judicial supervision, should set the terms of their operation so long as content is not censored.14
Justice Jackson joined the judgment because mechanical sound-amplifying devices conflict with the quiet enjoyment of homes and parks and the safe use of streets, making them subject to regulation or prohibition by local authority.15 He stressed that no violation of due process arises unless the regulation censors broadcast content, and he viewed freedom of speech as not including the right to use amplifiers to drown out others.16 He noted that each medium of communication has its own nature and dangers, so sustaining the sound-truck ban does not automatically validate similar rules for press or radio, and he concurred only on the basis of his prior dissent in Saia.17
Joined by Justices Douglas And Rutledge
Justice Black dissented on the ground that the ordinance as charged, tried, and affirmed by the New Jersey Supreme Court constituted an absolute prohibition of all sound amplifiers on public streets without regard to volume.18 He argued that affirming the conviction required reinterpreting the ordinance to reach loud and raucous noises only, thereby punishing Kovacs for an offense neither charged nor proved, in violation of due process.19
Black maintained that the decision repudiated Saia v. New York by denying amplifiers the constitutional protection accorded other instruments of communication.20
He contended that the First Amendment requires equal freedom for all present and future means of disseminating ideas rather than favoring established media.21
Justice Rutledge dissented separately, agreeing with Black that a majority of the Court accepted the absolute-prohibition reading of the ordinance yet a different majority sustained it anyway, leaving Kovacs convicted of an offense whose definition no single majority could agree upon.22 He contended that such ambiguity itself violates due process and that the First Amendment does not limit speech protection to the natural human voice as it existed in 1790.23 Rutledge would permit reasonable regulation of amplifiers but not their total prohibition, warning that the decision leaves open whether absolute bans on sound trucks can stand consistently with free expression.24
Whether the ordinance is so obscure, vague, and indefinite as to be impossible of reasonably accurate interpretation in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?25
A criminal ordinance satisfies due process if the words defining the prohibited conduct, though abstract, have through daily use acquired a sufficiently accurate meaning that conveys to interested persons a reasonably clear concept of what is forbidden, as distinguished from statutes that leave persons uncertain about the kind of conduct prohibited.26
No. The words loud and raucous in section 4 of the Trenton ordinance have through daily use acquired a content that conveys a sufficiently accurate concept of the forbidden conduct.27 The state courts construed the provision to reach only vehicles carrying instruments emitting such noises while on public streets, and the patrolman's testimony established that Kovacs operated the device in that manner.28 This standard is comparable to permissible statutory language such as obscene, lewd, or lascivious that the Court has upheld, rather than the unconstitutional vagueness found in the massing of crime stories at issue in Winters v. New York.29 The ordinance therefore provides fair notice and is capable of reasonably accurate interpretation.30
The ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague or indefinite under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.31