# Whittington v. State

> Indiana Supreme Court · August 7, 1996 · 669 N.E.2d 1363

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9715430

## Case

- **Full name:** Eric WHITTINGTON, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below)
- **Court:** Indiana Supreme Court
- **Decided:** August 7, 1996
- **Citations:** 669 N.E.2d 1363; 1996 Ind. LEXIS 125; 1996 WL 450837
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Sullivan
- **Judges:** Shepard, Debruler, Selby, Sullivan, Dickson
- **Cited by:** 78 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9715430

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the evidence did not support an assertion that Whittington's expression was political and holding that "we must apply rationality review in determining whether the state could reasonably have concluded that Whittington's expressive activity, because of its volume,…
- finding expression not political where the defendant “protested that he had not done anything and that the other witnesses were lying” because the “statements involve the conduct of private individuals, not state action”
- noting that "[a]s we indicated in Price , the approach under § 9 might be different were the challenger's activity not pure expression-that is, were it mixed with non-expressive conduct"
- noting that the focus of the free speech clause is on the “restrictive impact of state action” and that the clause is triggered when the “state imposes a direct and significant burden on a person’s opportunity to speak his or her mind”

## Opinion text

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in result.
I share some, but not all, of Justice Dickson's concerns with the analysis of Article I, § 9, of the Indiana Constitution contained in Price v. State, 622 N.E.2d 954 (Ind.1993). In particular, I find troubling Price's implication that, while protection for political speech is "enshrine[d]" in Article I, § 9, other types of speech-religious, literary, scientific, artistic, for example-must apparently look elsewhere in the Indiana Bill of Rights for protection. This does not seem to square with the fact that Article I, § 9, covers "the right to speak, write, or print, freely, on any subject whatever."
At the same time, I agree with both the majority and Justice Dickson that Mr. Whit-tington's rights under Article I, § 9, were not implicated by his prosecution for disorderly conduct here and so concur in result, leaving the development of the protections afforded speech under the Indiana Constitution to future cases.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9715430. Public record. Not legal advice.