However unpleasantly you speak to specific individuals in your own house, it is highly unlikely that your conduct could constitute the crime of being a disorderly person in Massachusetts.
In Alegata v. Commonwealth, 305 Mass. 287, 304 (1967), the Supreme Judicial Court quoted with approval the following language from Section 250.2 of the Model Penal Code (Proposed Official Draft):
A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he: (a) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or (b) makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present; or (c) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor. `Public’ means affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.
However unpleasantly you may speak to a police officer who has come into your house, I do not see how one can make the legal argument that your conduct fits the above definition. Raising your voice or saying something that a police officer does not like does not amount to the crime of being a disorderly person.
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The above message is for discussion purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is not intended to guide people in the conduct of their own lives. Those in need of legal advice should consult a lawyer licensed to practice law in the particular jurisdiction involved.
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The Smoking Gun has a copy of the police report about the Gates incident. One might wonder, and of course I don’t know the answer, whether the police officer intentionally encouraged Gates to step onto the front porch so that the yelling would be overheard by passersby, thereby creating a conceivable justification for a disorderly person charge. The officer’s allegation that the acoustics in the house were unsatisfactory for him is not the most convincing rationale for asking Gates to step onto the front porch, is it?
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Over all, my impression is that the arrest should not have occurred, although Gates may technically have been guilty of the crime if his behavior on the porch was alarming to the people on the sidewalk. At the same time it seems to me that Gates manufactured the problem almost ex nihilo by being so quick to become agitated, to question the officers’ good intentions when there was no good reason to do so, and to shout about being a black man in America, and a very important one with connections, at that. If one is a hammer, one perceives problems as nails. Of course I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m just drawing inferences from the police report. But I have read thousands of police reports over the years and do think I can draw inferences from them.
