3 ms·
The part you quote appears to say that it would be permissible to prosecute someone for the consequences of deliberately shouting ‘fire!’ when they knew that th
by foldr 4y ago
The part you quote appears to say that it would be permissible to prosecute someone for the consequences of deliberately shouting ‘fire!’ when they knew that there was no fire (because it’s one of the rare cases where speech is ‘brigaded with action’).
In other words, the court rejected the applicability of the analogy to the case at hand. They didn’t draw the conclusion that deliberately causing stampedes in theaters is protected by the First Amendment.
- remarkEon 4y agoRight, that’s my interpretation as well. I think the real point is something more simple like “you cannot falsely report a fire” (I mean, you can, but you’ll get charged with a crime). The reference to the theater seems to kind of cloud the analogy a lot - and serves to confuse the association with free speech generally.