Title: State v. Johnson
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S055085
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: August 14, 2008

FILED: August 14, 2008
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent on Review,
v.
WILLIAM CHARLES JOHNSON,
Petitioner on Review.
(CC D0304188M; CA A124900; SC S055085)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted January 7, 2008.
Garrett A. Richardson, Portland, argued the cause and filed the petition for petitioner on
review.
Robert M. Atkinson, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the
brief for respondent on review.  With him on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and
Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
Michael H. Simon, Julia E. Markley, and Nicholle Y. Winters, of Perkins Coie LLP,
Portland, filed the briefs for amicus curiae ACLU Foundation of Oregon, Inc.
GILLETTE, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The judgment of the circuit court is
reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.
*Appeal from Washington County Circuit Court, Jon B. Lund, Senior Judge. 213
Or App 83, 159 P3d 1213 (2007). 
GILLETTE, J.
This criminal case presents a question that lies at the intersection between
Oregon's constitutional protection of free expression and an Oregon statute that punishes
abusive or insulting speech that is calculated to produce a violent response.  The Court of
Appeals held that ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B), the abusive speech provision of the criminal
harassment statute, does not, on its face, violate the free expression protections in Article
I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution,(1) and that the statute also is not
unconstitutional as applied to defendant's conduct in this case.  
State v. Johnson, 213 Or
App 83, 159 P3d 1213 (2007).  For the reasons explained below, we reverse the decision
of the Court of Appeals.  
Because defendant was convicted of violating the statute, we view the
underlying facts in the light most favorable to the state.  State v. Murray, 340 Or 599,
601, 136 P3d 10 (2006).  Defendant found himself stuck in rush hour traffic near a car
that was occupied by two women, one white and one black.  The car had a rainbow decal
on the rear, which caused defendant to assume that the women were lesbians.  The
women's car pulled in front of defendant's pickup truck as the lanes narrowed from two to
one.  Defendant became angry and began "tailgating" the women and, using some kind of
sound amplification system, shouted various obscene and racist epithets at the women,
accompanied by extremely rude gestures.  Defendant's conduct drew the attention of other
drivers and lasted for about five minutes as the cars inched through stop-and-go traffic. 
Eventually, one of the women got out of the car to confront defendant.  Defendant did not
leave his pickup, but he and the woman engaged in a heated verbal exchange.  Defendant
did not verbally threaten the woman with violence and no actual violence took place, but
the woman later testified that she believed that defendant was trying to incite her to
violence.   She ultimately returned to her car when her companion intervened and told her
that a person in the bed of the pickup was swinging a skateboard in a menacing way.(2) 
The two women then drove away and called the police.  
Defendant was charged with two counts of harassment in violation of ORS
166.065(1)(a)(B).  That statute provides:
"A person commits the crime of harassment if the person
intentionally:
"(a) Harasses or annoys another person by:
"* * * * * 
"(B) Publicly insulting such other person by abusive words or
gestures in a manner intended and likely to provoke a violent response[.]"
Defendant demurred to the indictment on the ground that ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B) is
unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of Article I, section 8, of the Oregon
Constitution, which provides:
"No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or
restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever;
but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right."
The trial court disallowed the demurrer.  At the conclusion of his ensuing trial, defendant
moved for judgment of acquittal on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to
support a conviction under ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B) and on the further ground that the
statute could not constitutionally be applied to his conduct because his speech was
protected under Article I, section 8.  The trial court denied defendant's motion.  Defendant
was convicted on both counts.  As noted, the Court of Appeals concluded on defendant's
appeal that the statute is constitutional both on its face and as applied, and affirmed
defendant's convictions.  We allowed defendant's petition for review.  
In State v. Robertson, 293 Or 402, 649 P2d 569 (1982), this court set out a
framework for challenges to statutes under Article I, section 8, of the Oregon
Constitution, which the court later summarized in State v. Plowman, 314 Or 157, 164,
838 P2d 558 (1992):
"First, the court recognized a distinction between laws that focus on the
content of speech or writing and laws that focus on proscribing the pursuit
or accomplishment of forbidden results.  293 Or at 416-17.  The court
reasoned that a law of the former type, a law 'written in terms directed to the
substance of any "opinion" or any "subject" of communication,' violates
Article I, section 8,
"'unless the scope of the restraint is wholly confined within some
historical exception that was well established when the first
American guarantees of freedom of expression were adopted and
that the guarantees then or in 1859 demonstrably were not intended
to reach.'  Id. at 412.
"Laws of the latter type, which focus on forbidden results, can be
divided further into two categories.  The first category focuses on forbidden
effects, but expressly prohibits expression used to achieve those effects. 
The coercion law at issue in Robertson was of that category.  Id. at 417-18.
Such laws are analyzed for overbreadth:
"'When the proscribed means include speech or writing, however,
even a law written to focus on a forbidden effect * * * must be
scrutinized to determine whether it appears to reach privileged
communication or whether it can be interpreted to avoid such
"overbreadth."'  Ibid.
"The second kind of law also focuses on forbidden effects, but
without referring to expression at all.  Of that category, this court wrote:
"'If [a] statute [is] directed only against causing the forbidden effects,
a person accused of causing such effects by language or gestures
would be left to assert (apart from a vagueness claim) that the statute
could not constitutionally be applied to his particular words or other
expression, not that it was drawn and enacted contrary to article I,
section 8.'  Id. at 417."
(Emphases, brackets, and ellipsis in original; footnote omitted.)
