“The Invisible War,” a documentary by Kirby Dick on rape in the military, has been selected for competition at the Sundance Film Festival, January 19-29, 2012.  One of the most powerful lines in the movie is: “Military women are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.”

Over at the Daily Beast, Jessie Ellison describes three signs that the military might finally be forced to  “confront its rape epidemic.”  First, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced on Friday that he will issue “very direct guidance” in the coming months to reduce sexual assault in the military.  Second, a new bill introduced by Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California to strengthen protections for victims of sexual assault within the military had garnered more than 50 co-sponsors within 24 hours.  Finally, Susan Burke, the lawyer (also my wife) representing 28 plaintiffs in Cioca v. Rumsfeld, had a “surprisingly good day in court.”

According to Ellison, Cioca v. Rumsfeld is a “landmark case” that charges former defense secretaries Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld with failing not only to take action on the problem but also ignoring congressional mandates. Writes Ellison:

[W]ithin the halls of the wood-paneled federal courtroom, Burke’s battle showed similarly unexpected promise, with Justice O’Grady declining to grant the motion to dismiss, filed by Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of the Department of Defense, and shaking his head with apparent empathy as Burke detailed how some of her plaintiffs had been “forced to live alongside their rapists, forced to salute their rapists every day.”

But O’Grady didn’t dismiss the defense attorney’s motion either – instead, he stalled.  “How do I get around what I believe is a clear mandate [from the Supreme Court] to not involve the court in what clearly are military oversight issues,” he asked Burke.  “You understand my problem here?”

“I do, your honor,” Burke responded.  “I understand that this is rocky terrain.  But rape and sexual assault are not incident to service.  It’s nothing you sign up for.  I urge you to give it serious thought.”  “O’Grady pledged to do just that, promising to deliver his judgment as soon as he could – likely within a few weeks, Burke estimated – but acknowledging that it wouldn’t be “a pleasant task.”  

Post-Script:  Although I am always the proud husband, Susan herself is not so impressed.  Progress on three fronts, I say to her after I’ve read the Newsweek piece.  Yeah, she says, these things tend to go in cycles.  Just think of the flurry of activity after Tailhook.  But where is the real change?

Of all the collateral consequences of a criminal arrest or conviction, one of the issues of greatest concern in the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area could be the effect of an arrest or conviction on a person’s security clearance.  After all, with many military personnel and defense contractors living in the area, there are many people here who require a security clearance in order to perform their jobs.  This is often one of the first questions clients ask of me:  How is this going to affect my clearance?

Any type of government or government-contract job that involves access to classified information requires a security clearance. There are three levels of clearance:  confidential, secret and top secret.  Top secret classifications are further divided into sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) and single scope background investigation (SSBI).

People are concerned about having a clearance either granted or renewed.  In addition to periodic random re-investigations for many personnel, top secret clearances are reviewed every 5 years, secret clearances every 10 years and confidential clearances every 15 years.

Three groups of people are categorically precluded from being granted a clearance:  addicts or unlawful users of controlled substances, people deemed mentally incompetent, and former members of the military who have been dishonorably discharged.  Otherwise, people are evaluated on the basis of honesty, trustworthiness, loyalty, financial responsibility and reliability.

This means that a simple arrest and even a criminal conviction will not automatically disqualify a person for a clearance.  At the same time, such a criminal history could prove problematic, especially if combined with other factors that reflect poorly on the person’s background and character.  Examiners might look particularly harshly at felony crimes and crimes involving dishonesty (e.g., theft, embezzlement) or substance abuse (e.g., driving while intoxicated, possession of controlled substances).  They might also be concerned about crimes that could open the person to blackmail (e.g., solicitation of a prostitute).

Consistent with basic due process protections, people whose security clearance is denied or revoked do have the right to appeal.  An appeal usually involves a hearing at which the person is given the opportunity to contest the adverse decision and ask for reconsideration.  A review of recent adjudications shows that the committee will forgive a broad range of sins provided the person actively demonstrates a willingness to take responsibility and/or compensate.  The Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals, which handles most of the appeals, is also much more interested in a person’s honesty today than in some error in judgment the person made many years ago.

