Court Opinion

ID: 9673018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:04:25.70196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.716427
License: Public Domain

Wilkie, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). My disagreement with the majority is limited to the conviction of the defendant, Eobert K. Zwicker.
I concur with the majority in its interpretation of Givens,' bearing on the nature of the term “disorderly conduct.” As thus interpreted, I would find error in the pertinent model instruction used by both trial courts in the two cases. To be considered disorderly, the conduct, whether by word or act or both, must satisfy both of two elements. (1) It must be one of the six types of conduct specifically proscribed by the statute, i.e., “violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, [or] unreasonably loud,” or it must be of a type of conduct similar thereto; and (2) the conduct must be carried out “under circumstances in which such conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance.” The error in the disputed instructions comes in the trial courts’ failure to require the presence of both elements.
*520The erroneous jury instruction in Zwicker provided, in part,
“. . . Conduct is disorderly, although it may not be boisterous or unreasonably loud, if it is of a type which tends to disrupt good order and provoke a disturbance.”
Thus, any and all conduct — be it peaceful, constitutionally protected, passive, quiet, nonabusive, nonviolent— which tends to create or provoke a disturbance could be subject to prosecution under this instruction. It is clear that the jury instruction does not comply with the first element of disorderly conduct as set forth in State v. Givens, and should have been struck down.
In the case of the defendants Weiland, Oberdorfer, Simons and Sirotof, the instruction was not identical but stated that disorderly conduct “need not be boisterous or loud if it tends to disrupt good order or to provoke a disturbance.” This instruction was erroneous for the same reason as was that in Zwicker, but this error was not prejudicial in the case of these four defendants because it is beyond dispute that their respective acts of disorderly conduct came well within one or more of the six proscribed types identified by the statute, or were acts similar thereto. As to Zwicker, however, he was convicted for performing acts which could not constitutionally come within the first element of disorderly conduct. As distinguished from the other defendants in the later incident, he did not use profanity, spit, block doors, or strike out at the officers. In the February demonstration Zwicker’s misconduct (as recited by the majority) consisted of holding a sign over his head in violation of a rule made by the university, going limp when the officers were attempting to remove him from the administration building, and being heard to say “Are we going to let the university administration tell us how to run a protest?” None of these acts was “violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous [or] unreasonably loud.” Neither could *521the conduct be described as otherwise “similar thereto.” 2 He was not charged with violating a university rule. There are procedures available for the discipline of university students found to have violated valid university rules. If the disorderly conduct statute is to withstand the constitutional attack made on it as being overbroad, the proscribed conduct must be either “violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, [or] unreasonably loud” or conduct “similar thereto.” Zwicker’s conduct was not of this type. It was constitutionally protected. Therefore, his conviction should have fallen.
I am disturbed over the consequences of the majority opinion.
The majority saves the disorderly conduct statute from the attacks on its constitutionality by correctly accepting the interpretation of the Givens Case which defines “otherwise disorderly conduct” as conduct which is similar to the forms of conduct specifically proscribed in the statute. But at the same time, the majority sustains a jury instruction which provides, in effect, that conduct is disorderly even though it may not be of the specifically proscribed types if the conduct tends to disrupt.
Although the majority states that “not every participant in an otherwise peaceful demonstration is subject to conviction; only those whose conduct embraces both elements of the disorderly conduct statute,” nevertheless, by refusing to find error in the fatal jury instruction and by affirming Zwicker’s conviction, the majority, as I view it, in effect has removed the first element from the statute and has required only proof of the second for a conviction of disorderly conduct.
As thus construed, I would find the statute both vague and overbroad; vague in that the element of notice has been removed by the aforementioned jury instructions; overbroad in that it would permit prosecution for activi*522ties which are protected under the Wisconsin and United States Constitutions. In affirming the conviction of Zwicker, the majority brands every participant in every demonstration or protest, however peaceful and orderly, guilty of disorderly conduct even though his conduct is not violent, not abusive, not indecent, not profane, not unreasonably loud, nor conduct similar thereto, but because a disturbance by others might nevertheless follow.
Adopting the theory which I believe to be proper, I would distinguish between the defendants, reversing as to Zwicker and affirming as to the other four.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Heffernan joins in this opinion.

 State v. Givens, supra, at page 115.