Court Opinion

ID: 9550314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:33:56.563432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:23.401145
License: Public Domain

BURNETT, Judge,
specially concurring.
It may be uncivil conduct, but it is not a crime under I.C. § 18-705, to obstruct a tow truck operator. On the other hand, it may be a crime to disobey a police officer’s order if such disobedience causes the officer to be obstructed in the performance of his “duty.” Accordingly, the question is whether the order has been issued for the *181purpose of achieving an objective within the officer’s duty.
As noted in today’s lead opinion, if an officer issues an order incident to a personal errand or frolic, the order clearly does not serve the purpose of achieving an objective within the officer’s duty. Disobedience to such an order would not violate I.C. § 18-705. In the present case, however, there is no serious contention that the sheriff’s deputy was engaged in a personal activity. He was engaged in an official activity. Nevertheless, there are disputes as to whether the official activity constituted a “duty” and whether the activity was pursued in a lawful manner. The lead opinion deals extensively with the second issue. It discusses the scope of I.C. § 18-705 where an officer pursues an official activity in a manner contrary to law. This approach to the case harbors a risk of confusing the existence of a duty with the correct performance of the duty. Accordingly, I write separately to enlarge our discussion of the first issue — whether the deputy’s official activity constituted a “duty” under I.C. § 18-705.
The threshold inquiry is how to characterize the deputy’s official activity when he intervened in Mrs. Wilkerson’s dispute with the tow truck operator. The state urges, and a jury could find, that the deputy was engaged in the continuing investigation of an apparent violation of traffic laws. Under this view, the deputy’s order to Mrs. Wilkerson was in furtherance of a law enforcement objective. Therefore, it was pursuant to a “duty” and Mrs. Wilkerson’s disobedience of the order would violate I.C. § 18-705.
In contrast, Mrs. Wilkerson has argued, and a jury could find, that the pickup played no part in any ongoing investigation. The deputy himself testified at trial that he requested a towing service for the purpose of minimizing telephone calls by curious citizens. The deputy did not assert that the pickup was evidence or that it was needed for any other law enforcement purpose. Indeed, the pickup eventually was towed, not to the sheriff’s impound yard, but to the towing company’s private lot. If a jury accepted Mrs. Wilkerson’s view of the deputy’s activity, then the question would be whether the concept of “duty” under I.C. § 18-705 is broader than law enforcement.
By custom and tradition, officers not only enforce the law but also engage in a variety of community service functions. These range from the rescue of stranded cats to the informal resolution of neighborhood disputes. In the present case, if towing the pickup served no law enforcement purpose, the deputy’s action in summoning a tow truck could be characterized as a community service — ridding the community of a nuisance created by a vehicle overturned in an onion field. But if the deputy’s action were so characterized, then it should have been a matter of indifference to him whether the pickup actually was towed by the operator he summoned or was removed by someone else at Mrs. Wilkerson’s request. And if it made no difference to the officer’s purpose how the pickup was removed, then it was unnecessary for him to intervene in the ensuing dispute between Mrs. Wilkerson and the tow truck operator. Nevertheless, the fact is that the deputy chose to intervene. If his decision to do so were viewed as an extension of a community service, then noncompliance with his order could be regarded as an obstruction to his performance of a broadly characterized “duty” under I.C. § 18-705.
However, the judiciary should not ascribe to a criminal statute an abstract meaning broader than that probably intended by the Legislature. Did our Legislature intend to criminalize noncomplianee with an order issued by an officer performing a community service? There is no self-evident answer. However, I submit that the answer is “yes” —subject to an exception for passive noncooperation. I have no doubt that the Legislature, when enacting I.C. § 18-705, intended to prohibit a citizen from threatening or physically obstructing an officer engaged in a community service. But where the service consists of intervening in a dispute between two individuals,. and the alleged obstruction consists simply of refusal to act in conformity with the officer’s judgment on the merits of the dispute, I doubt *182that our Legislature intended the conduct to be punished as a crime. As noted in the lead opinion, statutes in other jurisdictions generally have been construed not to impose criminal penalties for such conduct.
Thus, my approach to this case leads to virtually the same conclusion reached by the lead opinion. Mrs. Wilkerson is entitled to a new trial, with appropriate jury instructions on the scope of “duty” under I.C. § 18-705. This conclusion reflects a prudent caution about construing the statute so broadly that it would criminalize a citizen’s noncooperation with a police officer’s decision to resolve a dispute between individuals. Such criminalization is not required by the facial language of I.C. § 18-705. Neither is it required by the public policy, articulated in State v. Richardson, 95 Idaho 446, 511 P.2d 263 (1973), of preventing violent confrontations between citizens and the police during arrests. As the lead opinion explains, Mrs. Wilkerson was prosecuted for her conduct before the arrest. Indeed, the irony of this case is that if a jury ultimately finds the deputy was engaged in resolving a dispute, then it was the deputy’s use of force to implement his judgment on the dispute which produced the very kind of confrontation that Richardson seeks to avoid.