State v. Smith

Decision Date21 March 1966
Docket NumberNo. A--69,A--69
PartiesThe STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Louis S. SMITH, Herbert E. Callender, Marva L. Amis, Lily R. Lewis, Willard D. Crittendon, Joyce L. Schuric,Defendants-Appellants.
CourtNew Jersey Supreme Court

Carl Rachlin, New York City, for appellants (Stephen M. Nagler and George Schiffer, New York City, of counsel; David I. Fox, Newark, attorney).

Edward J. Phelan, Asst. Prosecutor, for respondent (Vincent Panaro, Mercer County Prosecutor, attorney).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

WEINTRAUB, C.J.

The six defendants were convicted in the Municipal Court of the City of Trenton of violating two sections of the Disorderly Persons Act. On a trial De novo in the Mercer County Court, defendant Callender was again convicted on both counts and fined $100 as to each. The remaining defendants were found guilty of only one of the two charges and each was fined $100. We certified defendants' appeals before argument in the Appellate Division.

The setting of these offenses was a public meeting of the governing body of the City of Trenton held at the council chamber and called to consider an urban redevelopment program. While a citizen was speaking against the proposal, there was a disturbance in the area in which defendant Callender was seated. This was the second such distraction from that direction. The president of the City Council called for quiet so that speakers might be heard and warned 'that if there were not silence we would have to ask them to leave or ask them to be removed by the sergeant-at-arms.' According to the State's proof, Callender retorted 'We haven't started to disrupt your meeting yet,' or 'We have not begun to interrupt your meeting yet.' According to the defense, he said 'We haven't done anything yet.' These versions really differ very little since under each the word 'yet' could carry the promise or threat that the disturbances would be repeated and in greater volume. So understanding Callender, the president of the Council directed a police officer to escort him from the room.

The disturbance just described was not the basis of the conviction. Rather the basis was Callender's resistance to the efforts to remove him. He locked arms with someone seated next to him and went limp. Two police officers, in the words of a witness, 'had a little problem in lifting him because he's a pretty big boy,' and 'As they got him out of the seat he sort of fell to the floor or slid to the floor and just laid there for a moment or two, or maybe ten or fifteen seconds, and then one officer took him by his feet and the other took him by his arms and they sort of half dragged and half carried him out of the meeting chamber and deposited him in the corridor or the entrance into the chamber.' While Callender was thus being removed, persons near him chanted 'Freedom.' The president of the Council asked the speaker then on the floor to talk more loudly to overcome the distraction and according to one witness the speaker in fact said nothing during the commotion. Upon those facts the county court found Callender guilty of violating N.J.S. 2A:170--28, N.J.S.A. which reads:

'Any person who by noisy or disorderly conduct disturbs or interferes with the quiet or good order of any place of assembly, public or private, including schools, churches, libraries and reading rooms, is a disorderly person.'

As stated above, Callender was carried into the corridor just beyond the door to the chamber, and still limp, he was lowered to the floor. Callender stretched out his legs, and the five codefendants seated themselves on the floor in a semicircile, arms and legs interlocked or intertwined. We gather they were carried away before the public meeting ended. Out of this setting stemmed the conviction of all defendants under N.J.S. 2A:170--29, N.J.S.A. which denounces as a disorderly person:

'Any person who in any place, public or private, * * *

b. Obstructs, molests or interferes with any person lawfully therein; * * *.'

The factual picture will be enlarged below.

I

Defendant Callender contends his conviction under N.J.S. 2A:170--28, N.J.S.A. is against the weight of the evidence. We see no basis to interfere with the trial court's findings. The testimony well warranted a finding that Callender's resistance to the efforts to remove him from the chamber was disorderly, and that that conduct, with the noise necessarily generated by the mode of removal to which Callender put the police officers, did disturb the quiet and good order within the chamber.

