State of Minnesota v. Frederick Henry Heidmann

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A23-0858

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Frederick Henry Heidmann,
Appellant.

Filed May 13, 2024
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Crow Wing County District Court
File No. 18-CR-20-2969

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Donald F. Ryan, Crow Wing County Attorney, Brainerd, Minnesota; and

Michael D. Hagley, Special Assistant County Attorney, Duluth, Minnesota (for
respondent)

Edward R. Shaw, Ed Shaw Law, Brainerd, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Bjorkman,

Judge.

NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION

ROSS, Judge

Nisswa mayor Frederick Heidmann approached and began arguing with police

officers as they engaged with the occupants of a car they had stopped on a busy highway
near Nisswa. Heidmann appeals from his consequent conviction of disorderly conduct,

arguing that the conviction violates his First Amendment right to free speech, that the

evidence does not support the guilty verdict, and that the district court improperly

instructed the jury. Because the evidence of Heidmann’s conduct, which is not protected

by the First Amendment, sufficiently supports the verdict, and because the district court

acted within its discretion by refusing to include Heidmann’s requested jury instruction,

we affirm.

FACTS

On an August 2020 evening, Nisswa and Pequot Lakes police officers stopped a car

for an equipment violation just south of Nisswa on Highway 371. That stretch of highway

is divided and busy, with two lanes of northbound and two lanes of southbound traffic. The

stopped car and the squad cars were lined up along the side of the highway, immediately

outside the fog line. Frederick Heidmann, the then-mayor of Nisswa, saw the traffic stop

from across the highway.

The officers spoke with the stopped car’s occupants and decided to search the car.

They asked the occupants to step out of the car so one of them could conduct the search.

An officer directed them to stand beside the rear of one of the squad cars, shielded from

highway traffic. One officer began searching the car, and another continued speaking with

the occupants. At that point, Heidmann, who had been watching these events, drew the

attention of the occupants and officers as he began crossing the busy highway with his

leashed dog and shouting toward the officers.

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 Heidmann approached the officers from the rear of the traffic stop, walking on the

highway shoulder behind one of the squad cars. The officer then instructed the occupants

to return to their car and moved to intercept Heidmann. Heidmann confronted the officer,

demanding to know what the officers were doing. The officer instructed Heidmann to back

away and stand clear of the highway, because Heidmann was standing just outside the lane

of traffic with his loosely leashed dog. Heidmann refused to back away. He pointed at the

officers and shouted at them. Highway traffic raced by within a few feet of Heidmann, his

dog, and the officer. The other officer left the occupants involved in the traffic stop and

joined in directing Heidmann to step back. Heidmann, facing the officers with his back to

oncoming traffic, would not step back and continued to scold the officers, questioning their

purpose, while swearing and gesturing aggressively. Rather than move back as directed,

Heidmann stepped closer to the officers. While he argued with them, his dog pulled at the

leash and crossed the fog line, entering the highway. The officer quickly grabbed the loose

leash and pulled the dog back from the highway as Heidmann continued to contest the

officer’s authority to stop the car and investigate its occupants. Heidmann’s dog eventually

slipped off its leash and ran between the squad cars.

Heidmann followed and collected the dog, still arguing, and he finally walked away

while continuing to reprimand the officers with a raised voice. The officers turned their

attention back to the occupants of the stopped car. Minutes later, just after the officers

completed their investigation, Heidmann drove his car back to the scene and parked. He

approached the stopped car on foot, and the officers arrested him. The state charged

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Heidmann with one count of disorderly conduct. A jury found him guilty based on evidence

that supports the facts just described, and the district court fined him $285.

Heidmann appeals.

DECISION

Heidmann challenges his disorderly-conduct conviction. For the following reasons,

we are unconvinced by his arguments that the conviction violates his First Amendment

right to free speech, that the evidence does not support the guilty verdict, and that the

district court improperly instructed the jury.

