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Haley v. Medical Disciplinary Board11/7/1991
2, 92 S. Ct. 2294 (1972). Therefore, "a statute is not unconstitutionally vague merely because a person cannot predict with complete certainty the exact point at which his actions would be classified as prohibited conduct." Eze, at 27. " ifficulty in determining whether certain marginal offenses are within the meaning of the language under attack as vague does not automatically render a statute unconstitutional for indefiniteness." Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. 223, 231, 95 L. Ed. 886, 71 S. Ct. 703 (1951); In re Curran, 115 Wash. 2d at 758. Moreover, one to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not challenge it on the grounds that it is vague as applied to the conduct of others. Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 41 L. Ed. 2d 439, 94 S. Ct. 2547 (1974); Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 495 n.7, 71 L. Ed. 2d 362, 102 S. Ct. 1186 (1982).
Dr. Haley asserts that RCW 18.130.180(1)<!--/REF--> is vague because of its use of the term "moral turpitude". He argues that RCW 18.130.180(1)<!--/REF--> failed to give him adequate notice of what conduct was prohibited and, more generally, that the statute fails to give adequate standards in order to prevent arbitrary enforcement.
We recognize the uncertainties associated with terms such as "moral turpitude" or "immorality". Not surprisingly, courts have declared void for vagueness statutes that rely on an unrestricted application of the concept of morality. For example, in Musser v. Utah, 333 U.S. 95, 96-98, 92 L. Ed. 562, 68 S. Ct. 397 (1948), the Supreme Court stated that a state statute punishing conspiracies "to commit any act injurious . . . to public morals" might be void for vagueness unless limited by the state courts. On remand, the Utah Supreme Court concluded that the statute could not
be limited, and so declared it void. State v. Musser, 118 Utah 537, 223 P.2d 193 (1950). Commentators also have criticized the use of terms such as "moral turpitude" in professional discipline or penal statutes. E.g., Rhode, Moral Character as a Professional Credential, 94 Yale L.J. 491 (1985) (discussing moral character requirement for bar admissions); Shapiro, Morals and the Courts: The Reluctant Crusaders, 45 Minn. L. Rev. 897, 959 (1961) (arguing that the courts "will not, and cannot, manufacture a moral consensus which society has failed to find for itself").
Nonetheless, the use of vague terms does not necessarily render a statute as a whole impermissibly vague. In a vagueness challenge, we do not analyze portions of a statute in isolation from the context in which they appear. State v. Foster, 91 Wash. 2d 466, 474, 589 P.2d 789 (1979). If a statute can be interpreted so as to have as a whole the required degree of specificity, then it can withstand a vagueness challenge despite its use of a term which, when considered in isolation, has no determinate meaning.
In Morrison v. State Bd. of Educ., 1 Cal. 3d 214, 461 P.2d 375, 82 Cal. Rptr. 175 (1969), the California Supreme Court considered a vagueness challenge to a statute that authorized the California State Board of Education to revoke a teacher's teaching certificate for "immoral or unprofessional conduct" and conduct "involving moral turpitude". The court recognized that "terms such as 'immoral,' 'unprofessional,' and 'moral turpitude' constitute only lingual abstractions until applied to a specific occupation and given content by reference to fitness for the performance of that vocation." 1 Cal. 3d at 239. The court therefore construed these terms in the challenged statute to refer only to conduct that indicat
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