Ohio Supreme Court, 1975

City of Kent v. Kelley

Ohio Supreme Court · Decided November 12, 1975 · Beown, Celebbezze, Corrigan, Herbert, Neill, Steen

44 Ohio St. 2d 43; 337 N.E.2d 788; 73 Ohio Op. 2d 230; 1975 Ohio LEXIS 577

Cases that cite this one

16 later published cases cite this decision.

Daniel Thompson v. Edward Gaffney and William Hall (6th Cir. 1976)
D.D. v. James Scheeler (6th Cir. 2016)
City of Garfield Heights v. Yaro, Unpublished Decision (12-2-1999) (Ohio Ct. App. 1999)
State v. Wood (Ohio Ct. App. 1996)
City of Garfield Heights v. Simpson (Ohio Ct. App. 1992)
State v. Wylie (Ohio Ct. App. 1984)
State v. Larrick (Ohio Ct. App. 2023)
State v. Thurman (Ohio Ct. App. 2016)
State v. Beamer (Ohio Ct. App. 2012)
City of Toledo v. Grince (Ohio Ct. App. 1989)
In re T.W. (Ohio Ct. App. 2012)
City of Middletown v. Carpenter, Unpublished Decision (7-17-2006) (Ohio Ct. App. 2006)
South Euclid v. Richardson (Ohio Ct. App. 1988)
Black v. Board of Revision (Ohio 1985)
Cox v. Ohio Department of Transportation (Ohio 1981)
McClung v. Board of Education (Ohio 1976)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Per Ctiriam.

The Court of Appeals said that, by reason of the remand from the United States Supreme Court, “the basic question for consideration [by it] is to determine under what condition a person may be punished under” the Kent ordinance “for willfully speaking in a noisy, boisterous or other disorderly manner so as to disturb the good order and quiet of the municipality.” The Court of Appeals found that the language used by defendant fell within the framework of Cincinnati v. Karlan, supra, which holds that “epithets, used in a public place and willfully directed at those who can hear them, [which] are likely to provoke the average person to an immediate retaliatory breach of the peace, * * * are fighting words, and the utterance thereof may be punished as a criminal act.”

However, the words used by defendant in this case were not descriptive of a particular person and directed to that person. They were not “epithets likely to provoke the average person to retaliation,” as, for instance, the words used in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), 315 U. S. 568. In the context of their use by defendant, his words *45did not constitute “fighting words,” and their utterance cannot be made a crime. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra; Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), 310 U. S. 296; Lewis v. New Orleans, supra; Gooding v. Wilson (1972), 405 U. S. 518.

Because the words used by defendant were not, under the facts shown by the record, fighting words, their utterance was not a violation of the Kent ordinance involved here. Therefore, the question of the constitutionality of that ordinance need not be reached by this court. State v. Western Union Telegraph Co. (1951), 154 Ohio St. 511.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals, upholding the conviction of defendant for disorderly conduct, is reversed, and the defendant is ordered discharged.

Judgment reversed.

O’Neill, C. J., Herbert, Corrigan-, Steen, Celebbezze, W. Beown and P. Beown, JJ., concur.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.