Morris v. State, 48733
| Decision Date | 30 June 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 48733,48733 |
| Citation | 335 So.2d 1 |
| Parties | Elmore MORRIS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Phillip A. Hubbart, Public Defender, and Paul Morris, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
Richard E. Gerstein, State's Atty., and George Volsky, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee.
We here review the judgment of the County Court of Dade County finding appellant guilty of disorderly conduct in violation of Section 877.03, Florida Statutes, 1 by use of profane language to police officers in the presence of other persons.
Appellant alleges the statute to be unconstitutional on its face for vagueness, and in violation of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
The facts here are similar to those in our recent Opinion of White v. State, 330 So.2d 3, Opinion filed March 24, 1976, in which we construed the statute to meet federal standards. In that case we said:
'We find ourselves in a similar position, and we require that, for conviction under our statute to be acceptable, more must be shown than that the words were offensive to a part of the general population.
'In sum, the words used by the defendant are protected even though they may not be acceptable in certain strata of society. It is the degree of loudness, and the circumstances in which they are uttered, which takes them out of the constitutionally protected area. Indeed, his conduct would have been equally disorderly had he merely recited 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' in the same tone and under similar circumstances.
Applying the above standards to the facts in the record before us the judgment of the court does not meet constitutional standards.
Accordingly, the judgment is reversed and remanded to the County Court of Dade County for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
1 887.03 Breach of the peace; disorderly conduct.--Whoever commits such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the public morals, or...
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