Court Opinion

ID: 9884911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:23:46.843214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:54.541425
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Underwood, dissenting: I do not agree that the evidence is insufficient to support the convictions of defendant Sullivan for both disorderly conduct and for resisting arrest. The Municipal Code of Chicago, section 11 — 33, provides that resisting arrest is committed by any person who resists or obstructs the lawful acts of one known to him to be a peace officer or who aids another in so doing. This municipal provision is quite similar to the statutory resisting-arrest provision (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1967, ch. 38, par. 31 — 1) and both provisions are intended to prevent frustration of the valid enforcement of the law and to promote the orderly and peaceful resolution of disputes. (Landry v. Daley, (N.D. Ill. 1968), 280 F. Supp. 938, 959.) The act of obstructing or resisting a peace officer in the performance of his duty may be passive as well as active and does not require resistance and force. People v. Raby, 40 Ill.2d 392, 402. I believe the conduct of defendant here is sufficient to warrant his conviction for resisting arrest under the Municipal Code of Chicago. The evidence in the record discloses that subsequent to his arrest for disorderly conduct, Sullivan persisted in such disorderly conduct and continued his efforts to attract and incite a crowd of local residents. Sullivan’s actions went well beyond mere argument with a police officer about the validity of the arrest. His loud and repeated appeals to the gathering crowd concerning police brutality and the presence of white officers in a black neighborhood were intended to hinder, impede and delay the performance of the officer’s duties. In my judgment this was sufficient to constitute resisting arrest, for a citizen is under a duty to cease his unlawful conduct immediately upon arrest. (See Raby, 403, 404.) He may not, in my opinion, continue, with immunity from further penalty, to do the very things which caused his arrest in the first place. The contrary holding of the court does nothing to encourage a cessation of the offensive conduct nor protect the officer in the discharge of his duties. It seems to me clearly the intent of the ordinance that persistence, after arrest, in the conduct which caused the arrest may be punished as resisting arrést where that conduct tends to obstruct the officer, and certainly that was the intent of defendant here. At a bench trial the weight of testimony and the sufficiency of evidence are questions for the determination of the trial judge and his decision will not lightly be set aside on review. (People v. Mulack, 40 Ill.2d 429, 432; People v. Pry, 38 Ill.2d 261, 264; People v. Scott, 38 Ill.2d 302, 306.) I believe the finding that Sullivan was guilty of resisting arrest is justified by this record. Apart from the question as to the sufficiency of the evidence, however, I am particularly concerned with the arguendo opinion of the court that convictions for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest cannot both stand because multiple convictions for the “same conduct” are proscribed. Regardless of the application of that rule to other situations, it is not, in my judgment, appropriate here. Its application by the court results, I believe, from a general lack of clarity by this court in the area of multiple convictions. My reasons for my view on this question appear in my dissenting opinion in People v. Whittington, post at 405, and need not be repeated here. I would affirm both the disorderly conduct and resisting arrest convictions.