Court Opinion

ID: 9575400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:13:32.122366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:10.160664
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I agree with the majority that the injunction issued in this case should be vacated, but I do not agree that the court needs to reach the constitutional question. The court has said that it will not generally decide constitutional questions if the case can be resolved on other grounds. Labor and Farm Party v. Election Board, 117 Wis. 2d 351, 354, 344 N.W.2d 177 (1984). I conclude that secs. 813.125(1)(b) and 947.013(1)(b), Stats. 1985-86, define harassment to encompass conduct and acts only, not verbal communication. Because this case involves only speech, the case does not fall within the statutes as I believe the statutes should be interpreted. If the statutes are interpreted to include speech, they are, in my opinion, unconstitutional.
I.
Both sec. 813.125(1) and sec. 947.013(1) define harassment as follows:
"(a) Striking, shoving, kicking or otherwise subjecting another person to physical contact or attempting or threatening to do the same;” or
"(b) Engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts which harass or intimidate another person and which serve no legitimate purpose.”
*416I conclude that the words "course of conduct” and "repeatedly committing acts” in secs. 813.125(l)(b) and 947.013(l)(b) encompass only conduct, not speech. I rest this conclusion on the text and the legislative history of the statutes.
Looking first to the text of the statutes, I note that the dictionary defines the words "conduct” and "acts” as actions, performances and deeds, not as speech.
Looking next to the legislative history of the statutes, I conclude that the great weight of the evidence indicates that the legislature intended the words "course of conduct” and "repeatedly committing acts” to regulate conduct and not speech.
The first piece of evidence in the legislative history demonstrating that the Wisconsin legislature did not intend to include speech in the harassment statutes is that the Wisconsin legislature deliberately omitted from its definition of harassment both the New York’s and the Model Penal Code’s provisions defining harassment to include certain kinds of speech. As the majority correctly explains, secs. 813.125(l)(a), (b) and 947.013(l)(a), (b) are based substantially on a New York statute1 which was in turn *417based on sec. 250.4 of the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code.2 See pp. 10-14. The Wisconsin legislature adopted only two provisions defining harassment, and both provisions — offensive touching and a course of conduct or repeated acts — do not on their face relate to verbal communications.
A second piece of evidence in the legislative history demonstrating that the Wisconsin legislature did not intend to include speech within the harassment statute is that sec. 250.4(5) of the Model Penal Code (set forth in note 2), upon which sec. 813.125(l)(b) and 947.013(l)(b) are based, does not regulate speech. The Commentary to the Model Penal Code explains that the phrase "course of alarming conduct” in sec. 250.4(5) of the Code encompasses only acts; the "core of the prohibition” in sec. 250.4(5) is "harassment by action rather than by communication.” See American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, sec. 250.4, Comment 6, p. 371 (1980). All the examples the Commentary *418gives to illustrate a course of alarming conduct are acts, not verbal communication. Id.3
Confirming this reading of the statute, the Colorado Supreme Court interpreted its statute which has language substantially similar to that in sec. 813.125(l)(b) and 947.013(l)(b), Stats. 1985-86, and sec. 250.4(5) of the Model Penal Code as prohibiting "conduct rather than communication.” People v. Norman, 703 P.2d 1261, 1267 (Colo. 1985).
On the basis of the text and legislative history of the Wisconsin statutes, I conclude that the legislature did not intend to include verbal communications within the words "course of conduct” and "repeatedly committing acts” in secs. 813.125(l)(b) and 947.013(l)(b). Because this case involves verbal communication, it does not fall within the statutes. Accordingly I concur that the injunction should be vacated.
II.
The majority needlessly reads a constitutional defect into the statutes by construing the statutes to cover verbal communications. As interpreted by the majority opinion sec. 813.125(l)(b) and sec. 947.013(l)(b) are, in my opinion, unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Amends. I, XIV, U.S. Const.
When the legislature seeks to regulate conduct through resort to the criminal law, it must identify *419the proscribed conduct definitely enough "to provide standards for those who enforce the laws and those who adjudicate guilt.” State v. Popanz, 112 Wis. 2d 166, 173, 332 N.W.2d 750 (1983). These "standards cannot lie only in the minds of persons whose duty it is to enforce the laws,” id. at 176, for "[djefining the contours of laws subjecting a violator to a criminal penalty is a legislative, not a judicial, function.” Id. at 177.
Where the legislature’s regulation includes expression, "the standards of permissible statutory vagueness are strict.” N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 432 (1963).
