## Facts

- John Barron went to an airline ticket counter at Chicago Midway Airport to check in for a flight and sought to change to an earlier departure.
- During check-in, Barron repeatedly asked the ticket agent whether he would be searched.
- Barron leaned toward the counter, gestured, extended his right leg, and stated, “I only have one bomb in my shoe.”
- Ticket agents told Barron he could not joke about bombs and that such statements were taken seriously; one agent detected an odor of alcohol and described Barron as excited.
- Barron laughed and did not retract the bomb statement; the agents notified police.
- Police detained Barron; he admitted making the bomb statement.
- Officers and a bomb-sniffing dog searched Barron and his baggage; no bomb was found.
- After a bench trial, Barron was convicted of two counts of felony disorderly conduct for knowingly transmitting a false report of a crime and received conditional discharge and jail time served.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Barron committed felony disorderly conduct by knowingly making a false bomb report, despite his claim it was a joke.
2. Whether the disorderly conduct statute is facially unconstitutional for overbreadth if it reaches joking bomb statements.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the convictions and sentence.
- The evidence supported finding that Barron knowingly made a false report that he possessed a bomb in an airport setting.
- The statute did not require proof that the ticket agents were actually frightened or alarmed; it was enough that the statement was the type likely to trigger a public-safety response.
- The statute was not facially overbroad because it targets knowingly false reports of crimes or threats, which fall outside First Amendment protection in its legitimate applications.

## Legal Principles

- A knowingly false assertion that a bomb is present, made in circumstances where it would reasonably be treated as a real threat (such as at an airport), can constitute felony disorderly conduct as a false report of a crime.
- The State need not prove actual subjective alarm by a particular listener when the offense focuses on false reports that tend to cause disturbance or provoke a response from public officials.
- A defendant cannot avoid liability by labeling a false bomb report as a “joke” when the words and context amount to a report of a bomb.
- A facial overbreadth challenge fails absent a showing that the statute prohibits a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech relative to its plainly legitimate sweep targeting knowing false reports.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Barron’s felony disorderly conduct convictions, holding that his airport statement claiming a bomb in his shoe was a knowingly false report likely to trigger a public safety response and that the statute, limited to knowing false reports of crimes or threats, was not facially overbroad.


People v. Barron, 808 N.E.2d 1051 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004)