Court Opinion

ID: 9542221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:32:07.57596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:10.673561
License: Public Domain

Heffernan, J.
(dissenting). The majority reaches its result by a boot-strapping operation that assumes the meaning of the statutory phrase it purports to interpret. While it concedes that the complaint is insufficient because there is no factual allegation of “boisterous” conduct, it finds the facts of the complaint sufficient to allege “otherwise disorderly conduct.” The facts of the complaint are merely that the defendant was asked to leave Stovall Hall, where he had gone to see a client. He refused to leave; but after the refusal and argument, the officer took the defendant by the arm and escorted him from the building.
The majority opinion cites Givens that “otherwise disorderly” means conduct similar to that enumerated in the statute, i.e., behavior that is violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, or unreasonably loud. Elson’s conduct as alleged in the complaint is similar to none of those enumerated in the statute. While the complaint alleged that Elson said he would not go without the use of force, it also alleges that he left quietly and without resistance.
As in Givens, the majority has given an unconstitutional gloss to a statute that under a restricted view *71would be constitutional. The facts alleged in the complaint do not fall squarely within the prohibition of the statute, and the interpretation which the court has given to “otherwise disorderly” shows that the statute is vague and subject to almost any interpretation that a complainant or a court wishes to put upon it.
It appears to this writer that the issuance of a complaint and warrant after the defendant peaceably left the premises raises grave questions of abuse of the criminal processes. The record as a whole reveals that Elson was concerned about the proper treatment and civil liberties of inmates at the institution. The record shows that he alone was singled out, by a patently illegal rule that denied certain rights of access to patients. It would appear to the writer that this prosecution was instituted not because of what Elson had done, but because of who he was — a lawyer who considered it his duty to protect his clients in the face of official arrogance, a thorn in the side of the hospital authorities. The record shows pique not at what Elson did at Stovall Hall on October 24, 1971, but at his course of conduct that had irritated the authorities to the extent that they denominated him, as the complaint reveals, an “undesirable person.”
While the writer has no doubt of the right of the hospital authorities to remove from the premises any person who conducts himself in such a way as to disturb or endanger the welfare of the patients, this is a far cry from initiating criminal sanctions against one who has peaceably left the premises.
The interpretation the majority places upon the statute in this case typifies the abuse of the criminal process that results from statutory vagueness. This is a prosecution that should never have been brought.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Beilfuss joins in this dissent.