Also known as: free speech · First Amendment speech
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The constitutional protection against governmental abridgment of expression. It prohibits Congress and the states from enacting laws that restrict speech on the basis of its content unless the restriction satisfies strict scrutiny or falls within a recognized category of unprotected speech.
Fatou Fall distributed leaflets criticizing a city ordinance outside the municipal building. City police arrested her under a newly enacted statute that banned all leafleting within 500 feet of government offices. The court held the statute invalid because it directly restricted protected expression without advancing a compelling interest unrelated to the message.
Farid Farahani offered to donate a statue criticizing local tax policy for placement in the city park. The parks department declined the gift and installed only monuments endorsing the city's fiscal policies. Because the permanent displays constituted government speech, the department's content-based selection did not violate Farahani's free speech rights.
Fatima Flores, a private-school teacher, was terminated after distributing materials to adult students. State funding and regulation alone were held insufficient to convert the school's employment decision into state action for constitutional purposes.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseFrancesca Fowler published an editorial accusing a police chief of corruption. The chief sued for libel. Because the statements concerned a public official's performance of duties, the plaintiff had to prove actual malice, preserving the newspaper's protected speech.
L. B. Sullivan is one of three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He has duties including supervision of the Police Department. He brought this civil libel action against the New York Times Company and four individual petitioners who were Alabama clergymen. The suit sought $500,000 in damages based on a full-page advertisement entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices" that appeared in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. A jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded Sullivan the full amount claimed against all petitioners. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment. The advertisement was signed by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. It described widespread non-violent demonstrations by Southern Negro students and an unprecedented wave of terror against them. Two paragraphs formed the basis of the claim. One alleged that after students sang on the State Capitol steps their leaders were expelled, truckloads of police ringed the Alabama State College Campus, and the dining hall was padlocked to starve students into submission. The other stated that Southern violators had bombed Dr. King's home, assaulted him, arrested him seven times, and charged him with perjury. The text appeared over the names of 64 persons. It was endorsed by the individual petitioners among others. Sullivan contended that the references to police referred to him in his supervisory capacity. Six Montgomery residents testified that they read the statements as referring to him. However, several statements were inaccurate. The students sang the National Anthem rather than "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." The expulsions were for a different incident. The dining hall was not padlocked. Dr. King had been arrested only four times. The bombings occurred before Sullivan's tenure with police efforts to apprehend the perpetrators. The Times published the advertisement for approximately $4800. It acted upon an order from a New York advertising agency. The agency provided a letter from A. Philip Randolph certifying authorization. The Times made no efforts to confirm its accuracy against its own news files. Sullivan served written demands for retraction on the petitioners pursuant to Alabama law. None of the individual petitioners responded as they had not authorized use of their names. The Times did not retract. It published a retraction only upon demand by Governor John Patterson after learning more facts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the separate petitions of the individual petitioners and the Times due to the importance of the constitutional issues involved.
View caseFumiko Fujimoto wrote a magazine piece falsely implying that a local attorney had committed perjury in a civil case. The attorney sued for defamation. Because the plaintiff was a private figure, state law could impose liability for negligence without offending the First Amendment.
In 1968, Chicago police officer Richard Nuccio shot and killed a youth named Nelson. State authorities prosecuted Nuccio and obtained a conviction for second-degree murder. The Nelson family retained petitioner Elmer Gertz, a Chicago attorney, to represent them in civil litigation against Nuccio. Respondent Robert Welch, Inc., publishes American Opinion, a monthly magazine expressing the views of the John Birch Society. In March 1969, the magazine published an article titled "FRAME-UP: Richard Nuccio And The War On Police." The article accused Gertz of participating in a Communist conspiracy to discredit local law enforcement, described him as a "Leninist" and "Communist-fronter," and claimed he had been an officer of the National Lawyers Guild, which it portrayed as a Communist organization involved in planning attacks on Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The article contained numerous inaccuracies, including the false implication that Gertz had a criminal record. Gertz had served as an officer of the National Lawyers Guild approximately fifteen years earlier but had no involvement in planning the 1968 demonstrations. He had never been a member of the Marxist League for Industrial Democracy or the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. The managing editor of American Opinion made no effort to verify the charges against Gertz before publication and appended an editorial introduction stating that the author had conducted extensive research. Gertz filed a diversity action for libel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The district court ruled that the statements constituted libel per se under Illinois law. After a trial, the jury awarded Gertz $50,000 in compensatory damages. The district court later entered judgment for the defendant notwithstanding the verdict, applying the New York Times standard. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the application of constitutional standards to defamation of a private individual.
View caseFrancesca Fiore lived with her grandchildren in a single-family zone that limited occupancy to nuclear families. The city cited her for violating the ordinance. The restriction was evaluated under substantive due process standards governing family living arrangements.
In early 1973, Mrs. Inez Moore received a notice of violation from the city of East Cleveland. The notice stated that her grandson John Moore, Jr., was an illegal occupant of her home. It directed her to comply with the housing ordinance. Mrs. Moore lived in her East Cleveland home together with her son Dale Moore, Sr., and her two grandsons Dale Moore, Jr., and John Moore, Jr. John came to live with her after his mother's death when he was less than one year old. When she failed to remove John from the home, the city filed a criminal charge against her. Mrs. Moore moved to dismiss the charge. She claimed that the ordinance was constitutionally invalid on its face. Her motion was overruled. Upon conviction she was sentenced to five days in jail and a $25 fine. The East Cleveland ordinance limited occupancy of a dwelling unit to members of a single family. The ordinance defined family to include only a husband or wife of the nominal head of the household, unmarried children of the head or spouse provided they have no children residing with them, a parent of the head or spouse, or not more than one dependent child of the head or spouse along with that child's spouse and dependent children. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction after giving full consideration to her constitutional claims. The Ohio Supreme Court denied review of the case. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of her appeal.
View caseContent-based restrictions trigger strict scrutiny and are presumptively invalid unless the government proves they are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest.
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Permanent monuments in public parks constitute government speech even when privately donated, so their selection is not subject to free-speech scrutiny.
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A public-official plaintiff must prove actual malice to recover, ensuring that erroneous statements about official conduct receive breathing space.
States may impose liability for negligent falsehoods about private figures, but the First Amendment still requires proof of fault and limits presumed or punitive damages without actual malice.
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…in the Constitution. This liberty' is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom…