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9 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 349 (1967-1968)
Disorderly Conduct Statutes in Our Changing Society

handle is hein.journals/wmlr9 and id is 371 raw text is: DISORDERLY CONDUCT STATUTES IN OUR CHANGING SOCIETY* JUDGE ROBERT B. WATTS * It is being said over and over again that we are living in the midst of an era of revolution. Social changes are coming fast-not gradually but as leapfrogging sallies into the unknown. The family, it is being said in many circles, is no longer an adequate vehicle for assimilating and transmitting knowledge and values to our young people, a task so essential in a rapidly changing world. The youth of the nation are becoming more articulate, demanding and ques- tioning. Youth wants to be found; it wants to know the why of any proposition and is no longer content to sit back and take in the advice and guidance of its elders, who he suspects of being square and not with it. VVe are living in a permissive society where we per- mit our young people to try anything if others are doing it. They do not want to be I.B.M. cards that you cannot spindle, bend or mutilate. Our Supreme Court has added its voice to the changing scene by its well-known decisions effecting civil rights and civil liberties. It has ex- tended and given greater force and effect to concepts of equal justice. It has enhanced the legal conception of individual worth by pronounc- ing more rigid rules for arrests, searches and seizures, taking of con- fessions, and for bringing the suspected criminal to justice. It has thrown its weight behind the civil rights movement, giving greater impetus and validity to concepts of free speech and petition for redress of grievances. Mapp, Escobedo, Mallory, and Miranda have spread the word-individuals in our society have rights that must be respected and the most humble man on the street knows this now. In the midst of all of these changes, as society becomes more complex and ideas of civil liberties trickle down to the man on the street, it is imperative that judges of courts of limited jurisdiction reexamine the concepts viz-d-viz disorderly conduct statutes. Changing times demand higher levels of intellectual and emotional competence if our courts of first instance are to be accorded the respect and dignity they should have. Indigents have a new awareness of their rights urged upon them This article is adapted from a speech delivered before the North American Judges Association Eastern Regional Conference, on March 14, 1967 at Williamsburg, Virginia. ** Judge, Municipal Court of Baltimore, Maryland. A.B. Morgan State (1943); LL.B. University of Maryland School of Law (1949). [349

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