just how broad it is and we can see that when we look at how it was applied to the plaintiffs and none of them was totally blocking the sidewalk none of them was crowding anybody whatever crowding means and none of them was annoying or an so the only question we have to ask i think is is whether these three words in the stance that we just we just look at those it doesn't make any difference what the is that right magnifies any and determinate see in the three predicates because the conduct that statute regulates it is so pervasive every single act i've used in the sidewall can be construed as crowd and promoting stuff and so this statute limits everyday life and appeals they used the word obstruct but the court the alabama court based its judgment as it said that there must be an actual showing of blocking told them to leave and all but two of them left so when the officers came back approximately an hour later there were two young man standing in a private yard next to a sidewalk and one of them left and so you just had one person left now this is arrested for blocking what he was arrested for and promoting proud and obstructing the sidewalk and in that case judge dixon said look for the officer to issue a dispersal order i don't even think the officer must have probable cause that that person is she was crowding and structuring or blocking so you have a plaintiffs each one of them was standing on a sidewalk and each one of them was told to leave because they were not in motion and each one of them was arrested and in each one of these cases the person was using the sidewall the way people use it every day and the statute applied directly to them they were they they were doing according to the statute it you see here's the thing there is they rejected this use of the single word blog and they retained each of these three words and under the canons of construction if you've got three words each one of them has a different meaning by council under our decision and we took a slightly different approach to that interpretive question and we said that where you have more than one word that are getting at different facets of a recognizable problem you read them together and you understand them to be aiming at that common who are doesn't that go a long way to fixing a problem that you identify here in the sense that obstructing crowding or incom mode in the use of sidewalks and passages is clearly understood or made is susceptible of being clearly understood to mean getting in the way words in the statute you take consideration of the legislative history and a situation like this when you're asking yourself are these three separate words each with a discrete meaning or is this just one you know terry tara and the d c meaning of each one of these terms is the one that is distinguishes it from the other words mr cleaver where would you point us to for the what you rely on the d c council saying each term has a separate meaning and in particular the meaning of incom the statute before it was amended and proposed the legislation which used the word block and then on page seven of that committee report that's the report of the judiciary committee the judiciary committee looks at each one of the words and explains why it's retaining those three words instead of accepting the proposal of the subcommittee report to use the supreme court upheld in camera where the court instructed that words like obstruct or unreasonably interfere require no guessing as to that meaning the prohibition against crime being obstructed in committing is further limited by its application to a defined set of circumstances conduct that physically blocks or impede the use of public thoroughfares such cycles your position that the conduct of the plaintiffs in this case is covered that they allege assuming it's true which of course it's only an allegation complaint is here full not to take a position on whether there was obstruction and what they say is that people were free to come and go around but the picture of mr agnew's standing on the porch is that conduct that violates the s photo itself wouldn't appear to be how about the description of the other two plaintiffs as they're described in that in the complaint violation or not yes miss williams and the conduct that was described in the officers at the time said that she was obstructing the use of a sidewalk so again there's an officer said that but the complaint describes conduct that she w its fully reflect obstruction of the sidewalk or the entryway and what of that mr dennis was on a ramp mr agnew was in for on the stoop and so the officers noted  district court record below but they may be so mr dan as if someone were standing in his yard on a ramp a few feet in from the porch of his apartment building and an officer wanted to the statute allow me to tell him to move on or not would that person be covered or not this is the dennis issue or the statute itself requires crowding obstructing her in committing the use of the sidewalk or public thoroughfare the entrance to a building and as the officer said someone would have had to alter their course and therefore it's obstructing crowding our encoding do you accept that understanding that might be necessary but not necessarily sufficient what would be sufficient if the actual use of the sidewalk were being obstructed so for example if people two people are sort of coming and going in sort of one sort of makes room with their shopping bag passing another person the use of the sidewalk is not being obstructed in that example even if someone might have to sort of nudge to one side obstruction or crowding obstruction or incommode in the use of or the entry to requires more than it did minimus a sort of interaction and the statutory language itself makes that clear how does it make that clear the statute specifically