I’m Rocky Brancato, founder of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., a Tampa criminal defense firm. I spent years as a police academy instructor teaching officers the legal limits of arrest authority, and today our attorneys use those same limits to defend people charged with disorderly conduct across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties.

What Counts as Disorderly Conduct Under Florida Law?

Disorderly conduct is conduct that actually disturbs other people’s peace — not conduct that merely annoys a police officer. Section 877.03, Florida Statutes, titled “Breach of the peace; disorderly conduct,” makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to commit “such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the public morals, or outrage the sense of public decency, or affect the peace and quiet of persons who may witness them,” to engage “in brawling or fighting,” or to engage “in such conduct as to constitute a breach of the peace or disorderly conduct.”

Read literally, that language could reach almost any public argument. It does not, because the Florida Supreme Court narrowed it fifty years ago to keep it constitutional. In State v. Saunders, 339 So. 2d 641 (Fla. 1976), a case challenging the statute as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, the court saved the statute by limiting it: where the charge is based on words, the statute reaches only “fighting words” — words that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace — or words known to be false that report a physical hazard in circumstances creating a clear and present danger of bodily harm, such as shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Every disorderly conduct case in Florida is decided under that limitation.

In practice, the statute is applied to three categories of behavior:

1. Fighting and brawling — an actual physical fight in public, or conduct that provokes one.
2. Fighting words — face-to-face insults or threats likely to provoke an immediate violent response from the person addressed.
3. Disruptive physical conduct — banging on doors late at night, blocking traffic, refusing to leave while a crowd forms and turns hostile, or otherwise interfering with other people’s ability to go about their business.

What the statute does not reach is profanity, rudeness toward officers, loud complaining, or behavior that simply draws a curious crowd. Our attorneys see arrest reports every month that describe only that second category — and those are the cases that should never end in a conviction.

What Are the Penalties for Disorderly Conduct in Florida?

Disorderly conduct is a second-degree misdemeanor, which under section 775.082, Florida Statutes, carries up to 60 days in the county jail, and under section 775.083 a fine of up to $500. A judge may also impose up to six months of probation, community service, anger-management or alcohol-education classes, and court costs. Most first-time defendants with a clean record do not go to jail, but the charge itself — a permanent arrest record for a “breach of the peace” offense — is the real cost, because it appears on every background check.

Disorderly conduct is often confused with its cousin, disorderly intoxication, and the two are frequently charged together after an incident outside a bar. The table below compares them.

Two things about disorderly intoxication matter for defendants. First, intoxication alone is not a crime in Florida; the State must also prove endangerment or a public disturbance. Second, the statute expressly authorizes the officer to take an intoxicated person home rather than to jail — an option officers exercise far less often than the Legislature contemplated, and one our attorneys raise when the arrest itself looks retaliatory.

Can You Be Arrested for Cursing at a Police Officer in Florida?

You can be arrested for it — officers make that arrest regularly — but you generally cannot be convicted of disorderly conduct for it, because profanity directed at an officer is protected speech unless it crosses into fighting words or is accompanied by physical conduct that disturbs the peace. The leading Tampa Bay case is Barry v. State, 934 So. 2d 656 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006), decided by the Second District Court of Appeal, whose decisions bind every trial court in Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties. There, a father dropping his daughter at an elementary school in Lake Placid twice told a police officer working as the school crossing guard to mind her “own f____ing business,” then got out of his car and screamed obscenities at her while pointing and shaking his finger in her face, as passing motorists slowed and stopped to watch. The Second District reversed his disorderly conduct conviction. The words were not fighting words, the finger-pointing was not conduct that disturbed the peace, and — critically — “the mere fact that other people come outside or stop to watch what is going on is insufficient to support a conviction for disorderly conduct.” There must be evidence that the crowd is actually responding in a way that threatens a breach of the peace.

Barry also explains the line that decides most of these cases: “protected speech can be rendered unprotected by a defendant’s additional physical actions.” The table below shows how Florida courts have drawn that line.

The lesson our attorneys draw from these cases is simple: when the arrest report describes what the defendant said, the State has a problem; when it describes what the defendant did and how other people actually reacted, the State has a case. Reading the report with that distinction in mind is the first thing we do in every disorderly conduct file.

What Did the 2025 Oxyde Decision Change About “Words Versus Conduct”?

It did not change the rule, but it is the clearest recent statement of how Florida courts apply it, and prosecutors across Florida can be expected to cite it. In Oxyde v. State, No. 4D2024-1405 (Fla. 4th DCA July 16, 2025) (on rehearing), a man who was separated from his wife showed up at her Palm Beach County apartment building around 9 p.m. on a weeknight, was denied entry, threw rocks at her window, called a resident who refused to let him in a slur, cursed at the officers who responded, and then — after being told to leave — followed another resident inside, went to his wife’s second-floor unit, and, later that night during the building’s posted quiet hours, spent an extended period pounding on her door, screaming insults, and playing loud music. Three residents testified that he woke them. A county court jury convicted him of disorderly conduct, and the Fourth District affirmed.