People holding security clearances are required to report to their facility security officer (FSO) any development that could adversely affect that clearance.  Failure to report such an arrest or conviction — while perhaps not fatal to an application — could seriously affect the granting or renewal of a clearance.

Darnell Anderson was the passenger in a car involved in a shooting.  The car sped away at high speed when police arrived at the scene.  Anderson continued to flee on foot even after the car was stopped.  The question addressed last month before the D.C. Court of Appeals in English v. U.S., __ S.E.2d __ (2011), was whether or not he could have been found guilty under D.C. Code § 50-2201.05(b) of fleeing from a law enforcement officer in a motor vehicle in a reckless manner.

Anderson challenged his conviction on two grounds.  First, relying on the plain language of the statute itself, he argued that only the “operator of a motor vehicle” himself could be found guilty of this offense.  Second, and in the alternative, he argued that even if someone other than the driver could be held criminally liable under an aiding and abetting theory, the government failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Anderson did anything to encourage or facilitate the driver’s flight.

The court was “unpersuaded” by Anderson’s first argument.  Although the statute by its terms applies only to the “operator” of a motor vehicle, the court saw no reason why conventional principles of aiding and abetting would not apply to the offense of fleeing from a police officer.  Under D.C. Code § 22-1805, in “prosecutions for any criminal offense all persons advising, inciting or conniving to an offense, or aiding the principal offender, shall be charged as principals and not as accessories.”  Thus, if a passenger “advises, incites, or connives at” flight in a car from a police officer, or if he “aids the principal offender” in fleeing, then, under the literal terms of the statute, he is just as liable as the driver himself.

But the court did accept Anderson’s argument that the government had failed to prove its theory of aiding and abetting in the flight. There was no question that Anderson shared the driver’s interest in eluding capture, an interest proven further by the defendant’s continued flight on foot even after the car was stopped.  At the same time, there was no evidence of “any concrete action” Anderson took to “make his hope a reality.”

The court specifically cited other cases – by contrast — in which the passenger threw beer cans or contraband out of the window during the flight, thereby providing some concrete evidence of complicity. There was no such evidence in this case. “Indeed,” held the court, “it is not at all obvious that, short of stepping on the brake or shooting at or threatening to shoot [Obbie English, who was driving the car], Anderson could have done anything to prevent the latter from speeding away.  Moreover, the evidence does not reveal whether English’s speeding at 95 miles per hour represented Anderson’s best chance of success; he might have done better if he had been able to bail out before the pursuit began.”

If you have been approved by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a diversion program in Washington, D.C., your agreement probably includes a requirement that you perform community service. Below is a list of the organizations that are approved as of June 2, 2011.

Please note that there may be separate requirements/organizations for driving while intoxicated, driving under the influence, or juvenile matters handled by the Office of the Attorney General.  There are also separate procedures/organizations for the East of the River Community Court matters handled out of Room 221 in D.C. Superior Court.

Once you have completed the required number of community service hours, you will need to obtain a letter from the organization attesting to this completion.  The letter should be on the letterhead of the organization.  It should be signed by a person in a position of authority.  And it should include the telephone number of a person at the organization whom the U.S. Attorney’s Office can call to confirm.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office advises you to mail or fax the letter directly to the Diversion Office at 555 Fourth Street, NW, Room 1609, Washington, DC 20530, fax number 202-514-8788.  It is also a very good idea to send a copy to your lawyer.

Beacon House Community Ministry, Inc.

P.O. Box 29629

601 Edgewood Street, N.E., Suite 15

Washington, DC 20017

Contact:  Rodney Cephas, 202-529-0787 or 202-277-3299

Bread for the City

1525 Seventh Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.breadforthecity.org

Contact:  Erin Holmes, 202-386-7006

Spanish speakers accepted

Capital Area Foodbank

645 Taylor Street, N.E.

Washington, DC 20017

Contact:  Nicole Durant, 202-526-5344

Capitol Hill United Methodist Church

421 Seward Street, S.E.

Washington, D.C. 20003

Contact:  David Kennedy, 202-546-1000

Coalition for the Homeless

1234 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20005

Contact:  Ms. Fields, 202-347-8870

Spanish speakers accepted

Community for Creative Non-Violence

425 2^nd Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Contact:  Margaret Randall, 202-393-1909, Ext. 240

Concerned Citizens on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Inc.

