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STATE OF MICHIGAN 

COURT OF APPEALS 

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

UNPUBLISHED 

May 26, 2016 

v No. 325727 

Wayne Circuit Court 

JOSEPH STEVE MISKOVICH, LC No. 14-008948-FH 

 Defendant-Appellee. 

Before: BOONSTRA, P.J., and METER and BECKERING, JJ. 

BECKERING, J. (concurring). 

 This resisting and obstructing criminal case arises out of a post-Tigers game incident. 

The heart of the issue on appeal entails whether defendant, Joseph Miskovich, was being subject 

to a lawful arrest at the time Officer Michael Williams of the Detroit Police Department 

undertook to arrest him. Namely, plaintiff contends that defendant had violated Detroit City 

Ordinance § 38-2-2, which makes it illegal for any person to “knowingly and willfully interfere 

with or obstruct any city employee in the performance of his duties . . . .” Defendant contends 

that he did not violate the ordinance, as he was merely exercising his First Amendment right to 

free speech at the time, making his arrest for such conduct unlawful and his right to resist legal. 

I agree with the majority that sufficient evidence was presented to establish that Officer Williams 

was acting lawfully when he arrested defendant for violating the ordinance. However, I write 

separately to highlight defendant’s actions that physically obstructed Williams from performing 

his duty. 

 On September 25, 2014, Williams was directing traffic near Comerica Park after a Tigers 

game. According to Williams’ testimony at defendant’s preliminary examination, he ordered a 

group of pedestrians not to cross the street in order to let traffic proceed through the intersection. 

Defendant’s “best friend” violated Williams’ orders to wait and crossed the street anyway, 

interfering with traffic. Williams stopped the individual, walked to the curb, and began writing 

him a ticket for disobeying a lawful order. As Williams was issuing the ticket, defendant, who 

was standing next to his friend, began protesting Williams’s decision to issue the ticket. 

According to Williams, defendant was “yelling, upset, and cursing out loud,” saying, “why the 

fuck are you writing him a ticket, he didn’t do anything wrong.” Williams continued to write the 

ticket. 

 According to Williams, he was attempting to issue the ticket and trying to explain the 

basis for the ticket to defendant’s friend, but defendant’s proximity to both his friend and 
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Williams while engaging in obstreperous behavior made it difficult to complete the task. 

Williams explained that he “couldn’t even give” defendant’s friend the ticket with defendant 

“right in my face, yelling . . . .” Williams ordered defendant to step back and leave the area, but 

defendant refused. Williams told defendant he was interfering and ordered defendant to leave a 

second time; defendant again refused. All the while, defendant was “yelling” and acting “irate.” 

While this was occurring, traffic was starting to back up. Williams testified that he ordered 

defendant to leave “multiple times.” Defendant refused, and responded “I don’t have to go 

anywhere.” Eventually, Williams decided to arrest defendant, at which point defendant resisted 

and attempted to run away. 

 As noted, the issue in this case concerns whether defendant’s arrest for violating Detroit 

City Ordinance § 38-2-2 was lawful, such that defendant can stand trial for resisting and 

obstructing under MCL 750.81d(1). The ordinance provides: 

 It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly and willfully interfere 

with or obstruct any city employee in the performance of his duties as a city 

employee. 

Defendant argues that he was arrested solely for his speech, in particular, his vulgar language, 

and argues that his speech was protected by the First Amendment. 

 Defendant is correct in his contention that “the First Amendment protects a significant 

amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers.” City of Houston v Hill, 482 

US 451, 461; 107 S Ct 2502; 96 L Ed 2d 398 (1987). Here, however, I find the prosecutor 

submitted sufficient evidence to establish that probable cause existed to lawfully arrest defendant 

for violating Detroit Ordinance § 38-2-2 because he physically interfered with Williams’s duties, 

i.e., defendant’s arrest was not based on his verbal criticism of Williams. 

 In reaching this conclusion, I am not swayed by the prosecution’s contentions that 

defendant’s arrest can be justified based on how physically imposing he was due to his height. 