The defendant argued that his words, however offensive, were not fighting words under Saunders. The court agreed that the case was not about his words. Instead, it examined “the time, place, and manner of the conduct at issue”: late evening, during posted quiet hours; a residential hallway serving a dozen units per floor; and prolonged, loud, physical conduct that residents could not escape. Quoting the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in White v. State, 330 So. 2d 3 (Fla. 1976), a decision holding that it is the loudness and circumstances of speech, not its content, that can take it outside constitutional protection, the Fourth District repeated the line that best explains this area of law: the defendant’s “conduct would have been equally disorderly had he merely recited ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ in the same tone and under similar circumstances.”

For anyone charged in Hillsborough County, Oxyde cuts both ways. It confirms that the State cannot convict on profanity or slurs alone, no matter how ugly. But it also confirms that a neighbor dispute, a late-night confrontation at an apartment complex, or a refusal to leave after officers ask you to can become a legitimate disorderly conduct case once the conduct — the banging, the duration, the hour, the people awakened — becomes the story. Our attorneys frame the defense accordingly: the case is about what the witnesses actually experienced, and if they experienced only words, the statute does not apply.

Can Police Arrest You for Disorderly Conduct They Did Not See?

No. Disorderly conduct is a misdemeanor, and under section 901.15(1), Florida Statutes, an officer may make a warrantless misdemeanor arrest only when the offense is committed “in the presence of the officer,” and the arrest must be made “immediately or in fresh pursuit.” This rule matters more in disorderly conduct cases than almost anywhere else, because officers typically arrive after the disturbance has ended and arrest based on what witnesses tell them.

Florida courts enforce the rule strictly. In Carlo v. State, No. 4D2022-2040 (Fla. 4th DCA Jan. 3, 2024), Broward County officers responding to 911 calls about a man with a knife found a small, agitated group in an apartment complex parking lot; the defendant was upset and explained why, but by the time officers arrived he was no longer fighting or brawling. They arrested him for disorderly conduct anyway, searched his pocket, and found cocaine. The Fourth District held that because none of the elements of disorderly conduct occurred in the officers’ presence — whatever he had done before they arrived — the arrest was illegal, the search incident to it was tainted, and the cocaine had to be suppressed. The court vacated the conviction.

The Fifth District applied the same principle to a citizen’s arrest in 2026. In Jeffries v. State, No. 5D2024-1721 (Fla. 5th DCA July 31, 2026) — a decision applying arrest rules that govern statewide — an off-duty officer in Putnam County, acting as a private citizen, detained a man who appeared intoxicated, had walked onto someone’s yard, and approached an elderly woman. A private citizen may arrest only for a felony or a breach of the peace committed in the citizen’s presence, and the court held that this conduct “did not rise to the level of breach of the peace.” The detention was unlawful, the stun gun found afterward should have been suppressed, and his conviction for possessing it as a convicted felon was vacated. The court’s observation that mere apparent intoxication in public is not a breach of the peace is one our attorneys expect to cite in Tampa Bay bar-district cases for years.

For a defendant, the in-presence rule creates two defenses at once. If the officer did not personally see conduct meeting the statute, the arrest was unlawful — and anything found in a search incident to that arrest (a small amount of marijuana, a pocketknife, an open container) is subject to suppression. And because the same officer is usually the State’s only witness, an officer who arrived after the fact frequently cannot prove the elements at trial either. The doctrine survives procedure: losing a motion to suppress does not end the argument, because the State still has to prove, through a witness who saw it, that the conduct occurred.

Where Do Disorderly Conduct Arrests Happen in Hillsborough County?

Wherever crowds, alcohol, and police overlap. In our experience the bulk of Hillsborough County disorderly conduct and disorderly intoxication arrests come from a handful of settings:

• Ybor City on Friday and Saturday nights, particularly along Seventh Avenue at closing time, where Tampa Police maintain a heavy presence and confrontations at bar exits routinely end in a § 877.03 or § 856.011 arrest.
• SoHo and South Howard Avenue, where the same closing-time dynamics play out with a different crowd.
• Gasparilla and other downtown and Bayshore festivals, where open-container enforcement and crowd control produce a surge of misdemeanor arrests and notices to appear in a single day.
• Raymond James Stadium and Amalie Arena parking lots and tailgates.
• Apartment complexes and residential neighborhoods, where the “disorderly conduct” arrest is often the resolution of a neighbor or domestic argument that did not fit any other charge.
• Traffic stops and police encounters anywhere in the county, where an argument with an officer becomes a disorderly conduct arrest — the Barry scenario.

That last category deserves emphasis. Disorderly conduct is sometimes called the “contempt of cop” charge because officers use it when a person is disrespectful but has committed no other offense. Those arrests are the most vulnerable in court, and our attorneys treat them as cases to be dismissed, not negotiated.

What Happens After a Disorderly Conduct Arrest in Tampa?

Either you receive a notice to appear and go home, or you are booked into the Orient Road Jail and see a judge at first appearance within 24 hours. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.125 allows officers to issue a notice to appear instead of making a physical arrest for a misdemeanor, and Tampa Police and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office use it frequently in crowd settings such as Gasparilla. If you are booked instead, disorderly conduct carries a standard bond in Hillsborough County, and most defendants are released within hours.

