Mark Phillips v. State of Indiana ( 2012 )

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this
Memorandum Decision shall not be FILED
regarded as precedent or cited before any Oct 17 2012, 8:48 am
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ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:
ELIZABETH A. HARDTKE GREGORY F. ZOELLER
South Bend, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
AARON J. SPOLARICH
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
MARK PHILLIPS, )
)
Appellant-Defendant, )
)
vs. ) No. 71A03-1201-CR-35
)
STATE OF INDIANA, )
)
Appellee-Plaintiff. )
APPEAL FROM THE ST. JOSEPH SUPERIOR COURT
The Honorable Richard L. McCormick, Judge
Cause No. 71D01-1107-CM-3967
October 17, 2012
MEMORANDUM DECISION – NOT FOR PUBLICATION
BAKER, Judge
Appellant-defendant Mark Phillips appeals his conviction for Disorderly Conduct,1
a class B misdemeanor, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. Specifically, Phillips
argues that the State failed to prove that he made unreasonable noise and continued to do
so after having been asked to stop by a police officer. Phillips also contends that the
State failed to prove that Phillips’s words were fighting words or that his words caused a
public nuisance. Finding the evidence sufficient, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
FACTS
On the morning of July 17, 2011, Doris Smith called 911 and told the dispatcher
that Phillips, her fiancée, was threatening her son with a knife. At approximately 11:00
a.m., the dispatcher contacted Officer James Sweeney of the South Bend Police
Department regarding the disturbance. Officer Sweeney and another patrolman went to
Phillips’s residence. When Officer Sweeney opened the door to his patrol car, the officer
could hear a man and a woman screaming in the house.
Smith allowed one of the officers to enter her house. She had been crying and
appeared “visibly rattled.” Tr. p. 8. Although no one else was on the main floor of the
home, Officer Sweeney could hear Phillips cursing and screaming from the upper level.
Officer Sweeney ascended two stairs and ordered Phillips to the main floor. Phillips
walked down the stairs and “was very agitated, pacing back and forth, cursing.” Id. at 12.
Phillips was “sweating, screaming, yelling, [and] cursing.” Id.
1
Ind. Code § 35-45-1-3.
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Smith asked that Phillips be removed from the home. When Officer Sweeney
asked Phillips to follow him outside, Phillips responded that it was his “MF house, why
does [he] have to leave.” Id. at 13. Officer Sweeney and Phillips exited the back door of
the house into a common area of the duplex building. Id. Several people were outside at
the time in adjacent yards.
Officer Sweeney explained the situation to Phillips and offered to drive him
elsewhere. Phillips continued to scream profanities, including that “this is my MF house,
I haven’t done—fill in your explicative [sic].” Id. at 14. Officer Sweeney then told
Phillips to stop screaming because “there are people outside, they don’t want to hear this,
[Phillips is] upsetting [his] wife.” Id. at 16. Phillips “repeated back to [Officer Sweeney]
that this is my house, I’m not leaving, I can do what I want, I didn’t call you.” Id. at 16.
Officer Sweeney ordered Phillips to stop screaming at least three times.
Phillips screamed profanities for approximately two minutes as the neighbors in
the adjacent yards watched. After “several loud bursts of cursing,” Officer Sweeney
handcuffed Phillips and placed him in his police vehicle. Tr. p. 16, 31. Phillips
“continued to scream and yell, curse.” Id. at 16. Phillips began screaming about bail
money and did not stop the profane tirade until he was secured in the police vehicle.
On July 18, 2011, the State charged Phillips with disorderly conduct, a Class B
misdemeanor. Following a bench trial on December 7, 2011, Phillips was found guilty as
charged. He was later sentenced to six days in the St. Joseph County Jail, with credit for
six days already served. Phillips now appeals.
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DISCUSSION AND DECISION
In addressing Phillips’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we neither
reweigh the evidence nor determine the credibility of witnesses. Mitchell v. State, 813
N.E.2d 422, 427 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004). Rather, we look solely to the evidence most
favorable to the judgment together with all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom.
Id. A reasonable inference from the evidence supporting a verdict is enough for us to
find the evidence sufficient. Blackman v. State, 868 N.E.2d 579, 583 (Ind. Ct. App.
2007). We will affirm a defendant’s conviction unless no reasonable fact-finder could
find the elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Anderson v. State, 881
N.E.2d 86, 91 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008).