The statutory provisions at issue in this case are "catchalls” designed to prohibit forms of harassment without specifically describing them. The drafters of the Model Penal Code emphasized that what made sec. 250.4(5) (upon which the Wisconsin provisions are based) constitutionally palatable was the fact that it proscribed action rather than communication and did not "sweep within its ban any significant area of protected speech.” Model Penal Code, Commentary 6, pp. 371-72. As interpreted by the majority, however, the Wisconsin statutes lack this essential limitation. The drafters of the Model Penal Code recognized that if these catch-all provisions were to include speech, they must sketch more than the general outlines of the prohibited speech in order to survive a vagueness challenge.
The majority fails in its attempt to make the word harass definite by using the dictionary. Although this court traditionally employs the dictionary in construing statutes, the fact that a dictionary defines a term does not in itself make the term definite. The dictionary definition quoted by the majority, for instance, *420equates "harass” with terms of equal breadth, such as "annoy" (which the majority itself recognizes, p. 410, has been found unconstitutionally vague by several courts).
Equally unsuccessful is the majority’s reliance on other components of the statutory definition to reveal the hidden contours of the term harass. Two of the aspects of the statute on which the majority relies to "narrow” the meaning of the statute, multiplicity of harassing acts and intent to harass, can hardly clarify the meaning of the term "harass” since their meaning depends on the meaning of harass.
The majority appears to conclude that the third aspect of the statute, that harassing acts "serve no legitimate purpose,” does not narrow the meaning of the statute.4
*421On the issue of overbreadth, I conclude that the majority opinion has created "a 'danger zone’ within which protected expression may be inhibited.” Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 494 (1965). "Because first amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow specificity.” Button, 371 U.S. at 433. Vague statutes that regulate speech, simply by virtue of the fact that the true extent of their restriction of speech is unknown, create a threat of prosecution of protected speech that unacceptably chills the exercise of free speech rights. Cf. Houston v. Hill, No. 86-243, — U.S. — (June 15, 1987) (the United States Supreme *422Court held that a city ordinance making it unlawful for any person to "in any manner oppose, molest, abuse or interrupt any policeman in the execution of his duty” was substantially overbroad because it broadly criminalized speech which interrupts a police officer without regard to whether the speech was protected).
In the end, the majority’s conclusion that the statute is constitutional rests on the idea that clarity and specificity in the injunctions fashioned by judges to enforce the statute can somehow cure the constitutional difficulties inherent in the statute. Clarity in the injunctions, however, cannot cure the vagueness of the statute. Before a judge may issue an injunction the judge must find reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant has engaged in the conduct proscribed by sec. 947.013(l)(b). See sec. 813.125(4)(a)3. The judge’s authority to enjoin any specific act therefore derives from the language of the statute and depends on the statute being explicit enough to tell the judge what conduct is proscribed. As the United States Supreme Court has said, "if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.” Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09 (1972)
In addition, the specificity of injunctions will not reduce the overbreadth problem, because the broad language of the statute will still chill the exercise of free speech rights. The permissibility of speech in an individual case under the statute will hang on a *423possibly extended battle in the courts at both the trial and the appellate level. As the United States Supreme Court has said, the overbreadth doctrine is designed to avoid "making vindication of freedom of expression await the outcome of protracted litigation.” Dombrowski, 380 U.S. 487.
In an increasingly crowded and interdependent world, this statute invites the judiciary to intervene routinely to an unprecedented extent in people’s everyday speech in ordinary contexts — from the back yard to the school yard. It puts the judiciary in the business of sifting harassing from non-harassing speech and legitimate from illegitimate purposes. The judiciary must then translate that difficult sifting process into detailed rules of permissible speech, which are then incorporated into an injunction enforced by a criminal sanction.
This statute represents a good faith attempt by the legislature to grapple with a serious and difficult problem in our complex society. Nevertheless, if the legislature intends, as the majority holds, to use the criminal law to vindicate privacy interests against speech, the legislature must clearly identify the prohibited speech.
For the reasons set forth, I concur in the mandate but I do not join the opinion.
I am authorized to state that CHIEF JUSTICE NATHAN S. HEFFERNAN joins this concurrence.

