M.C. v. State

• Decision Date: 11 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-1986,96-1986
• Citation: 695 So.2d 477
• Parties: 119 Ed. Law Rep. 296, 22 Fla. L. Weekly D1429 M.C., a juvenile, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 477

695 So.2d 477

119 Ed. Law Rep. 296, 22 Fla. L. Weekly D1429

M.C., a juvenile, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 96-1986.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Third District.

June 11, 1997.

Leonard J. Cooperman, Miami, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Fleur J. Lobree, Assistant Attorney General, and Sandra Jaggard, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before LEVY, GREEN and SHEVIN, JJ.

GREEN, Judge.

M.C., a juvenile was found guilty in a delinquency proceeding of violating section 877.13, Florida Statutes (1995) which makes it unlawful for anyone, among other things, to knowingly disrupt or interfere with the lawful administration or functions of an educational institution. M.C. argues here, as she did below, that this statute is facially unconstitutional in that it is violative of her right to free speech and it is overbroad and vague. We conclude, however, that this statute suffers from none of these maladies and affirm.

I

M.C. and her brother were both students at J.F.K. Middle School in Dade County, Florida on February 29, 1996, the day of the incident. On that date, M.C.'s brother was arrested for battery on a police officer at about 1:25 p.m. by school police officer, Andrew Snoke. Officer Snoke then took M.C.'s brother to the school's main office. The main office area is approximately ten feet by eleven feet and contains the principal's office, Officer Snoke's office, and two desk areas for secretaries and/or office aides. Approximately five minutes after the arrest of her brother, or at 1:30 p.m., M.C. stormed into the main office area waving her hands and hurling obscenities at Officer Snoke in a loud and threatening manner for arresting her brother. ¹ She was accompanied or followed ² to the office by a group of five to seven other students. M.C. was waving or flailing her arms as if to encourage or incite the other students to join in the protest of her brother's arrest. In fact, according to the testimony, these students did raise their hands in protest of the situation and appeared to be in general support of M.C.

When M.C. and the group of students entered the office, Officer Snoke and two secretaries and office aides were present. When M.C. arrived in the office, she walked past both the reception area and the secretarial desk areas and went straight towards the principal's office area to continue her loud tirade against the officer there. According to the evidence below, this area of the office was normally off limits to students without permission and M.C. had no such permission on the date and time in question. As a result of M.C.'s actions and loud verbal outbursts, Officer Snoke and one of the secretaries testified essentially that they could not perform their duties and that the office functions in general were temporarily brought to a halt. ³ Officer Snoke testified that he arrested M.C. as a result of her volatile conduct and its disruptive effect on the office functions. The officer stated that he was basically concerned about everyone's safety in the office. Once M.C. was arrested, the group of students who had accompanied her to the office quickly dispersed and left.

II

The state filed a one count petition of delinquency against M.C. for violation of section 877.13. This statute provides that:

(1) It is unlawful for any person:

(a) Knowingly to disrupt or interfere with the lawful administration or functions of any educational institution, school board, or activity on school board property in this state.

(b) Knowingly to advise, counsel, or instruct any school pupil or school employee to disrupt any school or school board function, activity on school board property, or classroom.

(c) Knowingly to interfere with the attendance of any other school pupil or school employee in a school or classroom.

(d) To conspire to riot or to engage in any school campus or school function disruption or disturbance which interferes with the educational processes or with the orderly conduct of a school campus, school, or school board function or activity on school board property.

(2) This section shall apply to all educational institutions, school boards, and functions or activities on school board property; however, nothing herein shall deny public employees the opportunity to exercise their rights pursuant to part II of chapter 447.

(3) Any person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

M.C. moved to dismiss the delinquency proceeding on the grounds that this statute was

facially unconstitutional. The trial court denied this motion and subsequently found M.C. guilty as charged.

III

As we are faced with a facial challenge to the overbreadth and vagueness of section 877.13, we find that our first task is to determine whether this statute reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct under the First Amendment. See Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 1191, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982). "If it does not, then the overbreadth challenge must fail." Id. We must next address the facial vagueness challenge because a law that satisfies the overbreadth test may nevertheless be facially challenged for vagueness, in violation of due process. Id. at 497, 102 S.Ct. at 1192-93. "To succeed, however, the complainant must demonstrate that the law is impermissibly vague in all of its applications." Id. As the U.S. Supreme Court explained: "A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others. A court should therefore examine the complainant's conduct before analyzing other hypothetical applications of the law." Id. at 495, 102 S.Ct. at 1191. ⁴

FREE SPEECH ARGUMENT

We therefore first consider whether the statute is violative of M.C.'s First Amendment rights or is overbroad in the sense that it inhibits protected First Amendment rights of others. M.C. asserts that under this court's decision in L.A.T. v. State, 650 So.2d 214 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), her loud verbal protests in the school's office was constitutionally protected free speech under both the federal and Florida constitutions. We disagree and find M.C.'s reliance upon L.A.T. to be wholly misplaced.

In L.A.T., this court reversed a juvenile's adjudication of delinquency for disorderly conduct which had been predicated upon the juvenile's screaming obscenities to police officers who were arresting the juvenile's friend in a shopping center parking lot. This court found L.A.T.'s conduct to be specifically protected by the First Amendment where L.A.T.'s verbal protests neither "inflict[ed] injury or tend[ed] to incite an immediate breach of the peace." 650 So.2d at 217 (quoting Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 133, 94 S.Ct. 970, 972, 39 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974)). While L.A.T.'s loud verbal protests of police actions may be constitutionally protected in the setting of an open public shopping center parking lot, those same protests may not enjoy such constitutional protection in other settings.

The nature of a place, 'the pattern of its normal activities, dictate the kinds of regulations of time, place, and manner that are reasonable.' Although a silent vigil may not unduly interfere with a public library, Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 86 S.Ct. 719, 15 L.Ed.2d 637 (1966), making a speech in the reading room almost certainly would. That same speech should be perfectly appropriate in a park. The crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.

Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 116, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2303, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972)(footnotes omitted).

The obvious intent of section 877.13 is to ensure that the educational institutions and their administrators are free to perform their lawful functions without undue or unwarranted interference or disruption from others. We note early on that this statute does not seek to proscribe or regulate the content of any particular speech; rather it seeks to regulate expressive activity or conduct which significantly interferes with lawful educational functions. We do not believe that M.C.'s obstreperous protests in the school office were compatible with its normal functions.

"While it is true that rights protected by the First Amendment are not magically lost when one steps upon school property, 'neither teachers, students, nor anyone else has an absolute constitutional right to use all parts of a school building for unlimited expressive purposes.' " McCall v. State, 354 So.2d 869, 871 (Fla.1978) (quoting Connecticut State Federation of Teachers v. Board of Ed. Members, 538 F.2d 471, 480 (2d Cir.1976)). Contrary to M.C.'s assertion on appeal, she did not have an unlimited right to verbally protest her brother's arrest while on school property. "Time, place, and manner regulations may be necessary to further significant governmental interests and are permitted." McCall, 354 So.2d at 871. In assessing the reasonableness of the statute before us, we must determine whether it is narrowly tailored to further the state's legitimate interest in having the educational institutions of this state function or operate smoothly without material disruption. Id. We find that is does. Our touchstone in making this determination is Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 736, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969) wherein the U.S. Supreme Court was called upon to harmonize or reconcile the First Amendment rights with the special characteristics of the school environment. In Tinker, the Court held unconstitutional a school regulation which prohibited students from wearing black armbands on school property in symbolic protest of the Vietnam War. While expressly...