3115 Martin Luther King Avenue, S.E.

Washington, DC

Contact:  Sharon Dokert, 202-574-2480

D.C. Central Kitchen

425 Second Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Contact:  Carolyn Parham, 202-234-0707

Employment for Former Offenders Receiving Treatment Services (EFFORTS)

1416 N. Capitol Street, NW

Washington, DC 20002

Contact:  Ms. Morrison, 202-232-7322

Emery Recreation Center

5701 Georgia Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20011

Contact:  Darrell Mack, 202-576-3211

Spanish speakers accepted

Environmental Crimes Unit Solid Waste Education and Enforcement Program

2800B New York Avenue, NE

Room 223

Washington, DC 20001

Contact:  Anita Chavis, 202-576-9404

Spanish speakers accepted

The Family Place

3309 16^th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20010

Contact:  Karen Uribarri-Tibabuzo, 202-265-0149

Spanish speakers accepted

Father McKenna Center

19 Eye Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Contact:  Virginia Jenkins, 202-842-1112, Ext. 13

Georgetown Ministry Center

1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20007

Contact:  Malini Suri, info@gmcgt.org

Greater D.C. Cares

1156 15^th Street, NW, Suite 840

Washington, DC 20005

www.greaterdccares.org

Contact:  Matt Crawford

Historic Berean Baptist Church

1400 Montana Avenue, N.E.

Washington, DC 20018

Contact:  Rev. Kenneth Blanchard, 202-526-1501

Holy Christian Missionary Baptist Church for All People

5110 Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, N.E.

Washington, DC 20019

Contact:  Brenda Thompson, 202-396-7720

Jewish Community Center of Washington, DC

1529 16^th Street, NW

Washington, DC

Contact:  Erica Steen, 202-777-3255

ericas@washingtondcjcc.org

Jubilee Jobs, Inc.

2712 Ontario Road, NW

Washington, DC 20009

Contact:  Mercedes Henriquez, 202-667-8970

La Clinica Del Pueblo

2831 15^th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009

Contact:  Brigida Goyot or Melody Mejia

202-448-2847/202-448-2861

Spanish speakers accepted

Latin American Youth Center

1419 Columbia Road, NW

Washington, DC 20010

www.layc-dc.org

Contact:  Tamara Mysuk or Delmy Majano, 202-319-2225

Spanish speakers accepted

Martha’s Table

2114 14^th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009

Contact:  Nadia Sicard or Kim Lyons, 202-328-6608

Spanish speakers accepted

Mentors of Minorities in Education’s Total Learning Cis-Tem

744 Jefferson Street, NW

Washington, DC 20011

Contact:  Chitra Subramania, 202-545-1919

New Endeavors By Women

611 N Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.newendeavorsbywomen.org

Contact:  Tiffany Lynch, 202-682-5825

Non-Profit Community Development Corporation of Washington, D.C.

1330 New Hampshire Avenue, NW

Suite 311

Washington, DC 20036

Contact:  Walter Johnson, 202-861-5839

One Common Unity

161 Todd Place, NE

Washington, DC 20002

Contact:  Nathaniel Lincoln Mills, 202-529-2125

Peoples Media Center

4132 Georgia Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20011

Contact:  Ryme Kathouda, DC@ingymedia.org

Sasha Bruce Youthwork, Inc.

1022 Maryland Avenue, NE

Washington, DC 20002-5330

Contact:  George Johnson, 202-546-4900/369-2555

So Others Might Eat (SOME)

71 O Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Contact:  Dirk Whatley, 202-797-8806, Ext.

Email:  DWhatley@some.org

Thrive DC

1525 Newton Street, NW

Washington, DC 20010

Contact:  Nathan Mishler, 202-503-1528

United Planning Organization Petey Greene Center

2907 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE

Washington, D.C. 20001

Contact:  Robin Myers (202-238-4600)/Ayana Bias (202-562-3800)

U.S. Capitol Historical Society

200 Maryland Avenue, N.E.

Washington, DC 20002

Contact:  Steve Livengood, 202-543-8919, Ext. 17

Washington Animal Rescue League

71 Oglethorpe Street, NW

Washington, DC 20011

Contact:  Allison Schwartz, 202-723-0038, Allison.schwartz@warl.org

Washington Peace Center

1525 Newton Street, NW

Washington, DC 20010

Contact:  Gerald Kane-Osorto, 202-234-2000

Watkins Recreation Center

420 12^th Street, S.E.

Washington, DC

Contact:  Brian Cobbs, 202-724-4468

YMCA

1112 16^th Street, NW, Suite 700

Washington, DC 20020

Contact:  Ed Fones, 202-797-4478

YMCA

1711 Rhode Island Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20036

Contact:  Russell Washington/Daniel Hogsten, 202-862-9630

Young Adult Corps of Washington, DC

2504 14^th Street, NE, Suite 2

Washington, DC 20018

Contact:  Preston Haythe, 202-526-8454

“Sexual misconduct has no place in the university’s community of trust.”

So says Patricia Lampkin of the University of Virginia (U-Va) in describing the university’s proposed new rules on sexual misconduct. Having come under harsh criticism nationwide for having failed to prevent the murder of 22-year-old Yeardley Love at the hands of another U-Va student, U-Va just became one of the first schools to act on new guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Education.

Under the proposed new rules, alleged victims of sexual misconduct at U-Va will no longer be required to present “clear and convincing” evidence to prevail in the school’s judicial system. Cases under the proposed new rules will be decided instead by a preponderance of the evidence standard; in other words, whether it is more likely than not that the misconduct occurred.

The definition of sexual misconduct will be broadened to include relationship violence, cyberstalking and recording or transmitting sexual images.  Existing limits on time and geography will also be abolished, thereby “freeing students to bring complaints about incidents outside Charlottesville and to pursue cases from years past.”

It is in pretty hard to disagree with Lampkin’s statement.  Who doesn’t want to protect our young people from sexual predators on campus?

The problem is that the statement ignores the other young people on our campuses who will also be impacted by the proposed new policy:  those students who are falsely accused of sexual misconduct.

School administrators and the well-meaning young people who participate on student disciplinary committees are notoriously ignorant of basic due process protections. Proceedings are not recorded or transcribed. Students who are accused of sexual misconduct are often pressured to proceed without the benefit of legal counsel; they make ill-considered decisions and statements that could later come back to haunt them in a criminal prosecution. And, as long as the accuser and the accused both remain on campus, there is often pressure to come to a quick judgment.  People don’t seem to understand that there is a reason criminal prosecutions take so long.

In issuing the new guidelines to “empower victims of sexual misconduct on campus,” the U.S. Department of Justice cited statistics which show that nearly one young woman in five will be the victim of sexual assault or attempted assault at college. The Department also cited an investigation by the Center of Public Integrity which found that many accusations end in “nominal academic penalties or no punishment at all.”

In other words, if you don’t like the numbers nationwide, you can achieve a different outcome by jiggering with the equation, even if this means eliminating basic protections.

The problem is that, by reducing the burden of proof and eliminating jurisdictional and other due process protections, you are only going to replace one problem with another.  You are going to compound the personal tragedy of a young person sexually assaulted with the systemic injustice of another young person wrongly penalized.

A couple of years ago, I was representing a client on a prostitution solicitation charge in Philadelphia. I had worked out a deferred prosecution agreement with the government according to which the assistant district attorney would postpone prosecution and then dismiss the charges against my client if he successfully completed a period of 9 months of probation.

As my client and I were sitting in the courtroom waiting to formalize the agreement before the judge, another lawyer was challenging the same charge at trial.  Obviously very talented, and a showboat to boot, the lawyer was entertaining the gallery with his vigorous cross-examination of the arresting officer. It was only the judge – the person who would be determining the verdict — who did not seem all that impressed with the lawyer’s theatrics.

My client began to fidget in his seat as the trial continued, and I realized that he was thinking about changing his mind about the deal.  Just wait, I told him.  You haven’t heard the judge’s verdict yet.

Sure enough, despite the lawyer’s valiant effort, the judge took all of two seconds after the closing of argument to convict the defendant of the charge. When the judge proceeded to sentencing and the district attorney detailed a long list of the defendant’s previous convictions for both prostitution solicitation and other offenses, it quickly became clear why the defendant had taken the case to trial:  with such a bad criminal history, deferred prosecution was not an option. And when the judge meted out a sentence that included some jail-time, my client leaned back in his seat.  Suddenly his decision to enter into the deferred prosecution agreement looked a whole lot more attractive.

Courtroom theatrics aside, prostitution solicitation cases are generally pretty difficult to beat at trial. You have a police officer testifying, not a civilian witness, and judges tend to believe police officers. While some defendants say they were merely flirting or fooling around and never intended to go through with the act, merely discussing a sexual act in connection with money can be construed as making out the elements of the offense.  And the defendant must still explain what he was doing in a bad part of town talking with a stranger.  That’s why the “sufficiency” argument usually fails.

While the police officer will occasionally mess up some of the paperwork (getting the race of the defendant wrong, for example), the defense of mistaken identity is virtually impossible to make under these circumstances.  Biographical information provided by the defendant  – to say nothing of the fingerprints now on file – suggest that it was the defendant who was arrested that night.  The old “some other guy did it” defense just isn’t going to cut it here.

Finally, the defense of entrapment, as least in most jurisdictions, is virtually impossible to make.  In order to prove entrapment in D.C., for example, the initial burden is on the defendant to show that police used persuasion, fraudulent representations, threats, or other coercive activities to induce him to commit a crime which he would otherwise not have committed.  The burden then shifts to the government to prove that the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense.  According to D.C. law, a simple request by police to engage in criminal activity, standing alone, is not an inducement.  Police are also permitted to use decoys and undercover agents as long as they merely afford an opportunity, not an inducement, to commit the criminal activity.

In this light, the deferred prosecution agreement currently offered in D.C. for first-time offenders looks pretty good.  After three negative drug tests, the defendant enters into an agreement with the government requiring him to perform 16 hours of community service over a 4-month period. The charges are withdrawn upon the successful completion of these conditions, and the defendant ends up with no conviction on his record.  He can also petition to have his arrest record sealed after two years.

A deferred prosecution agreement may not be the most exciting thing to do, but it is usually the preferred option in this type of case. Unlike a trial, which always involves the risk of a conviction, things are completely within the client’s control when he enters a deferred prosecution agreement.  If he completes the conditions successfully, he knows that the charges will be dismissed in the end.

I have always been somewhat suspicious of reports in the criminal law blogosphere about lawyers who misrepresent their credentials or who otherwise fail to meet the needs of their clients. Maybe I am naïve but I have questioned how frequently this actually occurs. And just as anything I might say could be viewed as suspect, I have been struck by the sanctimonious and self-serving nature of these complaints, particularly when coming from a less experienced lawyer such as myself. Implicit in every such complaint is the suggestion that the blogger doing the complaining would never commit such a sin himself.

All of that said, I am on solid ground in discussing a story from the Washington Post about the declaration of a mistrial yesterday in D.C. Superior Court.  It turns out that the out-of-state lawyer who represented the defendant, Joseph Rakofsky, had never before tried a case, despite advertising on his website that he “specializes” in criminal law.  (Rakofsky also states on his website that he “interviewed at a well-respected investment bank with branches all over the world.”  Emphasis added.)

The lawyer encouraged his investigator to engage in unethical behavior and then refused to pay the investigator when the investigator failed to comply. And, according to the Honorable William Jackson, the judge who declared the mistrial and then dismissed the lawyer from the case, Rakofsky didn’t seem to have a clue about putting on a case:  “There was not a good grasp of legal procedures of what was, and was not, allowed to be admitted in trial, to the detriment of [the defendant].”

And did I mention this was a murder trial?  As the Judge stated in appointing a new attorney:  “I was astonished someone would represent someone in a murder case who has never tried a case before.”

The case raises a number of questions with respect to the D.C. lawyer who, because Rakofsky is not licensed to practice in D.C., agreed to serve as “local counsel” on the case to advise Rakofsky on D.C. law and procedure.  In fairness, I have no idea what transpired between Rakofsky and the D.C. lawyer prior to trial, and it was in fact disagreements between the two lawyers during the trial that led the defendant to ask for new counsel.  At the same time, had the D.C. lawyer raised concern with respect to Rakofsky’s competence earlier, a mistrial might have been avoided.  As it is, the defendant will now remain in custody until his next trial which, because of D.C.’s crowded court dockets, could take up to a year.

