Bouie vs. Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964)

FACTS: Two (2) Negro college students took seats in a booth in the restaurant department of Eckerds and waited to be served. As they were seated, the employee of the store put up a no
trespassing sign. The store manager called the police. When the police arrived, the manager asked them to leave but they did not. They were convicted by South Carolina SC on the grounds
of resisting arrest and criminal trespass.

Petitioners now contend that to construe the statute as such is violative of the due process clause since the state has punished them for conduct which was not criminal at the time they have
committed it.

ISSUE: Whether or not petitioners were denied due process of law because the statute failed to afford fair warning that the conduct for which they have been convicted had been made a crime.

RULING: Decision of the South Carolina SC was reversed. The crime for which these petitioners stand convicted was "not enumerated in the statute" at the time of their conduct. It follows
that they have been deprived of liberty and property without due process of law.

To be convicted of criminal trespassing, the law statute states: “entry upon the lands of another after notice from the owner prohibiting such entry.” The petitioners should have first been
warned prior to entering the restaurant that to do so would constitute criminal trespassing. No prior warning was made. They were only asked to leave when they were inside. The
South Carolina SC construed the statute to cover also the act of remaining on the premises of another after receiving notice to leave.

A criminal statute must give fair warning of the conduct that it makes a crime. Since the statue was specific, there was no reason to broaden its scope, for this is like an ex post facto law. Ex post facto law has two instances:
1. It makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal and punishes such action.
2. It aggravates a crime and makes it greater than it was when committed.

When an unforeseeable state-court construction of a statute is applied retroactively and subjects a person to criminal liability, it deprives that person of due process in the sense of fair warning.

Applying those principles to this case, we agree with petitioners that 16-386 of the South Carolina Code did not give them fair warning, at the time of their conduct in Eckerd's Drug Store in 1960, that the act for which they now stand convicted was rendered criminal by the statute. By its terms, the statute prohibited only "entry upon the lands of another…after notice from the owner…prohibiting such entry…" There was nothing in the statute to indicate that it also prohibited the different act of remaining on the premises after being asked to leave.

Petitioners did not violate the statute as it was written; they received no notice before entering either the drugstore or the restaurant department. Indeed, they knew they would not receive any such notice before entering the store, for they were invited to purchase everything except food there. So far as the words of the statute were concerned, petitioners were given not
only no "fair warning," but no warning whatever, that their conduct in Eckerd's Drug Store would violate the statute.