I

Heidmann’s First Amendment and evidence-sufficiency contentions are entwined

because of the relationship between the disorderly-conduct statute and the right to free

speech. We evaluate sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges by carefully examining the

record to consider whether “the facts and the legitimate inferences drawn from them would

permit the factfinder to reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a

reasonable doubt.” State v. Waiters, 929 N.W.2d 895, 900 (Minn. 2019) (quotation

omitted). The disorderly-conduct statute purportedly prohibits “offensive, obscene,

abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct” as well as “offensive, obscene, or abusive language”

that “tend[s] reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others” when the actor

“[has] reasonable grounds to know that [his conduct or words] will, or will tend to, alarm,

anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace.” Minn. Stat. § 609.72,

subd. 1 (2020). We say “purportedly” because the statute sweeps too broadly by including

speech protected under the First Amendment. The Minnesota Supreme Court has narrowed

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its scope, holding that the statute’s regulation of offensive, obscene, or abusive language

applies only if the speech constitutes fighting words. In re Welfare of S.L.J., 263 N.W.2d

412, 418–19 (Minn. 1978). We agree with Heidmann that his statements to the police

officers do not constitute fighting words. But his confrontation with police also involved

conduct.

We are satisfied that Heidmann’s aggressive, disruptive conduct—irrespective of

the content of his constitutionally protected speech—violated the disorderly-conduct

statute. Even when the substance of a defendant’s words themselves are protected,

“offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct,” which violates the statute, is

not. See Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3) (emphasis added); see also In re Welfare of T.L.S.,

713 N.W.2d at 877, 881 (Minn. App. 2006) (holding that officers had probable cause to

arrest juvenile for disorderly conduct based on the volume of her profanities inside a

school); cf. City of St. Paul v. Mulnix, 232 N.W.2d 206, 208 (Minn. 1975) (affirming

conviction for violating municipal disorderly-conduct ordinance in the face of

constitutional challenge based on the defendant’s “shouting and screaming” of profanities).

The evidence sufficiently permitted the jury to find that Heidmann engaged in boisterous

or noisy conduct. One of the officers’ body-worn cameras shows that Heidmann’s conduct

challenging the officers’ authority to investigate during the traffic stop instantly drew the

attention of the officer and the stopped car’s occupants as Heidmann walked across the

divided highway toward them. His confrontational and aggressive approach while

challenging the officers required them to divert their attention from the individuals under

investigation and focus exclusively on him. Heidmann persisted in his roadside challenge,

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moving himself closer to the officers even after they ordered him to back away. His

posturing, angry bickering, and refusing to step back required officers to continue engaging

with him perilously close to passing traffic at the highway’s fog line. His boisterous

contentions and combative mannerisms appear to have endangered himself, his dog, and

the officers. A fact-finder could also reasonably infer that Heidmann’s confrontation so

close to the roadway likely distracted passing drivers, needlessly risking a serious traffic

collision at dangerous speeds. The evidence of Heidmann’s conduct apart from his

protected speech, considered in the light most favorable to the guilty verdict, is sufficient

to prove that it was disorderly under the statute.

II

Heidmann’s challenge to the jury instruction also fails. We review a district court’s

jury instructions for an abuse of discretion. State v. Taylor, 869 N.W.2d 1, 14–15 (Minn.

2015). A district court abuses its discretion if its instructions “confuse, mislead, or

materially misstate the law.” Id. (quotation omitted). The district court instructed the jury

using the language of the statute, which included the words “alarm, anger, or disturb

others” over Heidmann’s objection. See Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3). Heidmann argues

that the district court should have instructed the jury that if it found his conduct consisted

only of speech, then the jury had to find the speech consisted of fighting words to convict

him. But the district court instructed the jury sufficiently, advising that if it found

Heidmann’s conduct consisted “only of offensive, obscene or abusive language,” it could

convict only if it “also find[s] that the words used were fighting words.” The district court

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then defined fighting words for the jury. The district court’s instructions did not constitute

an abuse of discretion.

Affirmed.

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