says that crowding obstruction or in moving requires in order to crowd obstruct or incommode the use of at the entry to so that's a functional standard it involves something that the officer can observe to take into account the context of the situation of the district's position was that there needn't actually be anyone being blocked is that the district business or not that the that you can look at someone all alone on a sidewalk and decide that that is crowding obstructing our income it could for mr claiborne was to focus on the word use you read the word use of the statute let me let me put it in the water why would you argue that it doesn't require actually blocking  or crowding the use of something let me let me let you make art i'll clarify at the far end of the spectrum it's possible for someone to arrange themselves on a sidewalk or example sumo wrestler sitting on the sidewalk near a sidewalk and out salute obstructing the entire sidewalk the officer could observe that behavior without having another pedestrian go by but there's no there's more than that officer under d c law must actually observe the crowd in its obstructed in committee so the officer him or herself could clearly be the person who is actually interacting with the statute requires that adams construed this terminology without the disorderly conduct element to and on a on a sidewalk or park in an entry way but there isn't any need to show that anyone w actually blocked right what i did was a case under the old disorderly assembly statute and there the information failed to charge an offense that there was no sort of it i it took it prevented someone from being prosecuted for the innocent including if you will and the statute you're solves that problem very expressively by requiring that the statute only applies and this is another limiting factor of the statute were person continues or resumes the carding obstructing or in voting after one being informed that they were crowding of st getting i read that argument in your brief and i'm just not sure on reflection that it does the work that you attributed to him and this is the difficulty rick but i have been in light of morale  if you have a statute that covers conduct that gets vague let's say and i'm sitting on my sidewalk in front of my house on the sidewalk with my tool bag and i'm reading the fox and i'm actually blocking the statute at the sidewalk and a police officer comes and says move along and i think innocent living i have no intention of blocking nobody's come by here in the last three hours if they do  move and the officers as move along and i see why i don't think i'm getting any law and the officer says yes you are move along so it hasn't actually narrowed the statute or rendered it clear that the officer has told me that i'm in violation so if there's if if and it may be you know you may win on some other ground but if it isn't the case that the statute is there in the way the plaint definition then i would be calling to agree this case would look a lot like marlice the problem is that we know from cameron and frankly a long line of cases that says when you  obstructing that is you know essentially wrongful conduct the city has a duty to keep public thoroughfare sidewalks roads entrances to public buildings a free and clear and so th statute is aimed precisely at wrongful behavior and we know that it isn't but there isn't any intent or carmen is there there other than the move along the border and the failure to respond there's no intent requirement well there's actually two responses one there was actually no quote unquote intent requirement in cameron either and that's in trouble the supreme court at all and my sense from reading that is sometimes used to see whether one can mitigate any vagueness that might be found in the statute here the district looks to the statute and this interaction with the officer whether it's actually back and forth that would establish purpose is essentially mitigating anything else that could be in the statute but as the district screen puts forth we don't rely on that for the constitutionality of the statute even if there wasn't materially alter it or is it is in your view is in committing repetition of obstructing are crowding the definitions of each term make clear that these are overlapping definitions the only are not in the case of in dictionary definitions overlap so as a literal matter in committing was a term more often used a good vibe the phrase crowding obstruction including comes from eighteen ninety two right and one of the reasons  that the counsel maintain that language is because it has a long socially a long history of being applied right that it's interesting because i was trying to get a handle on what does it mean and i was looking at some of the older d c cases and there's a  court of appeals case a person versus marsh that defines incommode as causing inconvenience and when you i mean that you know there is a range of definitions of incommode one can mean you know hinder but there's also the sort of more subjective convenience and that's what causes concern in the statute like this is when officers are invited to understand it in that more open ended open to interpretation and you know is it annoy is it no apparent purpose or is it something objective and to the extent that many of the definitions talk about inconvenience to passers by it it's does seem to have more of the flavor of those those problematic terms let me address that directly and specifically mr claiborne argument that incommode is essentially synonymous with the word annoying that may be true as a matter i would say inconvenience so inconvenience probably has to means one might sort of order all in annoyance but the other one is essentially to physically sort of impede and that's the way the statute uses the term there's