Opinion ID: 2101520
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Does Price's Conviction Impair a Core Value?

Text: Because Price's conviction for noisy protest about police conduct implicates this core value, our focus now shifts to the magnitude of the impairment. To the extent that Ind. Code Ann. § 35-45-1-3(2) permits the State to impose a material burden upon the free exercise of political speech, it cannot stand. Indiana courts are reluctant, of course, to strike down statutes. Unconstitutional intention will not be attributed to the legislature if reasonably avoidable. Conter v. Commercial Bank of Crown Point (1936), 209 Ind. 510, 199 N.E. 567. If an act admits of two reasonable interpretations, one of which is constitutional and the other not, we choose that path which permits upholding the act. State ex rel. Brubaker v. Pritchard (1956), 236 Ind. 222, 138 N.E.2d 233. Therefore, we will endeavor to assign to Ind. Code Ann. § 35-45-1-3(2) a constitutional meaning if we can do so and remain faithful to legislative purpose. The State argues that political expression may be unreasonably noisy under Ind. Code Ann. § 35-45-1-3(2) when it constitutes a public nuisance. Whenever the state dictates the means by which political opinion may be voiced, however, it teeters on the edge of its authority. The machinery of democracy produces a sonorous cacophony, not a drone. Professor Chafee observed some seventy years ago that you cannot limit free speech to polite criticism, because the greater a grievance the more likely men are to get excited about it. Zechariah Chafee, Freedom of Speech in War Time, 32 Harv.L.Rev. 932, 961 (1919) (citing Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations 613-614 (7th ed. 1903)). In short, the efficacy of political speech often depends upon its ability to jar and galvanize. Under public nuisance doctrine no individual interest need be injured before criminal liability may attach; it is enough that the criminalized conduct disturbs the public order and decorum. See 66 C.J.S. Nuisances § 160; see also Thomas, supra note 8, at 150-51 & n. 50 (only potential disturbance of neighborhood, not individual, required). This is so even though no actual breach or disturbance of the peace, or actual or threatened violence is involved. 66 C.J.S. Nuisances § 160 (footnotes omitted). Moreover, whether a thing injures the public is generally a matter within the discretion of the authorities. Smith v. City of New Albany (1910), 175 Ind. 279, 93 N.E. 73. Subjecting the political expression of Hoosiers to this standard of gentility would impose a material burden upon this core constitutional value and would thus be impermissible. This is not to say, however, that noisy political expression may never give rise to criminal liability. Section 9 was certainly not intended to create a private warrant by which an individual might impair the fundamental rights of private persons. Our common law of torts, the mechanism by which we vindicate such private encroachments, makes this clear. [15] When the expressions of one person cause harm to another in a way consistent with common law tort, an abuse under § 9 has occurred. Imposing criminal liability for behavior which harms another individual would not materially burden the values protected by § 9 given that particularized harm to more readily identifiable interests would have to be shown before liability could attach. See generally William L. Prosser, Private Action for Public Nuisance, 52 Va.L.Rev. 997 (1966). We thus conclude that treating as abuse political speech which does not harm any particular individual (public nuisance) does amount to a material burden, but that sanctioning expression which inflicts upon determinable parties harm of a gravity analogous to that required under tort law does not. Ultimately, it was intrusion upon the interests of others which Ind. Code Ann. § 35-45-1-3(2) was designed to remedy. It seems clear that the statute's sparse language was selected by the legislature with an eye towards creating a provision which the courts could constitutionally enforce. See Model Penal Code § 250.2(1)(b) comments 4(b) & (c). We therefore hold that political expression becomes unreasonably noisy for purposes of Ind. Code Ann. § 35-45-1-3(2) when and only when it inflicts upon determinant parties harm analogous to that which would sustain tort liability against the speaker.