As there is still the growing talks about the Cambridge police arrest of Harvard professor Gates, the police arrested Gates on disorderly conduct. Here is what we know about the legal definition of disorderly conduct:
A disorderly person is defined as one who:
-with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or
-recklessly creates a risk thereof
-engages in fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or
-creates a hazard or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose
Here is the Massachusetts court opinion of Commonwealth v. Mulvey:
Commonwealth v. Mulvey 57 Mass. App. Ct. 579 (March 14, 2003) Police presence in and of itself does not by itself turn an otherwise purely private outburst into disorderly conduct. The defendant was charged with disorderly conduct for yelling and pacing on private property that was set back from the road in a secluded area. There was no one around at the time except police officers. While the statute requires that the disturbance be such that it had or was likely to have an impact upon people in an area accessible to the public, the presence of police officers alone will not suffice to prove the public element.
In reaching its decision, the Court noted that the rationale behind criminalizing disorderly conduct rests on the belief that a disorderly person can provoke violence in others. Given that an inherent part of police work involves being in the presence of distraught individuals, and given that police officers are trained to maintain order, the Court concluded that police should be the least likely to be provoked. Therefore, police presence alone does not satisfy the public element.
Sounds like there is a private/public distinction in the law and being in your house with police in the case of Gates, would make for a very difficult case which is interesting that the police drop the charges of disorderly conduct.
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