To convict Phillips of disorderly conduct as charged, the State must prove that he
(1) recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally (2) made unreasonable noise (3) and continued
to do so after being asked to stop. I.C. § 35-45-1-3. As noted above, Phillips argues that
the State failed to prove that he made unreasonable noise, that his yelling of profanities
did not constitute a public nuisance, and that he did not engage in “fighting words.” 2
Appellant’s Br. p. 7-10.
In accordance with the disorderly conduct statute, noise is “unreasonable” if it is
too loud for the circumstances. See Yowler v. State, 894 N.E.2d 1000, 1003 (Ind. Ct.
App. 2008) (finding that the yelling of loud profanities was sufficient to sustain a
conviction for disorderly conduct where the yelling drew the attention of neighbors).
2
“Fighting words” are those “which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate
breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942).
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Moreover, we are not concerned with the content of the message itself. In other words,
the disorderly conduct statute prohibits “context-inappropriate volume.” Whittington v.
State, 669 N.E.2d 1363, 1367 (Ind. 1996) (emphasis in original). And as we observed in
Hooks v. State, 660 N.E.2d 1076, 1077 (Ind. Ct. App. 1996), “the prohibition against
unreasonable noise in Indiana’s disorderly conduct statute . . . is aimed at the
intrusiveness and loudness of expression, not whether the content of the language is
obscene or provocative.”
Loud noise may be held to be unreasonable for various reasons, including “[loud]
outbursts [that] could agitate witnesses and disrupt police investigations. It could make
coordination of investigations and medical treatment more difficult. Finally, loud noise
can be quite annoying to others present at the scene.” Whittington, 669 N.E.2d at 1367.
As discussed above, when Phillips accompanied Officer Sweeney outside, there
were several people in adjacent yards, and Phillips was screaming and cursing. Tr. p. 6,
14. Officer Sweeney described Phillips’s volume as a seven or an eight out of ten, with
ten being the loudest that he had ever heard. Id. at 14. When Officer Sweeney ordered
Phillips to stop screaming because his yelling could upset Smith or his neighbors, Phillips
continued to yell and scream. Id. at 16. Phillips’s two minutes of cursing drew the
attention of the individuals in the other yards. Id. at 16, 30.
Phillips’s profane tirade fits several of the examples of unreasonable noise that our
Supreme Court delineated in Whittington, including agitating Smith, and/or interfering
with police investigation. Whittington, 669 N.E.2d at 1367. Officer Sweeney expressly
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warned Phillips about the consequences of his yelling, and it is likewise apparent that the
noise Phillips made was unreasonable because it drew the attention of others. Anderson,
881 N.E.2d at 89, 91. And Phillips continued to create unreasonable noise after Officer
Sweeney ordered him to stop on multiple occasions.
Although Phillips argues that his conviction cannot stand because his words did
not constitute “fighting words,” the disorderly conduct statute only requires noise “too
loud for the circumstances.” Yowler, 894 N.E.2d at 1003. There is no requirement in the
statute—nor have we ever read a requirement into the statute—that a defendant’s words
must amount to fighting words to sustain a conviction for disorderly conduct.
In Cavazos v. State, 455 N.E.2d 618 (Ind. Ct. App. 1983), we addressed the
State’s contention as to whether fighting words inherently constituted unreasonable noise.
Id. at 619. Even after determining that Cavazos’s words did not amount to “fighting
words,” the panel then addressed whether the volume of Cavazos’s words constituted
unreasonable noise. Id. at 621. In short, Phillips’s screaming of profanities does not
have to constitute “fighting words” to sustain a conviction for disorderly conduct. See
Anderson, 881 N.E.2d at 91 (holding that the defendant’s yelling of profanities in a
tanning salon loudly enough to draw the attention of other customers was sufficient).
Finally, we note that there is no requirement in the disorderly conduct statute that
Phillips’s conduct must constitute a public nuisance. In Whittington, our Supreme Court
declared that “significantly, our legislature deleted any reference to a requirement that a
person act purposely or recklessly toward annoying the public. Instead, the mental
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element of Indiana’s statute. . . . applies to the making of unreasonable noise, not to
producing effects with the noise.” Whittington, 669 N.E.2d at 1367. The defendant’s
proposed requirement of a public nuisance was specifically rejected, where it was stated
that “the application of the statute can extend to situations in addition to those
constituting public nuisance.” Id. In short, we find that the evidence was sufficient to
support Phillips’s conviction for disorderly conduct.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
ROBB, C.J., and BRADFORD, J., concur.
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