Court Opinion

ID: 9758023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:08:01.39239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:46.613379
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Associate Judge.
I concur in the result reached by the majority because it is clear from the record, and particularly the findings of the trial court, that although appellant was charged with disorderly conduct he was convicted of unlawfully displaying a flag, banner or device designed or adopted to bring a foreign government into public odium.1 I cannot ascribe, however, to an opinion which regards society’s interest in public order as the antagonist of free speech.2 My colleagues have taken a cavalier attitude toward the exigencies of the situation under which the police must maintain public, order "by reiterating generalized approbations of free speech.” They have gone so far as to say that “audience reaction, and the immediacy of disorder, become significant elements of proof only after the speaker ‘passes the bounds of argument or persuasion and undertakes incitement to riot.’” It is totally unrealistic to assume that disorder will not result before the speaker sinks to this level of communication. And if there is a breach of the peace, *891"it is not a constitutional principle that, in acting to preserve order, the police must proceed against the crowd, whatever its size and temper, and not against the speaker.” 3 One final word. This is not a case of prior restraint, nor can one say in good conscience that the police in this city have served as a readily available instrument for the suppression of unpopular ideas disseminated in public places. On the contrary, the history of appellant’s organization is replete with instances where, had it not been for the protection of the police, its spokesmen would have been summarily silenced.

. Code 1961, § 22-1115.

. Mr. Justice Jackson dissenting in Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 13-14, 69 S.Ct. 894, 899, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949).

. Hr. Justice Frankfurter concurring in Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268, 289, 71 S.Ct. 325, 336, 95 L.Ed. 267 (1951).