State v. Janecek, Minn.Ct.App., 10/9/2017. The court of appeals takes on the quantum question, if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear, does it make a sound? Ms. Janecek doesn't get along with her neighbor. The neighbor made a video recording of Ms. Janecek over their trash bins; the city charged Ms. Janecek with disorderly conduct based on the video - neither the neighbors nor anyone else was actually present - and a jury convicted her of disorderly conduct.
Ms. Janecek said that the disorderly conduct statute requires that her conduct be witnessed by at least one person; sorry, video cameras don't count. Here's what the statute says:
Whoever does any of the following in a public or private place, including on a school bus, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, is guilty of disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor:
. . . .
(3) engage in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger or resentment in others.
Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1.
The court employs its literalist jurisprudence and cannot find any requirement in the statute that the disorderly conduct occur in another's presence. The court does so notwithstanding this language from State v. Reynolds, 243 Minn. 196, 66 N.W.2d 886 (1954) which pretty plainly says just the opposite:
Conduct is “disorderly” in the ordinary sense when it is of such nature as to affect the peace and quiet of persons who may witness it and who may be disturbed or provoked to resentment thereby
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