Flint expands the definition of indecent

[Gfactor]

@Voyager

I’ve never seen anyone walking around with his pants under his underwear. If exposing underwear is legal (which it seems to be) wouldn’t a warning for doing something legal be harassment?

Police harassment isn’t as fearsome a charge as they make it out on the cop shows. OTOH, stopping someone for no reason causes some other problems. First, what about evidence of real crimes that they find during the stop. It’s pretty clearly inadmissible. Second, what if the warnee decides to flee or fight? We talked about this in conjunction with Can you be pulled over for NOT violating traffic laws?

[gonzomax]

I wonder if this indecent exposure violation could taint you the rest of your life. Would you appear on the perverts and sexual predator lists like a flasher.

[Gfactor]

@gonzomax

I wonder if this indecent exposure violation could taint you the rest of your life. Would you appear on the perverts and sexual predator lists like a flasher.

As I read the statute, you’d have to register as a sex offender after your third conviction. http://www.mipsor.state.mi.us/PSOR_FAQ.aspx#16

[ZenBeam]

@Gfactor

It’s part of the disorderly conduct ordinance:

…
(o) Intentionally makes or causes to be made any open exposure of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast in any street, alley, park, sidewalk, public building, school or building open to or frequented by the public or any other place that is open to the public view or to which the public has access.
…

I don’t see how your bolded line applies to the first two cases in the diagram in Leaper’s link. I also wonder if the person in the middle link had no pants on at all, just the shorts (or perhaps a swim suit), would he still be charged with anything.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@An Arky

I’m not usually one to cry racism, but this seems an awful lot like “oh, those young black men are always guilty of something, and they all wear those falling-down pants; let’s get them on that and see what else we can dredge up”

Well, then you picked a bad time to start, because this is an extraordinarily unlikely scenario.

You can get much better results with a detainable offense or an arrestable offense or even a stop-and-frisk than you can with a ticketable offense based on observation.

[Una_Persson]

Thank you, Gfactor, for yet again being the person who actually did the effort and posted the facts of the law.

[Gfactor]

@ZenBeam

I don’t see how your bolded line applies to the first two cases in the diagram in Leaper’s link. I also wonder if the person in the middle link had no pants on at all, just the shorts (or perhaps a swim suit), would he still be charged with anything.

What I posted is what I found. If there’s another provision that covers those cases, I missed it.

@Una Persson

Thank you, Gfactor, for yet again being the person who actually did the effort and posted the facts of the law.

It’s a labor of love.

[Gfactor]

@Gfactor

What I posted is what I found. If there’s another provision that covers those cases, I missed it.

Ok. Allow me to revise and expand my previous answer. Perhaps Chief Dicks is not relying on the local ordinance I cited, but instead two state laws:

750.167 “Disorderly person” defined; subsequent violations by person convicted of refusing or neglecting to support family.

Sec. 167.

(1) A person is a disorderly person if the person is any of the following:

(a) A person of sufficient ability who refuses or neglects to support his or her family.

(b) A common prostitute.

(c) A window peeper.

(d) A person who engages in an illegal occupation or business.

(e) A person who is intoxicated in a public place and who is either endangering directly the safety of another person or of property or is acting in a manner that causes a public disturbance.

(f) A person who is engaged in indecent or obscene conduct in a public place.

(g) A vagrant.

(h) A person found begging in a public place.

(i) A person found loitering in a house of ill fame or prostitution or place where prostitution or lewdness is practiced, encouraged, or allowed.

(j) A person who knowingly loiters in or about a place where an illegal occupation or business is being conducted.

(k) A person who loiters in or about a police station, police headquarters building, county jail, hospital, court building, or other public building or place for the purpose of soliciting employment of legal services or the services of sureties upon criminal recognizances.

(l) A person who is found jostling or roughly crowding people unnecessarily in a public place.

(2) When a person, who has been convicted of refusing or neglecting to support his or her family under this section, is then charged with subsequent violations within a period of 2 years, that person shall be prosecuted as a second offender, or third and subsequent offender, as provided in section 168, if the family of that person is then receiving public relief or support.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(3g2qu545m0ycgt45lj2pa355))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-750-167

750.335a Indecent exposure; violation; penalty.

Sec. 335a.

(1) A person shall not knowingly make any open or indecent exposure of his or her person or of the person of another.

(2) A person who violates subsection (1) is guilty of a crime, as follows:

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (b) or (c), the person is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or a fine of not more than $1,000.00, or both.

(b) If the person was fondling his or her genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is female, breasts, while violating subsection (1), the person is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.

(c) If the person was at the time of the violation a sexually delinquent person, the violation is punishable by imprisonment for an indeterminate term, the minimum of which is 1 day and the maximum of which is life.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(3g2qu545m0ycgt45lj2pa355))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-750-335a

Of course the penalty for indecent exposure in section 335a (1 yr/$1000) is inconsistent with this:

The crime, he says, is disorderly conduct or indecent exposure, both misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080708/NEWS06/307080009

And BTW, Chief Dicks really should have talked to a lawyer before he said:

On June 27, the chief issued a departmental memorandum telling officers: “This **immoral self expression ** goes beyond freedom of expression.”

Id.

This is not the best way to begin a defense of a statute on the basis that it doesn’t regulate expressive conduct.

Ah hah. Apparently Dicks is relying on the ordinance and not the statutes:

While some states and cities have tried and occasionally succeeded in passing laws or ordinances specifically directed at this issue, Acting Police Chief David Dicks said that he would rely on the existing disorderly-person ordinance. A violation of that law is a misdemeanor that can result in punishment of up to $500 and three months in jail. Dicks said that treating this conduct as “disorderly” was justified because of an element of “immorality”: “This immoral self expression goes beyond free speech,” he said in a statement. “It rises to the crime of indecent exposure/disorderly persons.” The chief issued a memo telling officers they should now consider “sagging/exposing buttocks” to be probable cause for an arrest.

City of Flint, Michigan, Joins Crusade Against Saggy Pants – Lowering the Bar

[Steve_MB]

I think I’ll move to Flint, since they obviously don’t have any real crime going on there… :rolleyes: