3 ms·
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
by qopp 11y ago
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
- ghaff 11y agoIt's interesting that this (unanimous) Supreme Court decision seems to take a more restrictive line on permissible speech than the examples provided in the article. I'm not familiar, however, with intervening case law. ----- The complaint against Chaplinsky stated that he shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist". Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity... Writing the decision for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy advanced a “two-tier theory” of the First Amendment. Certain “well-defined and narrowly limited” categories of speech fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection. Thus, “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the slanderous,” and (in this case) insulting or “fighting” words neither contributed to the expression of ideas nor possessed any “social value” in the search for truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplinsky_v._New_Hampshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplinsky_v._New_Hampshire
- desdiv 11y agoSee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words#Post-Chaplinsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words#Post-Chaplinsky Basically the fighting words doctrine from Chaplinsky has been steadily narrowed over the years.