State v. Hoskins, No. 581

• Court: Superior Court of Connecticut
• Writing for the Court: PARSKEY
• Citation: 35 Conn.Supp. 587,401 A.2d 619
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. John HOSKINS.
• Decision Date: 05 May 1978
• Docket Number: No. 581

Page 619

401 A.2d 619 35 Conn.Supp. 587 STATE of Connecticut
v.
John HOSKINS. No. 581. Superior Court of Connecticut, Appellate Session. Argued Feb. 22, 1978.
Decided May 5, 1978.

Page 620

[35 Conn.Supp. 588] Donald R. Holtman, West Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

Thomas P. Miano, Asst. Pros. Atty., for appellee (state).

PARSKEY, Judge.

The defendant was convicted of the crimes of breach of the peace, criminal mischief in the third degree and wilful failure to appear in the second degree. The first two charges arose out of certain slogans or messages which the defendant had painted on his church building. The third charge arose out of the defendant's failure to appear in court when his case was assigned for trial. The defendant has appealed from his conviction on all [35 Conn.Supp. 589] counts, claiming that his conviction on the breach of peace charge is precluded by the free speech provisions of the state and federal constitutions and that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction on the other two charges.

The defendant is a minister of the church in Christ Jesus. The church owns property on Main Street in the north end of the city of Hartford. On October 22, 1976, upon the receipt of a complaint, the police observed the defendant painting religious slogans on the plywood boards attached to the building. The slogans, which were painted in red paint in letters approximately twelve inches high, read "Jews murdered Jesus Christ, God raised him from the dead, repent of your sins and be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ and be saved." The slogans were clearly visible from the street. Similar slogans had been observed as early as September, 1976. Some members of the Jewish community who viewed the signs found them offensive. Others threatened violence but were dissuaded by leaders of the Jewish community who observed that, since the defendant had been arrested, the matter should be left for judicial determination. The defendant testified that he

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was aware that the message was offensive to the Jewish community and would produce a violent reaction in that community because that was the historical reaction, but that he felt that he was duty bound to convey the message because it was contained in the gospel. I BREACH OF THE PEACE

In its bill of particulars the state charged the defendant with violation of that portion of General Statutes § 53a-181 which concerns posting "any [35 Conn.Supp. 590] offensive, indecent or abusive matter concerning any person." ¹ The word "person" as used in this statute includes the plural as well as the singular. General Statutes § 1-1(f). The defendant's assertion that the statute cannot constitutionally cover offensive utterances against groups is not well taken. Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 107, 94 S.Ct. 326, 38 L.Ed.2d 303.

Next, the defendant contends that the statute does not pass constitutional muster because it is both vague and overbroad. For a statute to pass the vagueness test in the free speech arena, no person of common intelligence should be required to speculate as to its meaning; all are entitled to know what the statute commands or forbids. Hynes v. Mayor and Council of Borough of Oradell, 425 U.S. 610, 620, 96 S.Ct. 1755, 48 L.Ed.2d 243. If this test is applied, the words "offensive, indecent and abusive" are so well known that one need not guess as to their meaning. The statute is, after all, a breach of the peace law. As such it is not at all concerned with expressions which might affront the thin-skinned, distress the squeamish or cow the timid. The expressions covered by the statute are those which touch the raw nerves of one's sense of dignity, decency and personality and which, therefore, tend to trigger an immediate violent reaction.

In respect to overbreadth the central question is whether included in the statutory sweep are both protected and unprotected speech. Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 522, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408. The statute in question covers expressions which are calculated or likely to provoke another person or persons to acts of immediate [35 Conn.Supp. 591] violence. See State v. Cantwell, 126 Conn. 1, 7, 8 A.2d 533. Such expressions are not constitutionally protected. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031.

The defendant argues that the words "offensive," "indecent" and "abusive" are too elastic and imprecise to meet constitutional standards and cites Gooding v. Wilson, supra, Plummer v. City of Columbus, 414 U.S. 2, 94 S.Ct. 17, 38 L.Ed.2d 3, and Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 94 S.Ct. 970, 39 L.Ed.2d 214, to support his argument. The defendant's contention has merit only if one looks at the dictionary definitions. The problem which the court faced in Gooding, Plummer and Lewis was not with the words themselves but rather with the failure of the Georgia, Ohio and Louisiana courts to limit the language to "fighting words." No such problem exists here.

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, put beyond the pale of constitutional protection "fighting words," that is, "those which by their very utterance . . . tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, 315 U.S. 572, 62 S.Ct. at 769. The "fighting words" concept has two aspects. One involves the quality of the words themselves. The other concerns the circumstances under which the words are used. Expressions which stir people to anger, invite public dispute, bring about a condition of unrest; Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131; or create an undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance; Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S.

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503, 508, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731; do not qualify. To qualify as "fighting words" the expression must be inherently inflammatory. Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 592, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 22 L.Ed.2d 572. In respect to the second aspect, words however inflammatory are not punishable unless they are directed at a particular individual or a defined group. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Ed.2d 284; Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 258, 72 S.Ct. 725, 96 L.Ed. 919.

[35 Conn.Supp. 592] Under the most stringent test, calling Jews Christkillers is inherently inflammatory. "These terse epithets come down to our generation weighted with hatreds accumulated through centuries of bloodshed. They are recognized words of art in the profession of defamation. They are not the kind of insult that men bandy and laugh off when the spirits are high and the flagons are low. They are not in that class of epithets whose literal sting will be drawn if the speaker smiles when he uses them. They are always, and in every context, insults which do not spring from reason and can be answered by none. Their historical associations with violence are well understood, both by those who hurl and those who are struck by these missiles. . . . Of course, people might pass this speaker by as a mental case, and so they might file out of a theatre in good order at the cry of 'fire.' But in...