Court Opinion

ID: 9494233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:32:46.36842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:17.889158
License: Public Domain

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in that part of the majority opinion which affirms the conviction for failure to obey a lawful order, but, for the reasons stated below, I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion which reverses the conviction for disorderly conduct.
The disorderly conduct count was premised on the use of language “in a manner that is likely to ... incite an immediate breach of the peace,” in violation of 36 C.F.R. § 2.34(a)(2). Defendant Poocha was not charged with or convicted for the use of foul language or calling the park ranger names, as much of the majority’s discussion infers. Poocha was convicted of using language that was likely to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
When Ranger Lober arrived at the scene outside of Curry Village Lodge, he observed two officers wrestling with a suspect on the ground. A hostile crowd of as many as 50 people had already gathered at the location. He testified that “the officer’s guns [were] exposed and the crowd [was] in very close proximity. So I felt it was necessary to provide them a buffer zone so that someone wouldn’t grab a weapon or something along those lines or actively interfere with the officers as they [were] completing their arrest.” Poocha was part of an angry and emotional group of eight to 10 individuals close to Lober.
Ranger Ingram arrived at the scene slightly after Lober. After handcuffing another individual from the crowd who was interfering with the officers, Ingram heard yelling coming from Ranger Lober’s direction. As he approached Lober, he saw Poocha step forward from the crowd, clench his fists, stick out his chest, and yell “fuck you” at Lober. Poocha was within five feet of Lober at the time of the confrontation. When Ingram asked Lober if he could assist him in any way and whether everything was under control, “Ranger *1085Lober described to me that, no, things weren’t in control. He had been trying to get Mr. Poocha to calm down and leave the scene without success.” Lober moved toward Poocha to place him under arrest, but Poocha’s girlfriend placed herself in between the two, preventing Lober from completing the arrest. These facts, I submit, in addition to those recited by the majority, are a sufficient basis from which a rational trier of fact could find that Poo-cha’s language and expressive conduct, at that time and place, was likely to incite an immediate breach of the peace. See City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 461, 107 S.Ct. 2502, 96 L.Ed.2d 398 (1987).
Poocha’s words — “fuck you” — plus his hostile and defiant expressive conduct— clenching his fists and sticking out his chest — amount to a direct challenge to the authority of the rangers in the immediacy of their facing a hostile crowd of 50 — at a ratio of 12:l.1 The line between a hostile crowd and a riotous mob is as thin as a razor’s edge, and history teaches time and again that a minor incident, such as Poo-cha’s confrontation, immediately following the officers’ physically restraining another individual for interfering with their attempted arrest, can turn the tide. In spite of this evidence, the majority concludes that “there is no evidence ... [of] an incitement to riot. In fact, the question is not even a close one.” I disagree.
In so holding, the majority is essentially engaged in reweighing the evidence. and making its own finding of the likelihood that Poocha’s utterance and expressive conduct were not “likely to produce imminent lawless action.” The majority misdirects its analysis in concentrating on the effect the language Poocha used was likely to have on the rangers. But both the regulation and the district court’s finding, however, are directed at the effect the language was likely to have on the hostile and angry crowd. Thus, the majority’s reliance on cases such as Gulliford v. Pierce County, 136 F.3d 1345 (9th Cir.1998), and Duran v. City of Douglas, 904 F.2d 1372 (9th Cir.1990), is misplaced; neither case involved the likely effect of remarks critical of law enforcement which were directed at a hostile crowd gathered around an arrest scene.2
Because I believe that whether the words and expressive conduct Poocha used at the time and in the circumstances involved were likely to incite an immediate breach of the peace is a quintessential factual inquiry and that the district court’s finding is adequately supported by the evidence, and because the majority, in its treatment of that question, has arrogated to itself the making of that finding, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion.

. The concurrence cites no authority for its assertion, with which I disagree, that "while a reference to speech’ might include expressive conduct and thereby encompass gestures that could be interpreted as threatening [or inciting], 'language' does not.” In fact, the regulation prohibits the use of "language, an utterance, or gesture . .. that is likely to ... incite an immediate breach of the peace.” 36 C.F.R. § 2.34(a)(2) (emphasis added). And while the information did not specifically charge use of a gesture, it is a part of the context in which the language used must be judged.

. In insisting that Poocha's remarks were “directed at the officers, not at anyone else,” and suggesting that the context in which they were made does not permit an inference that the remarks were directed at the hostile crowd as well, the concurrence, like the majority opinion, engages in its own fact finding in derogation of the reasonable inferences that can be drawn to support the verdict.