As noted, the harassment statute makes it a crime to "harass[][(3)] or
annoy[] another person by * * * [p]ublicly insulting such other person by abusive words
or gestures in a manner intended and likely to provoke a violent response."  ORS
166.065(1)(a)(B).  The parties assert that that statute falls into the first part of the second
Robertson category: the gravamen of the offense is not in the prohibition of expression
per se, but in the prevention of a type of "harm" that the legislature believes can be
caused by expression.  We agree with that proposition, as far as it goes:  The statute
focuses on effects that the legislature wishes to forbid -- harassment or annoyance of
another person.  However, it expressly prohibits the use of particular forms of expression
-- public insults by abusive words or gestures "likely to provoke a violent response" -- as
a means to achieve those effects.  It is the legislature's prohibition of that expression that
requires additional attention.
The device through which the intended, forbidden result (harassment or
annoyance) is to be accomplished is described in a peculiar way:  "abusive words or
gestures" that "publicly insult[]" a person other than the offender "in a manner intended
and likely to provoke a violent response."  There is no requirement that the offender act
violently, or even offer to act violently.  There is no requirement that either the offender
or the person to whom the remarks are addressed be the one who is likely to react
violently.  There is no requirement that the hearer (or anyone else) actually be put in fear
of violence.  There is no requirement that the hearer actually respond violently, or respond
at all.  And, finally, there is no requirement that any possible violence be imminent.  The
offense is complete if the offender speaks the words or makes the gestures in public in a
manner intended (and likely) to provoke a violent response by someone at some time and
the hearer is "harass[ed]" or "annoy[ed]."  Put most simply, the statute proscribes a certain
species of "harassment" or "annoyance," period. 
The parties argue at length over whether ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B), as we have
construed it, protects a hearer from a kind of harm "from which the legislature may
properly shield individuals by a criminal law."  State v. Moyle, 299 Or 691, 699, 705 P2d
740 (1985).  However, we do not think that the answer to that question is dispositive. 
Indeed, we assume that the statute reaches at least some circumstances in which we would
agree that the hearer would be entitled to protection.(4)   
But it is patent that the statute also extends to various species of expression
that may not be punished.  Even when the legislature seeks to prevent violence produced
by speech, it has to take care that it does not do so by criminalizing protected speech.  See
State v. Robertson, 293 Or at 418 (explaining that, when speech is an element of a statute
that is directed at an effect, the statute is susceptible to attack for overbreadth).  Taunts
intended and likely to produce a violent response are not limited to playgrounds and gang
disputes.  They extend to political, social, and economic confrontations that range from
union picket lines to the protagonists on a host of divisive issues, and thus include a wide
range of protected speech.  Moreover, courts have long recognized that even speech that
is intended and likely to produce violence may not be criminalized unless the violence is
imminent.  See Hans A. Linde, "Clear and Present Danger" Reexamined:  Dissonance in
the Brandenburg Concerto, 22 Stan L Rev 1163, 1170 (1970) (describing Schenck v.
United States, 249 US 47, 39 S Ct 247, 63 L Ed 470 (1919)).  It follows, we believe, that
a harassment statute that lacks that limitation sweeps too much protected speech within its
reach to survive a facial challenge. 
Harassment and annoyance are among common reactions to seeing or
hearing gestures or words that one finds unpleasant.  Words or gestures that cause only
that kind of reaction, however, cannot be prohibited in a free society, even if the words or
gestures occur publicly and are insulting, abusive, or both.  Stated another way, ORS
166.065(1)(a)(B) constitutionally may protect a hearer or viewer from exposure to a
reasonable fear of immediate harm due to certain types of expression, but it cannot
criminally punish all harassing or annoying expression.  As this court most recently stated
in State v. Ciancanelli, 339 Or 282, 317, 121 P3d 613 (2005), "among the various
historical crimes that are 'written in terms' directed at speech, those whose real focus is on
some underlying harm or offense may survive the adoption of Article I, section 8, while
those that focus on protecting the hearer from the message do not."  (Emphasis in
original.)  
The consequence of applying the foregoing principles to the present case is
clear.  Defendant's expression may have been offensive, but the state may not suppress all
speech that offends with the club of the criminal law.  ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B) criminalizes
a harm that results only from a kind of expression -- public insults through abusive words
or gestures.  The harm that the statute seeks to prevent -- harassment or annoyance --
generally is one against which the Oregon Constitution does not permit the criminal law
to shield individuals when that harm is caused by another's speech.  For that reason, we
conclude that the prohibition contained in ORS 166.065(1)(a)(B) is overbroad on its face
and violates Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution.(5) 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The judgment of the
circuit court is reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further
proceedings.  
1. We set out the cited provisions below, in the text of this opinion.  
2. Defendant was not charged with any offense connected with the actions of the
other person in his pickup.
3. We recognize the circularity of defining a word ("harassment)" by essentially
repeating it ("harass"), but that circularity does not affect our analysis of defendant's
claims in this case.
4. One example would be a case in which a speaker addressed a member of the
audience with such epithets and abuse that other members of the audience might
reasonably be expected to attack the person who had been singled out for abuse.
5. We recognize that our decision today prevents using the criminal law to alleviate
some kinds of distressing circumstances, but that is a consequence of Oregon's explicit
protection of freedom of expression in Article I, section 8.  We note, however, that our
ruling is confined to the state's attempt to use the criminal law in retaliation against
defendant's expression.  We state no opinion as to whether some civil remedy, or even
some other part of the criminal law, might be applied to the facts of this or other, similar
cases.