Court Opinion

ID: 9654722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:48:43.287526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:12.881346
License: Public Domain

FRANK GRAY, Jr., District Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the conclusions set forth in Chief Judge Miller’s opinion, concurred in by Judge Phillips, that injunctive relief should be denied and that plaintiffs’ action should be dismissed. Insofar as Tennessee’s disorderly conduct statute is concerned, I arrive at the conclusion that *556an injunction is not warranted by a different road from that traveled by my brethren.
This statute, in pertinent part, is as follows:
“It shall be a misdemeanor for any person to engage in disorderly conduct, which is defined as the use of rude, boisterous, offensive, obscene or blasphemous language in any public place; or to make or to countenance or assist in making any improper noise, disturbance, breach of the peace, or diversion, or to conduct oneself in a disorderly manner, in any place to the annoyance of other persons.”
Codified as T.C.A. 39-1213, this is a comparatively new addition to the criminal provisions of Tennessee law, having been enacted by the General Assembly in 1961. It has not yet been construed by the Supreme Court of Tennessee.
In my opinion, the statute is so vague and overbroad, and so lacking in specificity of the conduct sought to be proscribed, as to be unconstitutional on its face. I do not find in it any saving provisions which would make possible interpretations circumscribing its reach within the bounds of constitutionality. Cf. Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942); Zwicker v. Boll, 270 F.Supp. 131 (W.D.Wisconsin 1967); United States v. Woodard, 7 Cir., 376 F.2d 136 (1967).
In deciding that injunctive relief should be denied plaintiffs Ware and Stephens, the only plaintiffs shown by the record to have been charged with violation of this statute, I do not believe it necessary to decide that 28 U.S.C. § 2283 prohibits the issuance of an injunction. The evidence adduced herein fails to show great and immediate danger of irreparable harm to these plaintiffs in the absence of an injunction; it fails to show that such relief is absolutely necessary to protect their constitutional rights. The courts of Tennessee are as bound by the provisions of the Constitution of the United States as is this court, and there is no reason to assume that they will not protect these plaintiffs from any violation of their constitutional rights. Equity does not require injunctive relief; indeed, on the record made here, equity forbids it.