Rather, my focus is on defendant’s actions that physically obstructed Williams from performing 

his duties. And there are several. Williams testified that he was attempting to write a ticket to 

defendant’s friend and to explain to the friend why he was writing the ticket. Meanwhile, 

defendant was standing near Williams and was pestering him, so much so that Williams had 

trouble finishing the citation. Williams, who was directing traffic at the same time he was 

attempting to write a lawful citation, asked—and ultimately ordered—defendant to leave so that 

he could finish the citation. Defendant refused to leave and persisted in his disruptive conduct. 

According to Williams, defendant was standing next to the person to whom Williams was 

writing the ticket and was “right in [Williams’s] face,” to the point where Williams “couldn’t 

even give” the ticket. Williams ordered defendant to leave a second time, and defendant again 

refused. 

 Defendant’s actions, including standing next to Williams, “right in [his] face,” yelling at 

him to the point where he was unable to finish writing the ticket, and by disobeying at least two 

lawful orders to leave, reveal that defendant physically obstructed Williams from performing his 

duties. A pair of hypothetical situations posed by Justice Powell and discussed by the majority 

in the United States Supreme Court in Hill, 482 US 451, reinforces this conclusion. In that case, 
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Raymond Hill was arrested for shouting at two Houston police officers who had approached 

another individual. Hill told the officers, “Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?” 

and responded in the affirmative when asked by one of the officers if he was “interrupting me in 

my official capacity as a Houston police officer[?]” Id. at 453-454. Hill was arrested under a 

Houston ordinance that made it unlawful, among other matters, to “in any manner oppose, 

molest, abuse or interrupt any policeman in the execution of his duty . . . .” Id. at 455. The 

Court considered the validity of the ordinance in the context of a First Amendment overbreadth 

challenge.1

 Id. at 458. In concluding that the ordinance was overbroad because it criminalized 

lawful speech, the majority considered two hypothetical scenarios posed by Justice Powell. In 

the first hypothetical, the Court explained that, under a properly tailored statute, “a municipality 

constitutionally may punish an individual who chooses to stand near a police officer and 

persistently attempt to engage the officer in conversation while the officer is directing traffic at a 

busy intersection.” Id. at 462 n 11 (quotation marks omitted). In the second, the Court explained 

that, under a properly tailored statute, a municipality could punish an individual who ran next to 

and shouted at an officer pursuing a fleeing felon because “[w]hat is of concern in that example 

is not simply contentious speech, but rather the possibility that by shouting and running beside 

the officer the person may physically obstruct the officer’s investigation.” Id. 

 I find defendant’s conduct in the instant case to be similar to the examples cited in Hill. 

The ordinance in this case prohibits obstruction, and I agree with the majority that the plain 

language of the ordinance refers to a physical obstruction. Defendant was not, as he contends, 

merely voicing his displeasure with Williams’s conduct in this case. He was physically 

preventing Williams from performing his duties. Specifically, his conduct of standing in the 

immediate proximity of Williams, “right in [his] face,” and yelling at Williams prevented 

Williams from completing the task of writing the ticket. Williams at least twice ordered 

defendant to leave so that Williams could finish issuing the ticket to defendant’s friend, but 

defendant refused to comply and persisted in his behavior. Consequently, this is not a case, as 

defendant contends, where he was arrested simply for cursing at a police officer or for criticizing 

the officer. Rather, it is a case where defendant acted in such a disruptive manner that he 

physically prevented Williams from performing his duties. In this sense, defendant is like the 

individual who stands near an officer and persistently attempts to engage the officer, see Hill, 

482 US at 461 n 11, or like the individual who runs alongside and shouts at an officer who is 

pursuing a fleeing felon, see id. 

 Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse the circuit court’s order 

quashing the information. 

/s/ Jane M. Beckering 

 

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 The instant case does not involve an overbreadth challenge. Nor is the ordinance at issue in 

this case as broad and encompassing as the ordinance at issue in Hill.