Former NFL great Lawrence Taylor was sentenced on Monday to six years of probation for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old prostitute. Here he is, with H/T to Sex Offender Issues, on Studio B with Shepard Smith.

Disorderly conduct laws made national news in 2009 when Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home for “loud and tumultuous behavior in a public place.” Gates, who is African American, claimed racial profiling. The officer, who is white and who was responding to a call of a possible break-in at the professor’s house, claimed that Gates was loud and belligerent in violation of the law. While the two men did not exactly kiss and make up, they did get together later at the White House where they shared a beer in the Rose Garden with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Said Eugene McDonnell of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the time, disorderly conduct is “probably the most abused statute in America.”  Added Boston University professor Tom Nolan:  “Disorderly conduct is a fluid concept.  Unlike a lot of other crimes, this really calls for the use of discretion in a way that armed robbery or more serious felony crime doesn’t.”  And discretion in the hands of the wrong police officer can be a dangerous thing.

Disorderly conduct laws have also come under fire in D.C.  In June 2010, for example, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued a decision, In Re T.L., that narrowed the scope of the offense in the District.  Specifically, finding that the law was being interpreted too broadly to include behavior that was either innocent or justified, it held that, in order to satisfy the “breach of peace” requirement under the statute, the government must prove either that (1) the defendant’s speech or conduct was likely to trigger violence or (2) it was “unreasonably loud and disruptive.”

More recently, the D.C. Council has just enacted major changes to the District’s disorderly conduct laws to “eliminate vagueness in the language of the statute”:

The disorderly conduct statute is clearly important to quality of life as well as the public peace.  And yet disorderly conduct is difficult to define in the law because often it deals with conduct at the edge of what is acceptable in a free society.  We celebrate the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, and yet we want to arrest the drunk who is speaking too freely (and too loudly) in the middle of the street at 3:00 am.  The right to demonstrate is an important freedom, and yet does not give people the right to block streets or the entrance to an abortion clinic as part of their protest.

One particular change was made to the “loud and boisterous” section of the law.  According to the D.C. Office of Police Complaints, the “revision makes clear that offensive language directed at police officers, standing alone, does not constitute disorderly conduct.”

Codified through Chapter 13 of the D.C. Crimes Code under the general heading of “Disturbances of the Public Peace,” disorderly conduct offenses accounted for 2,744 arrests in 2009.  Prohibited actions include unlawful assembly; profane and indecent language; playing games in the street; throwing stones or other missiles; urging dogs to fight or create disorder; allowing dogs to go at large; lewd, indedent, or obscene acts; kindling bonfires, disturbing religious congregation; interference with medical facilities and health professionals; flying fire balloons or parachutes; driving or riding on footways in public grounds; false alarm of fire; sale of tobacco to minors; disorderly conduct; rioting or inciting to riot; and obstructing bridges connecting D.C. and Virginia.

With the overall goal of the amendments to “eliminate language that is either vague or unenforceable,” specific changes include the following:

• D.C. Code § 22-1307 on “Unlawful Assembly, Profane and Indecent Language” now prohibits a person from “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding the use of any street, alley, sidewalk, or entrance.”  (“Incommode” means to make passage inconvenient.);
• D.C. Code § 22-1312 on “Lewd, Indecent, or Obscene Acts” is re-written to clarify the indecent exposure statute in light of case law, including the prohibition of sex in public, and it also prohibits indecent sexual proposals to a minor;
• D.C. Code § 22-1314 on “Disturbing Religious Congregation” now prohibits any person or persons from disrupting a worship service, including a funeral;
• D.C. Code § 22-1321 on “Disorderly Conduct” has been re-written and now proscribes a number of activities, including inciting or provoking violence through behavior or language; disrupting a lawful public gathering; unreasonably disrupting the lawful use of a public conveyance by other persons; making unreasonably loud noise between 10:00 pm and 7:00 am that is likely to annoy or disturb other persons in their residences; urinating or defecating in public; Peeping Toms; and jostling or unnecessarily crowding a person.
• The penalty for violating any of these prohibitions has been increased from $250 to $500, although the term of imprisonment remains a maximum of 90 days.

The new law was signed by Mayor Vincent Gray on January 19, 2011 and will take effect on April 3.