Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 60 | Issue 5 Article 3 10-2007 Ruling Out the Rule of Law Kim Forde-Mazrui Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Rule of Law Commons Recommended Citation Kim Forde-Mazrui, Ruling Out the Rule of Law, 60 Vanderbilt Law Review 1495 (2019) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol60/iss5/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ruling Out the Rule of Law Kim Forde-Mazrui 60 Vand. L. Rev. 1497 (2007) Although criminal justice scholars continue to debate the overall value of the void-for-vagueness doctrine, broad consensus prevails that requiring crimes to be defined in specific terms reduces law enforcement discretion. A few scholars have questioned this assumption, but the conventional view remains dominant. This Article intends to resolve the question whether the void-for-vagueness doctrine really reduces police discretion. It focuses on traffic enforcement, a context in which laws are both specific and subject to discretionary enforcement. The Article concludes that specific rules do not constrain discretion unless judicial limits are placed either on the scope of activities that may be criminalized or on police authority to under- enforce the laws. The Article also argues that the Supreme Court's response to specific-rule discretion is inadequate. The Court reassures us that the Equal Protection Clause protects against discriminatory traffic enforcement.