Court Opinion

ID: 9519038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:07:45.966703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:41:04.007426
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
dissenting.
Offensive as the conduct may have been, it did not occur in a public place. It was intrusive. It was offensive. It was disgusting. It is subject to condemnation and sanction by society and by the law. But it did not occur in a public place.
Before its occupancy by Officer Horn, the booth was a "public place". After Officer Horn entered it, it was no longer "accessible to the public". It was, therefore, not a public place. At the time of the conduct, the booth into which Thompson intruded himself was private. To hold otherwise would be to say that one's private residence becomes a public place merely by the unauthorized and unwanted intrusion of a burglar or other trespasser.
Conversely, the statute would appear to require that the State prosecute and punish a person who, for the sole and legitimate purpose of urination, exposes himself in a public restroom. It does not suffice to say *1377that in the latter situation there is no mens rea-no corrupt motive. Intent is not an element of the offense. Nor is it an element of the crime that the actor wishes to be viewed by members of the public.
Neither is it helpful to state that the exposure here, unlike that in Lasko v. State (1980) 2d Dist.Ind.App., 409 N.E.2d 1124, was visited upon a non-consenting viewer or participant. While the presence or absence of consent might constitute a rational and logical basis of distinction between what is or is not criminal conduct, it is of no moment here.
Were the question properly before us, it might be argued with a degree of merit that the statute is overly broad or defective. Our determination, however, must rest not upon mens rea, not upon consent, but solely upon whether the exposure occurred in a public place. It did not.
For this reason, I dissent.