Court Opinion

ID: 9759382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:14:43.226389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:49.315727
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
With due deference to the views of my brethren and to those of able counsel, I fear the Court has been lured into treating a *30case of small moment, despite its ability to spawn four opinions, as precipitating a major First Amendment confrontation with the press. Cf. State v. Saunders, 75 N.J. 200, 228 (1977) (dissenting opinion). While I quite agree with the majority that defendant’s conduct under the circumstances hardly brings credit or distinction to the press, the fact remains that his arrogant behavior, the more appalling because of the tragic circumstances in which it was exhibited, does not constitute a violation of N.J.S.A. 2A:170-29(2)(b) under any proper construction of this statute.
This is not to say, however, that the State cannot proscribe such conduct. As correctly noted by Justice Pashman, the new Code of Criminal Justice, not yet in force, includes provisions which seem to be tailored precisely to punish boorish behavior such as that demonstrated by this defendant. Without passing directly on the constitutionality of statutes not before us, I would note only that this defendant might be found guilty under a properly drafted and narrowly construed statute. In this case, however, an overly-eager prosecution has succeeded in convincing the Court to punish a failure to “move on” by expediently converting an “interference” statute to that purpose.
However, it is unnecessary to detail the due process problems which might be posed by such a transubstantiation, see Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 614, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971), because even assuming that N.J.S.A. 2A:170-29(2)(b) could be invoked as a “move on” statute without violating the constitution, this conviction would still suffer from a failure of the constitutionally required proofs. N.J.S.A. 2A:170-29(2)(b) makes it a disorderly persons offense to obstruct, molest or interfere with any persons lawfully in any public or private place. The enactment is so wide ranging, both in terms of the conduct it touches and the places in which it is applicable, that one must give it a narrowing construction in order to save it from the defect—fatal, as a matter of constitutional law—of *31vagueness. The need for such a limiting construction of this statute and its predecessors has long been recognized by the courts. See the course of judicial treatment accurately traced by Judge Antell in State v. Manning, 146 N.J.Super. 589, 598 (App.Div.1977) (dissenting opinion).
Likewise is a restricted interpretation strongly suggested by the United States Supreme Court’s treatment of similar enactments. In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 382 U.S. 87, 86 S.Ct. 211, 15 L.Ed.2d 176 (1965), a municipal ordinance made it unlawful for a person “to stand or loiter upon any street or sidewalk * * * after having been requested by any police officer to move on.” The enactment withstood a constitutional attack of facial invalidity only because the Alabama Court of Appeals, subsequent to petitioner’s conviction, had “given to it an explicitly narrowed construction,” under which a conviction for failure to “move on” after a police officer’s request could not stand absent a showing that the person so ordered was actually “blocking free passage.” 382 U.S. at 91, 86 S.Ct. at 213. Similarly, in Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 92 S.Ct. 1953, 32 L.Ed. 2d 584 (1972), a more narrowly-drawn statute, specifically punishing the refusal to “comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse” after congregating with other persons in a public place, required that the refusal be motivated by the “intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm * * * Given the state trial court’s specific finding of the essential ingredient of such intent, the Supreme Court found nothing unconstitutional in the manner in which the statute had been applied. 407 U.S. at 108-09, 92 S.Ct. at 1956.
The lesson to be drawn from these decisions is that the enactment in question, if it is to have a constitutionally permissible formulation, must be construed as requiring a showing of actual physical interference (Shuttlesworth) or an intent to interfere (Colten). Quite plainly, the State proved neither here.
*32The county court on the trial de novo commendably made precise and specific findings leading to the following conclusion:
that in attracting the attention of the officer by backing up and coming forward and backing up and coming forward [the defendant] interfered with this officer in the performance of what I believe to-have been his proper duty.
Hence it is abundantly clear that the State’s proofs failed to demonstrate, and the trial court did not find, either a physical interference or an intent to interfere with the trooper on the scene, no matter how else defendant was making an extraordinary nuisance of himself.
Deplorable as defendant’s conduct may have been under the circumstances, it fell short of what is required to convict under this statute if it is to be constitutionally interpreted. I would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand to the trial court for entry there of a judgment of acquittal.
Justice MOUNTAIN joins in this dissenting opinion.
For affirmance—Chief Justice HUGHES and Justices SCHREIBER and HANDLER and Judge HALPERN—4.
For reversal—Justices MOUNTAIN, PASHM AN and CLIFFORD—3. '