Disorderly Conduct Attorney – Aggressive and Effective Defense in Michigan

Dedicated to the Passionate, Fearless, and Effective Criminal Defense Attorneys for those Charged with Disorderly Conduct

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Often Used to Justify an Illegal Arrest

Disorderly conduct differs from other criminal charges because the law does not prohibit any specific, defined type of conduct. Unlike other criminal charges designed to prevent a particular type of behavior, disorderly conduct is used (and often abused) by police in several different ways. People are frequently charged with disorderly conduct by officers who want to justify a questionable or illegal arrest. What qualities would you want in your disorderly conduct attorney if you face disorderly conduct charges? You should demand someone who will provide an aggressive and effective defense.

Aggressive, Experienced Criminal Defense Attorney Can Help

Because this offense is so common and subjectively applied, having a skilled, disorderly conduct defense attorney can be extremely helpful. It is often possible to get these charges completely dropped. A disorderly conduct conviction is a criminal conviction and can result in a permanent criminal record.

If you or a loved one has been accused of Disorderly Conduct, you need a skilled and proven criminal disorderly conduct attorney on your side. Please contact LEWIS & DICKSTEIN, P.L.L.C. or call us for a free consultation with a disorderly conduct defense attorney with extensive experience defending people accused of or charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses, including Disorderly Conduct and Disturbing the Peace. We will employ our vast resources to minimize or eliminate the penalties you potentially face.

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Worst Case Scenario

A misdemeanor in Michigan is a crime punishable by one (1) year or less in jail. A common misdemeanor charge in Macomb and Oakland County is “disorderly conduct.” The offense covers situations deemed to frustrate public tranquility and peace. A disorderly conduct attorney can help you avoid jail, probation, and conviction. In Michigan, disorderly conduct is punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine for the following conduct:

  • A person jostling or roughly crowding people unnecessarily in a public place
  • A person who refuses or neglects to support their family (often used as a lesser offense to a Child Support Felony)
  • A common prostitute
  • A window peeper
  • A person who engages in an illegal occupation
  • A person engaged in indecent conduct in a public place
  • A person found loitering in a house of ill fame, or prostitution or lewdness is practiced, encouraged, or allowed (often a lesser offense to Solicitation of a Prostitute)
  • A person who knowingly loiters in or about a place where an illegal occupation or business is conducted
  • A person who loiters in or about a police station, hospital, court building, or other public building or place to solicit the employment of legal services or the services of sureties
  • A person who is intoxicated while hunting with a firearm or other weapon
  • A person who is intoxicated in a public place and who is either endangering the safety of another person or property or is acting in a manner that causes a public disturbance (often called Public Intoxication)

Disorderly Conduct is a Crime and Has Consequences

Unfortunately, many criminal attorneys do not take disorderly conduct seriously or convince their clients that it is “not a big deal.” Any criminal charge is a big deal, and a person charged with a criminal offense deserves an attorney who will fight for them. In the past, courts routinely sentenced defendants to just a fine, but that sentence is rare. Most courts now are ordering extensive periods of probation and, in some cases, jail time. A disorderly conduct attorney is your best hope of avoiding a conviction and criminal record.

Disorderly conduct charges arising from activity at Detroit Metro Airport almost always result in incarceration. A respected, credible, disorderly conduct attorney can help clients avoid harsh consequences.

A person shall not do any of the following within 500 feet of a building or other location where a funeral, memorial service, or viewing of a deceased person is being conducted or within 500 feet of a funeral procession or burial:

    (a) Make any statement or gesture or engage in any conduct that would make a reasonable person attending that funeral, memorial service, viewing, procession, or burial under the circumstances feel intimidated, threatened, or harassed.

    (b) Make any statement or gesture or engage in any conduct intended to incite or produce a breach of the peace among those attending that funeral, memorial service, viewing, or burial or traveling in that procession and that causes a breach of the peace among those attending that funeral, memorial service, viewing, or burial or traveling in that procession.

