2024 Colorado Revised Statutes
Title 18 - CRIMINAL CODE (§§ 18-1-101 — 18-26-102)
Article 9 - Offenses Against Public Peace, Order, and Decency (§§ 18-9-101 — 18-9-314)
Part 1 - PUBLIC PEACE AND ORDER (§§ 18-9-101 — 18-9-125)
Section 18-9-106 - Disorderly conduct

• (1) A person commits disorderly conduct if he or she intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:
  • (a) Makes a coarse and obviously offensive utterance, gesture, or display in a public place and the utterance, gesture, or display tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace; or
  • (b) (Deleted by amendment, L. 2000, p. 708, § 39, effective July 1, 2000.)
  • (c) Makes unreasonable noise in a public place or near a private residence that he has no right to occupy; or
  • (d) Fights with another in a public place except in an amateur or professional contest of athletic skill; or
  • (e) Not being a peace officer, discharges a firearm in a public place except when engaged in lawful target practice or hunting or the ritual discharge of blank ammunition cartridges as an attendee at a funeral for a deceased person who was a veteran of the armed forces of the United States; or
  • (f) Not being a peace officer, displays a real or simulated firearm, displays any article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a firearm, or represents verbally or otherwise that he or she is armed with a firearm in a public place in a manner calculated to alarm and does alarm another person.

• (2) Repealed.

• (3)
  • (a) An offense pursuant to subsection (1)(a) or (1)(c) of this section is a petty offense; except that, if the offense is committed with intent to disrupt, impair, or interfere with a funeral, or with intent to cause severe emotional distress to a person attending a funeral, it is a class 2 misdemeanor.
  • (b) An offense pursuant to subsection (1)(d) of this section is a petty offense.
  • (c) An offense pursuant to subsection (1)(f) of this section is a class 2 misdemeanor.
  • (d) An offense pursuant to subsection (1)(e) of this section is a class 1 misdemeanor.

Amended by 2021 Ch. 462, § 308, eff. 3/1/2022.

Amended by 2014 Ch. 22, § 1, eff. 3/7/2014.

L. 71: R&RE, p. 467, § 1. C.R.S. 1963: § 40-9-106. L. 72: p. 275, § 8. L. 81: (1)(a) amended, p. 1010, § 1, effective April 24. L. 2000: IP(1), (1)(b), and (1)(f) amended, pp. 696, 708, §§ 11, 39, effective July 1. L. 2006: (3) amended, p. 1198, § 3, effective May 26; (2) repealed, p. 1493, § 21, effective June 1. L. 2014: (1)(e) amended, (HB 14 -1059), ch. 153, p. 153, § 1, effective March 7. L. 2021: (1)(f) and (3) amended, (SB 21-271), ch. 3201, p. 3201, § 308, effective 3/1/2022.

In Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011), the United States Supreme Court held that the first amendment shielded military funeral protesters from tort liability for their picketing because the picketing constituted speech on matters of public concern and because the father of the deceased was not a member of a captive audience.

2021 Ch. 462, was passed without a safety clause. See Colo. Const. art. V, § 1(3).

(1) For affirmative defenses generally, see §§ 18-1-407, 18-1-710, and 18-1-805. (2) In 2006, subsection (3) was amended by the "Right to Rest in Peace Act". For the title and legislative declaration, see section 1 of chapter 262, Session Laws of Colorado 2006.