Court Opinion

ID: 9856321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:44:50.479372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:34.678299
License: Public Domain

BROTHERTON, Justice,
dissenting:
I must dissent from the opinion of the majority which holds that the application of W.Va.Code § 61-5-17 (1931), violates plaintiff’s First Amendment right to free speech.
I agree with the majority that every person has a right to question or challenge the authority of a police officer, but with cer*775tain exceptions.1 It has long been the law of the land that an individual cannot constitutionally express his First Amendment rights by shouting fire in a crowded the-atre.2 However, in reaching their conclusion, the majority ignores the nature of the challenge in this case, as well as an exception to an individual’s right to free speech. I believe this case revolves around an exception to the rule.
The majority relies on the United States Supreme Court decision in City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 450, 107 S.Ct. 2502, 96 L.Ed.2d 398 (1987), in support of their conclusion. Hill, however, can be easily distinguished from the facts at hand. Hill dealt with an overbroad ordinance which prohibited any interruption of an officer in the execution of his duty. The Court specifically held the ordinance punished a verbal interruption rather than the core criminal conduct.3 Justice Brennan, speaking for the majority, struck down the ordinance as facially overbroad and found the ordinance “criminalized” a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech.4
In this case, the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the majority find, that W.Va.Code § 61-5-17 was facially overbroad. Thus, I fail to see the relevance of Hill in the majority’s analysis or conclusion. In fact, the majority ignores a critical distinction found in Hill at footnote 11. After affirming the importance of an individual’s freedom to challenge or oppose police action without risk of arrest, the Court observed:
In any case, today’s decision does not leave municipalities powerless to punish physical obstruction of police action. For example, Justice Powell states ... that a municipality constitutionally may punish an individual who chooses to stand near a police officer and persistently attempt to engage the officer in conversation while the officer is directing traffic at a busy intersection.” We agree, however, that such conduct might constitutionally be punished under a properly tailored statute, such as a disorderly conduct statute that makes it unlawful to fail to disperse in response to a valid police order or to create a traffic hazard. What a municipality may not do, however, and what Houston has done in this case, is to attempt to punish such conduct by broadly criminalizing speech directed to an officer — in this case by authorizing the police to arrest a person who in any manner verbally interrupts an officer.
(citations omitted). 482 U.S. at 462-463, 107 S.Ct. at 2510, 96 L.Ed.2d at 412-13.
Justice Brennan then noted that:
Justice Powell also observes that “contentious and abusive” speech can interrupt an officer’s investigation, and offers as an example a person who “run(s) beside (an officer pursuing a felon) in a public street shouting and cursing the officer.” But what is of concern in that example is not simply contentious speech, but rather the possibility that by shouting and running beside the officer the person may physically obstruct the officer’s investigation. Although that person might constitutionally be punished under a tailored statute that forbade individuals from physically obstructing an officer’s investigation, he or she may not be punished under a broad statute aimed at speech.
*776(citations omitted). 482 U.S. at 462, 107 S.Ct. at 2510, 96 L.Ed.2d at 412-13.
I believe the case at hand falls squarely within the exception identified by both the majority and the dissent in Hill. Surely the majority would have to concede this situation is analogous to the examples described in Hill, where Justice Brennan concluded an individual could constitutionally be punished under a properly tailored statute which prohibited the obstruction of an officer’s investigation.
Unlike the ordinances struck down in Lewis and Hill, W.Va.Code § 61-5-17 does not punish only spoken words nor does it “criminalize” a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech. Moreover, at no point did the majority find this statute facially unconstitutional. In prohibiting actions or threats which hinder, obstruct, or oppose an officer in the lawful exercise of his official duty — or that which incites others to do the same — this statute looks remarkably like the “tailored statute” envisioned by the Supreme Court.
Critical to the analysis is Justice Brennan’s observation that in the listed examples, the concern was not simply contentious speech, but the possibility the individual would physically obstruct the officer. One must recall that in the facts at hand, the plaintiff threatened to have the officer removed from the premises if he did not stop performing his official duty. Certainly a clear possibility existed that the plaintiff would attempt to make good on his threat. Neither the Supreme Court in Hill nor W.Va.Code § 61-5-17 require that physical contact occur before an officer can take action. Yet under the scenario envisioned by the majority, an individual could threaten an officer with varying degrees of obstruction and potential harm without recourse by the officer until the harm is done. I cannot believe this is the result intended by this Court or the legislature. For that reason, I dissent from the reasoning and result of the majority.

. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1942). The Court held that the right to freedom of speech was not absolute and noted "insulting or fighting words" are not afforded constitutional protection.

. Schenck v. U.S., 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S.Ct. 247, 249, 63 L.Ed. 470, 473 (1919).

. 482 U.S. at 459, 107 S.Ct. at 2508, 96 L.Ed.2d at 410.

. Justice Brennan observed the Houston ordinance was more sweeping in scope than the ordinances invalidated in their earlier decision of Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 94 S.Ct. 970, 39 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974), as it prohibited speech in any manner which interrupted an officer. In Lewis v. City of New Orleans, the Court vacated as overbroad an ordinance which prohibited an individual from wantonly cursing, reviling or using obscene or opprobrious language against a police officer. In Hill, Justice Brennan reported that "[c]ritical to our decision [in Lewis ] was the fact that the ordinance ‘punishe(d) only spoken words’ ..." 482 U.S. at 462-463, 107 S.Ct. at 2509-10, 96 L.Ed.2d at 412.