In People v. Morris, No. 323762, Morris was convicted of one count of resisting/obstructing a police officer in violation of MCL 750.81d(1). Defendant contended that MCL 750.81d is unconstitutional as being both overbroad and vague. The Michigan Court of Appeals disagreed, and held that the terms in the statute are clear and well-defined and that its meaning can fairly be ascertained by reference to judicial interpretations, the common law, dictionaries, treatises, or the commonly accepted meaning of words.
In conducting the overbreadth analysis, the court stated that the test is whether the statute precludes or prohibits constitutionally protected conduct in addition to conduct or behavior that it may legitimately regulate. MCL 750.81d provides, in relevant part, that an individual who assaults, batters, wounds, resists, obstructs, opposes or endangers a person who the individual knows or has reason to know is performing his or her duties is guilty of a felony. The defendant argued that nothing in the statute limits how an individual can be said to have “resisted,” “obstructed,” or “opposed” a police officer so that asking simple questions of an officer could be construed as criminal. However, the Michigan Supreme Court, in People v. Vasquez, 465 Mich. 83, 89 (2001), had previously defined the terms “resist,” “oppose,” “assault,” and “wound” under another resisting statute. Furthermore, while the Vasquez court didn’t define the term “obstruct,” a year later, the Legislature defined the term “obstruct” to mean “the use or threatened use of physical force or a knowing failure to comply with a lawful command.” Thus, the court concluded that MCL 750.81d is designed to protect persons in the identified occupations, MCL 750.81d(7)(b), who are lawfully engaged in conducting the duties of their occupations, from physical interference, or the threat of physical interference.
Moreover, the court disagreed with the defendant’s argument that the statute is vague because it gives the trier of fact unstructured and unlimited discretion to determine whether someone has committed an offense. As discussed above, the court held that the dictionary or Supreme Court decisions make clear the meaning of the common and straightforward words used in the statute.