Callender's point seems to be that his conduct could not be found to disturb or interfere with the quiet or good order of the meeting because he was 'wholly passive.' It toys with words thus to describe his behavior. Rather he resisted removal in affirmative terms, both in locking arms with another and in confronting the officers with his dead weight. And it is idle to say, as does defendant, that 'the crucial element of intention to disturb is consequently totally lacking.' The normal inference is that he intended precisely what he accomplished.

Defendant says the statute does not apply because the phrase 'place of assembly, public or private, including schools, churches, libraries and reading rooms' does not include the public meeting room of a city council. He contends the word 'including' limits 'place of assembly' to places which are like a school or a church or a library or a reading room, and says the council chamber resembles none of them.

Prior to the adoption of this provision by the revision of Title 2, effective January 1, 1952, the disorderly persons statute spoke specifically of, and only of, 'a public school,' R.S. 2:202--12; a place of worship, R.S. 2:210--1, and 'a public library or reading room,' R.S. 2:202--11. The revision of 1952 deliberately expanded the area of protection to 'any place of assembly,' whether 'public or private.' The specification after the word 'including' was not intended to restrain the general words preceding it. See generally Cuna v. Board of Fire Com'rs, Avenel, 42 N.J. 292, 304--305, 200 A.2d 313 (1964). Indeed, if 'including' had that effect, the specifics would likely exhaust the general words since it is difficult to think of a place which is like, but is not, a school or a church or a library or a reading room. Rather the draftsman specified those four places to avoid any question as to whether they continued to be protected and perhaps also to make it clear that, whereas under the prior statutes the protected schools, libraries and reading rooms were 'public' ones, the revision protected 'private' ones as well.

Nor can we distill from the places thus specified some characteristic levels of noise and other conduct, and use those levels as an index to places covered by the statute. For one thing, to read the statute to mean that it applies only to a place of assembly wherein the tolerable noise level and tolerable behavior are those expected in a school or a church or a library or a reading room would probably render the general words too vague to survive a constitutional challenge as to them under the due process clause. In any event we see no reason to deny to 'any place of assembly, public or private' the natural meaning of those words. Surely, to come to the facts of this case, it should surprise no one that misbehavior disruptive of a hearing before a city council runs afoul of some punitive law, and surely a man of modest understanding, had he consulted the statute in advance of the meeting, would not doubt that it covered the place and the occasion.

Next, defendant addresses sundry constitutional attacks upon the statute and upon its application to his conduct. We see no substance in any of them.

Running throughout defendant's position is the claim that his behavior was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, for which he cites Garner v. State of Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 167, 82 S.Ct. 248, 7 L.Ed.2d 207 (1961); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 83 S.Ct. 680, 9 L.Ed.2d 697 (1963); Henry v. City of Rock Hill, 376 U.S. 776, 84 S.Ct. 1042, 12 L.Ed.2d 79 (1964); Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 85 S.Ct. 453, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965); and Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 85 S.Ct. 476, 13 L.Ed.2d 487 (1965). Those cases involved peaceful protests against discrimination because of race, the settings being private places of public service such as lunch counters or public places such as a street or an area in front of a city hall. None remotely resembles the case before us.

Here there was no denial of an opportunity to protest. On the contrary the meeting was called to the very end of permitting all to have their say, for or against the urban redevelopment proposal. Callender was not denied a chance to be heard. Rather he was denied a right he seemingly claimed to interfere with the right of others to hear and be heard. He was not ordered removed because he expressed views which displeased the presiding officer. He was ordered out because, in response to the president's call for quiet, he threatened even greater disruption of this public meeting. Whether the forum be the courtroom or the chamber of the legislature itself or of a political subdivision of the State, there must be order. It is frivolous to suggest the First Amendment stands in the way of that imperative.

Nor is there substance to Callender's proposition that he had a right to resist removal from the chamber in order to test the validity of the order that he leave. In fact, if such a right were recognized, it would not aid him since the record amply justifies the belief of the president of the Council that defendant intended to interfere with the good order of the hearing. But the more fundamental answer is that the decision of the presiding officer cannot be tested by physical resistance. The remedy, if...

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