Also known as: loiter · loiters · loitered
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct consisting of remaining in a public place without an apparent purpose or legitimate reason. The offense is frequently defined by statutes that authorize police dispersal when circumstances warrant alarm for safety, yet such definitions often fail to supply objective standards.
Police in Chicago order suspected gang members to leave a street corner because they have remained in one place with no apparent purpose. The individuals refuse to move and are arrested under the ordinance. A court later invalidates the law because the undefined phrase supplies no fair notice and permits arbitrary enforcement.
An officer stops Hiibel on a rural road after receiving a report of a disturbance and asks for his name and destination. Hiibel remains silent and is charged under a statute that treats refusal to identify during a loitering-related investigation as an offense. The Court upholds the requirement because the stop itself rests on reasonable suspicion rather than the loitering definition alone.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Lawson walks repeatedly through San Diego neighborhoods at night and is stopped fifteen times. Each time officers demand credible identification under a loitering statute and arrest him when he cannot produce it. The Court invalidates the statute because the credible-and-reliable standard leaves too much to officer discretion.
Los Angeles police cite homeless individuals for sitting or lying on sidewalks under an ordinance that effectively punishes their inability to leave public spaces. The Ninth Circuit holds that the law criminalizes status rather than conduct and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment.
An officer observes three men pacing in front of a store and suspects they are casing it for robbery. The officer stops them for loitering and conducts a limited pat-down that reveals weapons. The Court upholds the stop and frisk because the suspicious conduct supplied reasonable suspicion independent of the loitering label.
Jacksonville police arrest Papachristou and others for loitering and common-thief status after they are found in public places without visible means of support. The Court reverses the convictions because the ordinance supplies no ascertainable standard and invites arbitrary enforcement against disfavored persons.
Due process requires that criminal laws give fair notice of prohibited conduct and supply clear standards to prevent arbitrary enforcement. Ordinances that define loitering as remaining in one place with no apparent purpose leave both elements to subjective officer judgment, as illustrated by the repeated invalidation of such statutes.
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The MPC requires that the person loiter under circumstances that warrant alarm for safety and gives officers a duty to request identification and an explanation before arrest. A true explanation that would have dispelled alarm bars conviction, supplying an objective check absent from purely subjective no-apparent-purpose statutes.
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Enforcement against expressive activity heightens vagueness concerns because the ordinance supplies no objective criteria distinguishing protected presence from prohibited lingering. Courts have struck down such applications when officers rely solely on the absence of an apparent commercial or professional purpose.
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An officer may stop a person suspected of loitering when the conduct supplies reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The stop itself must rest on articulable facts rather than the loitering label alone, and any frisk is limited to weapons.
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…committed or (3) a crime was about to be committed. The opinion of the Court disclaims the existence of "probable cause." If loitering were in issue and that was the offense charged, there would be "probable cause" shown. But the crime here is carrying concealed weapons; and there is no basis for concluding that the…