Opinion ID: 1721035
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: The disorderly conduct statute as applied to the appellants.

Text: The appellants assert that sec. 947.01 (1), Stats., as applied to their conduct violated their first amendment rights to freedom of speech and peaceable assembly. Some of the evidence relating to the conduct of each of the defendants has heretofore been set forth. It would serve no useful purpose to repeat it. It is contended that Zwicker was convicted for nothing more than peacefully holding a sign in a public building. The record does not support such a statement. Zwicker knew of the rule against displaying signs in the building during the demonstration. In deliberate defiance of the rule he raised a sign over his head, and there is evidence that he told other demonstrators that they should display signs. He was heard to say, Are we going to let the University administration tell us how to run a protest? Later, when arrested, he went limp and the officers took no further action at that time because in the judgment of Chief Hanson it was a pretty tense moment and a pretty difficult thing for us to accomplish the actual manual arrest of Zwicker without actually having to hurt somebody. Picketing and parading is conduct subject to regulation even though intertwined with expression and association. Cox v. Louisiana (1965), 379 U. S. 559, 563, 85 Sup. Ct. 476, 13 L. Ed. 2d 487, rehearing denied, 380 U. S. 926, 85 Sup. Ct. 879, 13 L. Ed. 2d 814. As to the other defendants, we find no basis for the contention that their conduct and speech under the circumstances of this case is protected by the first amendment. In Cox v. Louisiana (1965), 379 U. S. 536, 555, 85 Sup. Ct. 453, 13 L. Ed. 2d 471, the United States Supreme Court stated: A group of demonstrators could not insist upon the right to cordon off a street, or entrance to a public or private building, and allow no one to pass who did not agree to listen to their exhortations. . . . The fact that the conduct of these defendants took place during a demonstration does not give their speech and actions any special standing under the first amendment. It rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. We reject the contention now. . . . Giboney v. Empire Storage Co. (1949), 336 U. S. 490, 498, 69 Sup. Ct. 684, 93 L. Ed. 834. The acts for which the defendants were convicted were beyond the protection of the constitution, and sec. 947.01 (1), Stats., was properly applied to their conduct. It cannot be said that there has been any abridgment of the rights of the defendants under the first or fourteenth amendments.