Court Opinion

ID: 9648705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:33:05.368169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:04.721391
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
The statute in question defines the offense as follows:
“A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with the intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he:
(2) Makes unreasonable noise.” (emphasis supplied)
Mr. Justice Manderino dissenting in Commonwealth v. Cook, 468 Pa. 249, 263, 361 A.2d 274, 281-282 (1976) said:
“What is ‘serious inconvenience, annoyance or alarm’? Those are all value words which depend entirely upon the personal views of each of us. What constitutes annoyance to one person is not always annoyance to another. Nor does inconvenience mean the same to all. For instance the sounds of a parade, or even the parade itself, may cause great public inconvenience to many, while at the. same time be a source of pleasure to others ... A facial attack on a statute is indeed proper if the scope of the statute is so broad that it could be read as restricting or forbidding conduct which is protected by the First Amendment. See Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 94 S.Ct. 970, 39 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974); Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974).”
Certainly, one does not have to strain to imagine this statute being read to restrict conduct protected by the First Amendment, and one must speculate at its meaning and application.
I therefore dissent and would declare the subject statute unconstitutional on its face.