Court Opinion

ID: 9425452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:43.677328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.649326
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist concurs,
dissenting.
Appellant is a Columbus cab driver. He had a female fare in his cab who had requested to be taken to a certain address. When he passed this address, the fare complained and — according to the statement of the trial court — the cab driver’s response was “a series of abso*4lutely vulgar, suggestive and abhorrent, sexually-oriented statements.”
I would sustain appellant’s conviction for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, 408 U. S. 901, 906 (1972). As stated therein:
“[A] verbal assault on an unwilling audience [or an individual] may be so grossly offensive and emotionally disturbing as to be the proper subject of criminal proscription, whether under a statute denominating it disorderly conduct, or, more accurately, a public nuisance.”
The Columbus City Code was certainly sufficiently explicit to inform appellant that his verbal assault on a female passenger in his cab was “menacing and insulting.” As a wrong of this character does not fall within the protection of the First Amendment, the.overbreadth doctrine is not applicable. See Model Penal Code, §§ 250.2 (1)(a) and (b) (Proposed Official Draft 1962); see also Williams v. District of Columbia, 136 U. S. App. D. C. 56, 64, 419 F. 2d 638, 646 (1969).