Enforcing the Blue Laws: Police Discretion and the Rule of Law

The author uses the Massachusetts Sunday Closing Laws as they existed in November of 1976 as a vehicle for examining police discretion and its relationship to the rule of law.

During the 1976 Christmas season many Massachusetts retailers open/v defied the Sunday Closing Laws (Blue Laws) by opening their stores. They did so because they believed themselves to be at a significant competitive disadvantage with retailers just across the Massachusetts borders in adjacent states, who could legall/ open on Sundays. They sensed that public opinion was behind them. They also knew that a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, while refusing to enjoin the laws' enforcement, had indicated his belief that the law was unconstitutional on its face. The governor and attorney general openlv disagreed over whether the police should enforce the law.

In the midst of this turmoil were the states' police chiefs who had to formulate local enfocement policies.

The author mailed a questionnaire to each of the Massachusetts chiefs to determine: (1) what policy they had taken towards enforcement; (2) the reason for the police response; and (3) who had communicated with the chief in the decisionmaking process. Forty-four percent of the questionnaires were returned. The results showed that chiefs experiencing violations reported exercising broad discretion and did not uniformly comp/tv with the statutory enforcement mandate. The chiefs who prosecuted violators also reported that they became involved because of their own initiatives and not because of citizen requestsfor enforcement. The results further indicated that chiefs madefew communications with non-police persons prior to making their policy decision.

The author concludes that there should be wider input into the process by which chiefs decide enforcement policy. Recommendations are also proposed by which legislatures can facilitate the structuring and control of police discretion.