    (c) Make any statement or gesture or engage in any conduct intended to disrupt the funeral, memorial service, viewing, procession, or burial and that disrupts the funeral, memorial service, viewing, procession, or burial.

A person who violates this disorderly person law is guilty of a felony punishable by up to two (2) years in prison, years of probation, and a $5,000.00 fine. The penalties double for a second or subsequent violation.

Michigan Criminal Defense Attorney

Best Case Scenario – LEWIS & DICKSTEIN, P.L.L.C.

Disorderly Conduct charges can often be dismissed or reduced to non-criminal offenses. A great disorderly conduct criminal defense attorney may employ many statutes to keep this conviction off a client’s criminal record. In many cases, the prosecutor or police charge a disorderly conduct charge to prevent a lawsuit for illegal arrest or excessive force. The disorderly conduct attorneys at LEWIS & DICKSTEIN, P.L.L.C. can help!

If you are charged with Disorderly Conduct or Disturbing the Peace and want a lawyer who will fight for you and not minimize the importance of the case, we can help you.

Call us today at (248) 263-6800 for a free consultation or complete an online Request for Assistance Form. We will contact you promptly and find a way to help you.

We will find a way to help you.
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MCLA 750.167 “Disorderly person” defined; subsequent violations by person convicted of refusing or neglecting to support family.
(1) A person is a disorderly person if the person is any of the following:
(a) A person of sufficient ability who refuses or neglects to support his or her family.
(b) A common prostitute.
(c) A window peeper.
(d) A person who engages in an illegal occupation or business.
(e) A person who is intoxicated in a public place and who is either endangering directly the safety of another person or of property or is acting in a manner that causes a public disturbance.
(f) A person who is engaged in indecent or obscene conduct in a public place.
(g) A vagrant.
(h) A person found begging in a public place.
(i) A person found loitering in a house of ill fame or prostitution or place where prostitution or lewdness is practiced, encouraged, or allowed.
(j) A person who knowingly loiters in or about a place where an illegal occupation or business is being conducted.
(k) A person who loiters in or about a police station, police headquarters building, county jail, hospital, court building, or other public building or place for the purpose of soliciting employment of legal services or the services of sureties upon criminal recognizances.
(l) A person who is found jostling or roughly crowding people unnecessarily in a public place.
(2) When a person, who has been convicted of refusing or neglecting to support his or her family under this section, is then charged with subsequent violations within a period of 2 years, that person shall be prosecuted as a second offender, or third and subsequent offender, as provided in section 168, if the family of that person is then receiving public relief or support.

A disorderly conduct defense attorney can help you understand terms such as window peeper, vagrant, obscene, etc.

MCLA 750.167a Person hunting with firearms while drunk or intoxicated; confiscation and disposition of weapons; application for or possession of hunting license for period of 3 years prohibited.

Any person who shall be drunk or intoxicated while hunting with a firearm or other weapon under a valid hunting license shall be deemed to be a disorderly person. Upon conviction of such person, the weapon shall be confiscated and shall be delivered to the department of natural resources for disposition in the same manner as weapons confiscated for other violations of the game laws. Upon conviction under this section, the person so convicted, in addition to any punishment imposed pursuant to section 168, and as a part of any sentence imposed, shall be forbidden to apply for or possess a hunting license for a period of 3 years following the date of conviction. A violation of the conditions of such sentence shall be deemed to be a misdemeanor.

MCLA 750.167b Bondsman in criminal cases; procurement of attorney; maximum charge for bond; dismissal of charge; list of bondsmen; posting; compilation; record; violation; penalty.