The case is then filed in Hillsborough County Court (misdemeanor division) at the courthouse on East Twiggs Street, down the street from our office. The typical timeline looks like this:

The pre-file window is the most valuable stage. In our experience the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office often declines to file or reduces disorderly conduct arrests when a defense attorney points out, before filing, that the report describes speech and spectators and nothing else. Once the charge is filed, the same argument still wins — but it takes months longer.

How Do Our Attorneys Defend Disorderly Conduct Charges?

By holding the State to the constitutional limits of the statute and to the arrest rules officers most often ignore:

1. Protected speech. Under Saunders, words are not disorderly conduct unless they are fighting words or false reports of danger. Cursing, insults, and arguments with officers fall outside the statute, and Barry is binding on every Hillsborough judge.
2. No actual breach of the peace. Onlookers watching is not a crowd threatening violence. We depose the officer on exactly what the bystanders did — not what the officer feared they might do.
3. Not in the officer’s presence. If the officer arrived after the conduct ended, the arrest violated section 901.15(1), any search incident to it is suppressible, and the State has no eyewitness to the elements.
4. Video. Body-worn camera footage from Tampa Police and HCSO, bar surveillance, and bystander phones usually show less than the report describes. We request and preserve all of it immediately, because bar systems overwrite in days.
5. Post-arrest conduct. Under St. Fleury, resistance or struggling after an officer announces an arrest cannot supply the missing element of disorderly conduct. The State cannot bootstrap a bad arrest with what happened after it.
6. Disposition. For clients who prefer certainty to trial, we pursue misdemeanor diversion, a withhold of adjudication, or a reduction to a non-criminal municipal ordinance violation — outcomes that keep a conviction off the record and, in most cases, preserve eligibility to seal the arrest.

For more about our defense strategies, visit our Hillsborough County criminal defense page. Related articles cover resisting an officer without violence, which is frequently charged alongside disorderly conduct, and Florida’s alcohol-related offenses.

Frequently Asked Questions About Disorderly Conduct in Florida

Is disorderly conduct a felony or a misdemeanor in Florida?

It is a second-degree misdemeanor under section 877.03, punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. It becomes a felony problem only indirectly — when it is charged alongside battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting with violence, or a probation violation. Our attorneys focus on separating the disorderly conduct allegation from those companion charges, because it is often the weakest count in the case.

Can you go to jail for disorderly conduct in Florida?

Legally, yes, for up to 60 days. Practically, a first-time defendant in Hillsborough County almost never serves jail time on a disorderly conduct charge alone; typical outcomes are dismissal, diversion, a withhold of adjudication with court costs, or probation with a class. The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. treats jail as off the table in these cases and the arrest record as the thing to be defeated.

Is yelling at a police officer disorderly conduct in Florida?

Not by itself. Under State v. Saunders and Barry v. State, profanity and insults directed at an officer are protected speech unless they amount to fighting words or are joined with physical conduct that actually disturbs others. The Second District — the appellate court for Tampa Bay — reversed a conviction in Barry where the defendant screamed obscenities and shook his finger in an officer’s face.

What is the difference between disorderly conduct and disorderly intoxication?

Disorderly conduct under section 877.03 does not require alcohol; it requires fighting, fighting words, or conduct that breaches the peace. Disorderly intoxication under section 856.011 requires proof of intoxication plus either endangering someone’s safety or causing a public disturbance in a public place. Both are second-degree misdemeanors with identical maximum penalties, and both are common charges in Ybor City and at Gasparilla.

Can a disorderly conduct charge be dropped?

Yes, and it frequently is. In our experience the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office declines or reduces many disorderly conduct arrests before filing when the report describes only speech, and courts dismiss or acquit others under Saunders, Barry, and the in-presence rule of section 901.15. Our attorneys’ first goal in every case is a pre-file no-action decision, which avoids a court record entirely.

Will a disorderly conduct arrest show up on a background check?

Yes. The arrest appears in Florida’s public records and on commercial background checks even if the charge is later dropped, until the record is sealed or expunged. A dismissal or no-action decision makes the arrest eligible for expunction, and a withhold of adjudication makes it eligible for sealing, provided you have no prior record of adjudication. The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. structures dispositions with that eligibility in mind.

Should I talk to the officer or the prosecutor to explain what happened?

Not without a lawyer. In a disorderly conduct case the State’s proof problem is usually that no one can testify to what you actually did; a recorded explanation fills that gap. Let counsel present your account — and the video — to the prosecutor in the pre-file window instead.

If you or a family member has been arrested or given a notice to appear for disorderly conduct or disorderly intoxication anywhere in Tampa Bay, the attorneys of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. — founded by Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato — will pull the body-camera and bar footage before it is overwritten and take the words-versus-conduct argument to the prosecutor before the charge is filed. Call (813) 727-7159. The pre-file window closes within weeks of the arrest, and bar surveillance systems overwrite in days; the sooner we start, the more evidence there is to work with.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.
620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 727-7159
Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.