Is this a trend yet? Yet another person has been arrested and booked for uttering an obscenity in a public place, even though similar applications of disorderly conduct laws often have been found to violate the First Amendment.
This time, the scene of the alleged crime was just over the Georgia line in a Kroger supermarket aisle in North Augusta, South Carolina about a week ago. Danielle Wolf was shopping with her husband and her children, and she told reporters that her husband kept squishing the bread in their cart by putting frozen pizzas on top of it. She used the F-word to express her significant displeasure at his behavior.
Another shopper took offense, accusing her of using obscenities in front of her kids. Ms. Wolf insisted that was not the case, but somehow the police were called and before it was all over, the young mother was arrested and booked on disorderly conduct.
Ms. Wolf was later released on a courtesy bond, according to media reports, and the woman who complained subsequently apologized by telephone, saying she never intended for the young mother to be arrested.
The South Carolina legal definition of disorderly conduct says it is a violation to "use obscene or profane language on any highway or at any public place or gathering or in hearing distance of any schoolhouse or church."
The case appears similar to one in which the Counts Law Group represented a Cobb County woman who used obscenities in comments directed towards police when she witnessed the way police were questioning a burglary suspect. After she cursed at police, they let the burglary suspect go and came after the woman.
In that case, the police charged Amy Barnes with one count of disorderly conduct under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-39(a)(4), which bars "without provocation, us[ing] obscene and vulgar and profane language in the presence of a person under the age of 14 years which threatens an immediate breach of the peace." The police justified this charge by alleging that a child was present when Ms. Barnes made her statement.
Cobb Judge Melodie H. Clayton concluded that the officers simply took issue with what Ms. Barnes had said and were determined to arrest her.
Judge Clayton also concluded that the alleged presence of the child was “inconclusive” and “irrelevant," because “the mere presence of children does not transform the Defendant's statements into 'fighting words.'" The judge dismissed the charge.
And, you may remember not too long ago when Reese Witherspoon was arrested on disorderly conduct charges for allegedly taunting a police officer who stopped her husband’s car and asked him to take a field sobriety test.
The law, at least in Georgia, is well established that citizens of this state have a constitutional right to criticize or question the police. Although it is not polite to do so, a citizen has the First Amendment right to ridicule, antagonize and annoy the police in the performance of their duty. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the “freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”
It may be unwise, and definitely intemperate, to drop the F-bomb in a supermarket aisle, but it is hardly sufficient to justify an arrest.