(1) No person engaged, either as principal or as the clerk, agent or representative of another, in the business of becoming surety upon bonds for compensation in any criminal case, either directly or indirectly, shall give, donate, lend or contribute, or promise to give, donate, lend or contribute, any money or property to any attorney at law, police office, sheriff, jailer, probation officer, clerk or other attache of any criminal court, or public official or employee, for procuring, or assisting in procuring, any person to employ the bondsman to execute as surety any bond for compensation in any criminal case. No attorney at law, police officer, sheriff, jailer, probation officer, clerk or other attache of any criminal court, or public official or employee of any character, shall accept or receive from any person engaged in the bonding business any money or property for procuring, or assisting in procuring, any person to employ any bondsman to execute as surety any bond for compensation in any criminal case.
(2) No person engaged, either as principal or as the clerk, agent or representative of another, in the business of becoming surety upon bonds for compensation in any criminal case, either directly or indirectly, shall procure, suggest, aid in the procurement of or cause in any way whatsoever the obtaining or employing of any attorney at law for any person in a criminal case.
(3) It shall be lawful to charge for executing any bond in a criminal case, but no person engaged in the bonding business, either as principal or clerk, agent or representative of another, either directly or indirectly, shall charge, accept or receive any sum of money or property, other than the regular prevailing fee for bonding, which shall not exceed 10% of the face value of the bond for a 12 month period or any part thereof, from any person for whom he has executed bond, for any other service whatever performed in connection with any indictment, information or charge upon which the person is bailed or held. No person engaged, either as principal or as the clerk, agent or representative of another, in the bonding business shall settle or attempt to settle, or shall procure or attempt to procure, the dismissal of any indictment, information or charge against any person in custody or held upon bond with any court or with the prosecuting attorney in any court.
(4) A typewritten or printed list, alphabetically arranged, of all persons engaged in the business of becoming surety upon bonds for compensation in criminal cases within the county shall be posted in a conspicuous place in each police precinct, jail, prisoner’s dock and house of detention and in every other place in which persons in custody of the law are detained, and 1 or more copies thereof shall be kept on hand. The list shall be compiled annually by the judges of the circuit court of each circuit, and the names of persons engaged in the business of becoming surety upon bonds for compensation shall be added to the list by the judges upon proper application. When any person who is detained in custody in any such place of detention requests any person in charge thereof to furnish him the name of a bondsman, or to put him in communication with a bondsman, the list shall be furnished to the person so requesting, without recommendation, and the person in charge of the place of detention within a reasonable time shall put the person detained in communication with the bondsman selected and, contemporaneously with the transaction, make in the blotter or book of record kept in any place of detention a record showing the name of the person requesting the bondsman, the offense with which the person is charged, the time at which the request was made, the bondsman requested, and the person by whom the bondsman was called, and preserve the same as a permanent record in the book or blotter in which entered.
(5) Any person violating any provision of this section shall be punished as provided in section 168 (unless they have a great disorderly conduct attorney).

MCLA 750.167c Report of conviction for hunting while intoxicated; circulating list of convictions; violation by licensing agent.

A court imposing a sentence under section 167a shall report the conviction to the department of natural resources upon forms furnished by the department. The department shall circulate a list of the convictions to each of its agents authorized to issue hunting licenses. An agent shall not knowingly issue a hunting license to an applicant whose name is on the departmental list for the period of time prescribed under section 167a. A violation of this section by the licensing agent may be grounds for suspension or revocation of the licensing agency by the department.

MCLA 750.167d Funeral, memorial service, or viewing; funeral procession; burial; prohibited conduct; violation; penalty.

(1) A person shall not do any of the following within 500 feet of a building or other location where a funeral, memorial service, or viewing of a deceased person is being conducted or within 500 feet of a funeral procession or burial:
(a) Make loud and raucous noise and continue to do so after being asked to stop.
(b) Make any statement or gesture that would make a reasonable person under the circumstances feel intimidated, threatened, or harassed.
(c) Engage in any other conduct that the person knows or should reasonably know will disturb, disrupt, or adversely affect the funeral, memorial service, viewing of the deceased person, funeral procession, or burial.
(2) A person who violates subsection (1) is a disorderly person and is guilty of a felony punishable as provided under section 168.