Washington, DC Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

C. Code § 22-1321(e) is one clause of the District's disorderly conduct statute and reads simply: it is unlawful for a person to urinate or defecate in public, other than in a urinal or toilet. The clause carries no exception for lack of available restrooms and no separate definition of "public"; MPD applies it to any place visible or accessible to others, including sidewalks, alleys, parks and parking lots. It sits in the same section as, but is legally distinct from, the section's other disorderly-conduct clauses: the nighttime noise curfew (subsection (d)), the peeping-into-a-dwelling clause (subsection (f)) and the jostling-in-public clause (subsection (g)).

All clauses of § 22-1321, including subsection (e), share one penalty provision at subsection (h): a violation is a misdemeanor. C. 01(b)(3), which caps an individual's fine at $500 for offenses punishable by 90 days or less but more than 30 days. C. Superior Court. There is no administrative-fine or civil-infraction track for this offense in the Code; it is charged exclusively as a criminal misdemeanor, and a conviction becomes part of the defendant's criminal record.