What Constitutes a “Lawful Order?”
The controversial Sandra Bland case in Waller County, Texas, has fueled debate as to what, exactly, constitutes a lawful order from a police officer. Bland was pulled over for failure to signal. The police officer asked her to extinguish her cigarette—contrary to her legal entitlement to smoke inside her own vehicle. When she declined, she was ordered out of the vehicle. Bland refused, and an altercation between she and the officer ensued. The officer repeated “I’m giving you a lawful order,” several times throughout the encounter, however, there is some question as to whether his orders were, in fact “lawful.”
Courts in general are rather silent as to what constitutes a “lawful order” within the confines of a traffic stop.
In the 1973 decision of
People v. Jennings, the court held that accepting the prosecution’s contention that “lawful” means any order which would not require the operator to break the law was far too broad, and would subject citizens to any “whim” of law enforcement. In that particular case, the court ended up adopting an extremely ambiguous rule that held an order by law enforcement is “lawful” when it is
“reasonably designed to achieve its goal.
” Unfortunately,
there is still little agreement, understanding, or clear guidelines regarding what constitutes a lawful order from a police officer, and, in fact, this is one of the primary defenses to charges of failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer (the burden of demonstrating that the order was lawful will fall on the State in these cases), as well as:
- The status of the officer is unknown (i.e., the citizen was unsure whether the person was actually a police officer), and
- Protected Speech—in general, a person’s words will never rise to the level of failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer, rather the words must be accompanied by “obstructively physical conduct.”
Penalties for Failure to Obey the Lawful Order of a Police Officer
If you are charged with Failure to Obey the Lawful Order of a police officer, you will face a second-degree misdemeanor. If convicted, you could be subject to:
- Up to sixty days in Florida County jail;
- A fine as large as $500, and/or
- Six months’ probation.