just like there's no such thing as a noise in the use of the sidewalk the inconveniencing the use of the sidewalk it makes just as much sense as sort of impeding the use of a sidewalk or hindering so in that sense inconvenience simply sort of again sort of just creates a broader statute than the one  mr mr claiborne would prefer but that's no reason that the statute does say so if it doesn't require that anyone actually be blocked with the caveat that the officer him or herself it's i think so not unlocked it's might be as the officer in think it was in this in this case said a citizen trying to use the walkway would have had to deviate from the path is that permissible or are exotic and you i mean is that a coup or an exotic interpretation in your view of what the statute covers a citizen trying to use a walker would have to deviate covered or not it might depend on of the obstruction so if one had to actually hop off the sidewalk into the road and walk around then i would say that would be a common you know use a very sort of middle of the road use one gets closer and closer to how far off the path if you deviated you know that's where there is sort of a gray area but the supreme court has been very clear that these kinds of lying trying problems are not void for vagueness issues there was solved by the application of reasonable doubt the officer must eventually the district of columbia ultimately must prove this obstruction and so issues sort of matters of degree don't raise the vague void for vagueness the question the difficulty here and i understand you know that obviously the difficulty in writing a statute that's clear i'd like i'd like to know what would be lost if incom out because if you had a statute that said obstruct or crowd it would seem to be more constrained i'm not sure if you agree you were a little wobbly when i said it including cover more i don't think it covers more i would also say that the the fact that words are known by their associates again this is just the statutory canon the the terms sort of converge a core course of conduct and so even if there were sort of outlier dictionary types of definitions look at the fact that the crowding of start here in converting comes in a phrase and that phrase is rooted  this is used by police officers out in public and the statute unlike the statute that we looked at in bronstein covers a huge amount of contact right it covers pedestrians in the street avenue alley road highway are side block the entrance of any public or private building or enclosure and pretty much most normal uses of most wittes of sideway walks and entrances partially obstruct other people's use of those places so the difficulty is if you have officers who are wanting to bear down on certain components is it isn't really what in the statute gives them a limit that they know how to keep within and that doesn't just give them a move on border control over everybody that's the difficulty and we have the record also of the very high rates of usage of these kind of public order statutes by them in d c out of line with cities all over the country well actually so the record reflects so in two thousand and ni when the district of columbia began thinking about reorganizing the disorderly conduct shape statute it's in the legislative record here incommode in offenses were twenty seven  rare and lot across arenas for relatively flat across time the the point that you're making though about how do we sort of you get into the narrowing in response to the judge phillips question you gave some statistics about how the statute actually used in the district is that relevant to this case not at all this this court is reviewing the statutory language of the district of columbia submission is that the statutory language in no way puts forward a standard statute that vests unlimited discretion in law enforcement officers and  over the protesters who were lying on the ground in the courts have this is an example of incommode and that's how they describe this behavior and so it was important to the court there that there was a finding of intentional blocking and but it's your view that that's not required intent intentional blocky instead going to come from the very fact of obstructing it was circumstantial evidence of intent people are lying down trying to actually make it hard for people to go into the to the congressional building besides they want to draw attention to their point so there  the fact of obstruction you're absolutely right about tater tots that's exactly the court's will obviously this is purposeful and therefore you know we don't need to show breach or of peace again this is the prior version of the statute which sort of emerged from from common law certainly having a purpose in your stock shoot is help here it's arguably in their twenty's you don't need the with respect to whether the statutes applied to my clients the district always took the position in the district court that the sections that are part of my client and i make that point in my brief another now this statute is applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner and this african americans i see monetary relief on behalf of those clients and also the supreme court in johnson has made clear that if the statute is very good in one application it's made in ever single application and i argued both in the district court and in this court that that renders this facial as applied just negatory and i pointed out that in johnson you there is simply and following decisions by the supreme court there's just they don't even use the term facially they don't use the term applied there's a fifth amendment vagueness challenge the statutes either they or it's not and i do think logically and as a matter of law as you were suggesting in one of your questions to counsel that if you