 The New York statute provides:
"Section 240.25 Harassment
A person is guilty of harassment when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person:
1. He strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects him to physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same; or
2. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or
3. He follows a person in or about a public place or places; or
4. As a student in school, college or other institution of learning, he engages in conduct commonly called hazing; or
5. He engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which alarm or seriously annoy such other person and which serve no legitimate purpose.
*417Harassment is a violation.”
New York Penal Code, sec. 240.25.

 The Model Penal Code, sec. 250.4, provides:
"Section 250.4 Harrassment
A person commits a petty misdemeanor if, with purpose to harass another, he:
(1) makes a telephone call without purpose of legitimate communication; or
(2) insults, taunts or challenges another in a manner likely to provoke violent or disorderly response; or
(3) makes repeated communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient hours, or in offensively coarse language; or
(4) subjects another to an offensive touching; or
(5) engages in any other course of alarming conduct serving no legitimate purpose of the actor.”

 The Model Penal Code recognizes that "it may be possible that some instance of harassing conduct is so imbued with expressive content as to implicate first-amendment concerns, but such a case would probably be excluded by the statutory requirements that the action serve no legitimate purpose of the actor and that there be a purpose to harass.” Model Penal Code, sec. 250.4, Comments, pp. 371-372.

 The question arises whether the Wisconsin statute prohibits conduct, for example, of a debt collector whose purpose is to get paid (a legitimate purpose) or of an individual whose purpose is to gain the affection of another, even if a court may view the conduct as having the purpose to harass or intimidate. See State v. Sarlund, 139 Wis. 2d 386, 407 N.W.2d 544 (of even date).
The majority construes the "no legitimate purpose” requirement as a legislative recognition "that conduct or repetitive acts that are intended to harass or intimidate do not serve a legitimate purpose.” At 10. Under the majority’s interpretation, it appears that perhaps one cannot have two purposes: to harass and to achieve a lawful goal. The majority might be read as collapsing the two statutory elements, "intent to harass” and "no legitimate purpose,” into one. The Model Penal Code makes clear that the two are separate elements of the offense of harassment.
Insight into how the "no legitimate purpose” requirement was designed to function is gained by examining the several subsections of sec. 250.4 of the Model Penal Code quoted at note 2. Only subsections (1) and (5) of sec. 250.4 include "no legitimate purpose” language; subsections (2), (3), and (4) do not include the "no legitimate purpose” language. See text of Code, note 2 supra.
*421The Commentary to the Model Penal Code explains that a person making "a single call for the purpose of legitimate communication cannot be punished under Subsection (1), even if it is made with the intent to harass. Although the phrase 'legitimate communication’ invites judicial development, it plainly excludes many calls that are intended to annoy the recipient and that have precisely that effect.... A single call made to harass another into paying a debt could not be punished under Subsection (1) ... Subsection (3) addresses the more complex situation of calls made with the intent to harass but also with the purpose of legitimate communication.” Model Penal Code, sec. 250.4, Comment 2, p. 362.
The Commentary to the Model Penal Code further explains that the framers of subsection (5), the catch-all provision upon which the Wisconsin statute is based, included only conduct that has "no legitimate purpose,” in an attempt to limit the broad reach of the subsection. "The import of the phrase [no legitimate purpose]... is broadly to exclude from this subsection any conduct that directly furthers some legitimate desire or objective of the actor. This element of the residual offense should limit its application to unarguably reprehensible instances of intentional imposition on another.” Model Penal Code, sec. 250.4, Comment 5, p. 368.
For further discussion of the concept of legitimate purpose, see 1961 ALI Proceedings, pp. 225-226.