Disorderly Conduct Charge for Offensive Classmate Ratings

Hatta writes "A Chicago-area teenager who posted a demeaning list of female classmates on Facebook has been arrested for disorderly conduct. Is this an appropriate response to online harassment, or a threat to free speech?"

Comments

From TFA:

[raving griff]

"The teenager is believed to be responsible for a list that ranked 50 female students — using racial slurs and ratings of body parts — that circulated around the school and on Facebook, police said. The teen is accused of handing out hard copies of the list Jan. 14 at various lunch periods and posting a copy online, according to police."

This list was spread both through Facebook and throughout the school. Is it valid to address this as an online harassment case when the article does not even make clear which distribution method the teenager is being charged with disorderly conduct for?

Reality: Virtual or Physical

[Anonymous Coward]

So a d-bag teenager put a 'demeaning' list of his fellow female classmates on-line and got arrested for it. Rather than the social stigma, female students, and student body appropriately handle this idiot, law enforcement decided to step in.

If this doesn't prove we've come full circle into a nanny state, I'm not sure what will. He's 17 for cry'in out loud, and in High School! How does an arrest benefit society here?

Disorderly conduct is not new law.

[reiisi]

Wikipedia has a article on disorderly conduct.

Actually, I read this and think we are finally seeing officers of the law figuring out how the internet fits in.

Clearly, this is disorderly conduct in a couple of public places, and it sounds like the appropriately class of response is being pursued.

Misdemeanor, as opposed to felony. A bit more serious than a traffic fine, but not nearly on the level of being arrested for grand theft, even.

Re:yes

[Mister Transistor]

Well, as someone from the Chicago suburbs, particularly Crook County, I can tell you the cops around here always use "disorderly conduct" as a general bullshit catch-all charge for "we don't like you, or what you did, whichever". I know, I was in a local station lockup for about 12 hours on a complete bullshit disorderly charge.

I was guilty of being in the same car as a buddy who got into an argument with someone who turned out to be a an off-duty Chicago pig. And I use the word "pig" in the worst sense possible, this guy was a real asshole and everyone at the local station hated him and told us so. But the jerk turned out to be a fairly high ranking detective, so he had my friend arrested and when I went into the station to find him, he pointed at me and said "Oh, yeah I want him arrested too". Meaning me. I was like, "WTF? I did nothing...". The guys at the local station kept apologizing to me, telling me there was nothing they could do as long as Lt. Dickless wanted me arrested. Well, conveniently, the fax system was "down" and they had to hand-courrier our prints downtown to make sure we weren't wanted on other charges, which I'm sure the asshole told them to make sure we were kept in the cooler for a while, because we both had enough money on us to bail ourselves out.

Anyway, there's a sort of happy ending. We went to get the best damn shyster lawyer we could find, and we found a really good one - this guy was an crooked ex-judge who later got investigated in the Operation Greylord stings in the 80's - a big anti-corruption operation in Cook County, Chicago in particular. But when we knew him, he did us good - the lawyer found a nice obscure legal precedent that in order to be guilty of disorderly conduct you had to incite others to become disorderly! Great one huh? Basically, short of inciting a riot you can't be guilty of disorderly conduct. At this point the judge points to me and says "It sounds like you weren't involved at all" - I said "you're right, your Honor". And he dismissed my case and found the precedent sufficient to dismiss my buddy's case. Lt. Dickless was pissed!! Heheh.

The moral is the disorderly conduct charge in Chicago is a joke but popular because it's totally discretionary - it's the Officer's call if you are "disorderly" or not, like "Driving too fast for conditions", which can get you a ticket for going under the speed limit if the Cop thinks you are going too fast. These are bullshit laws but they exist as a catch-all to cover the gaps, I guess. The teen in question should be able to get out of the charge easily because he was not causing anyone else to be disorderly, if they get a good mouthpiece he should be able to get off easily.

Epilogue: My buddy and I went to Internal Affairs and filed a claim on the asshole for wrongful arrest, and we hoped thy would investigate him. Well one day, we were watching the local educational TV WTTW, and actually saw the jerk on a talk show! Except now he was Captain Dickless!! They actually promoted him. Words failed me at that point. Just as no good deed goes unpunished, I guess no bad one goes unrewarded.