lascivious

In the predawn hours of June 21, 1990, petitioner R.A.V., then a juvenile, and several other teenagers assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs and burned the cross inside the fenced yard of a black family that lived across the street from the house where R.A.V. was staying. Although this conduct could have been punished under several Minnesota statutes carrying significant penalties, the City of St. Paul chose to charge R.A.V. under the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance. The ordinance provides that whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including but not limited to a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. R.A.V. moved to dismiss the charge on the ground that the ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content-based and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment, and the trial court granted the motion. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, construing the ordinance to reach only fighting words and concluding that it was not impermissibly content-based. This Court granted certiorari.

The petitioner, Michael M., was seventeen and one-half years old when, on June 3, 1978, he and two friends approached Sharon, a sixteen-and-one-half-year-old female, and her sister at a bus stop. Petitioner and Sharon had been drinking. They moved away from the others and began to kiss. After petitioner struck Sharon in the face for rebuffing his initial advances, she submitted to sexual intercourse with him. In July 1978, a complaint was filed in the Municipal Court of Sonoma County. The complaint alleged that petitioner had unlawful sexual intercourse with a female under the age of eighteen in violation of section 261.5 of the California Penal Code. Prior to trial, petitioner sought to set aside the information on the ground that the statute unlawfully discriminated on the basis of gender. The trial court denied the motion, and petitioner was convicted after a jury trial. The California Court of Appeal denied petitioner's request for relief.

In 1925 the Minnesota legislature enacted Chapter 285 of the Session Laws. This law declared that any person engaged in the business of regularly producing, publishing, or circulating a malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspaper, magazine, or other periodical is guilty of a nuisance subject to abatement by injunction. Under section 2 of the statute the County Attorney of Hennepin County, Floyd B. Olson, commenced an action in the District Court of that county against J.M. Near and other defendants who published a periodical known as The Saturday Press in Minneapolis. The complaint alleged that on September 24, 1927, and on eight subsequent dates in October and November 1927 the defendants published and circulated editions of The Saturday Press that were largely devoted to malicious, scandalous, and defamatory articles concerning Charles G. Davis, a special law-enforcement officer, Mayor George E. Leach, Chief of Police Frank W. Brunskill, County Attorney Olson, members of the Hennepin County grand jury, and others. The complaint attached copies of the articles comprising 327 pages of the record. The articles charged in substance that a Jewish gangster controlled gambling, bootlegging, and racketeering in Minneapolis and that law-enforcement officers were failing to perform their duties. Most accusations were directed at the Chief of Police for neglect, illicit relations with gangsters, and graft. On November 22, 1927, the District Court issued an order directing the defendants to show cause why a temporary injunction should not issue. Meanwhile it forbade them from publishing, circulating, or possessing any editions of The Saturday Press from September 24 through November 19, 1927, or any future editions containing similar matter. The defendants demurred to the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. They challenged the constitutionality of the statute. The District Court overruled the demurrer and certified the constitutional question to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which sustained the statute. Near answered the complaint. He admitted he was the sole owner of the publication. He admitted the publication of the described issues but denied that the articles were malicious, scandalous, or defamatory. He expressly invoked the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. At trial the plaintiff introduced the verified complaint and the attached issues of the publication. The defendant objected on constitutional grounds. He offered no further evidence. The court granted the plaintiff's motion for a permanent injunction that abated The Saturday Press as a public nuisance and perpetually enjoined the defendants from producing, editing, publishing, circulating, or possessing any malicious, scandalous, or defamatory newspaper. Near appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The court affirmed the judgment on the authority of its earlier decision upholding the statute. It noted that the assignments of error did not challenge the form of the judgment and that Near had not asked the trial court to modify it. From the judgment as thus affirmed, Near appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

The appellant conducted a mass mailing campaign advertising the sale of illustrated books and a film described as adult material. After a jury trial he was convicted under California Penal Code § 311.2(a) for knowingly distributing obscene matter based on the mailing of five unsolicited advertising brochures to a Newport Beach restaurant. The brochures contained explicit pictures and drawings depicting sexual activity and genitals. This case was tried on the theory that California's obscenity statute incorporated the tripartite Memoirs test and the jury was instructed to apply contemporary community standards of the State of California. Both parties at trial assumed the community standards were those of the State of California; defense counsel did not object to the state's expert testimony on community standards or to the judge's instruction. Appellant raised for the first time on appeal the contention that application of state rather than national standards violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The judgment of the Appellate Department of the Superior Court, Orange County, California, came before the Supreme Court of the United States for review as part of a group of obscenity cases in which the Court re-examined the standards for identifying obscene material that may be regulated by the States.

On January 24, 2002, the Olympic Torch Relay passed through Juneau, Alaska, on its way to the winter games in Salt Lake City, Utah. The torchbearers were to proceed along a street in front of Juneau-Douglas High School while school was in session. Petitioner Deborah Morse, the school principal, decided to permit staff and students to participate in the Torch Relay as an approved social event or class trip. Students were allowed to leave class to observe the relay from either side of the street. Teachers and administrative officials monitored the students’ actions. Respondent Joseph Frederick, a JDHS senior, was late to school that day. When he arrived, he joined his friends across the street from the school to watch the event. As the torchbearers and camera crews passed by, Frederick and his friends unfurled a 14-foot banner bearing the phrase “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS.” The large banner was easily readable by the students on the other side of the street. Principal Morse immediately crossed the street and demanded that the banner be taken down. Everyone but Frederick complied. Morse confiscated the banner and told Frederick to report to her office, where she suspended him for 10 days. Morse later explained that she told Frederick to take the banner down because she thought it encouraged illegal drug use, in violation of established school policy. Juneau School Board Policy No. 5520 states that the Board specifically prohibits any assembly or public expression that advocates the use of substances that are illegal to minors. In addition, Juneau School Board Policy No. 5850 subjects pupils who participate in approved social events and class trips to the same student conduct rules that apply during the regular school program. Frederick administratively appealed his suspension, but the Juneau School District Superintendent upheld it, limiting it to time served. In a memorandum setting forth his reasons, the superintendent determined that Frederick had displayed his banner in the midst of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activity. The superintendent further explained that Frederick was not disciplined because the principal disagreed with his message, but because his speech appeared to advocate the use of illegal drugs. Frederick then filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the school board and Morse had violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court granted summary judgment for the school board and Morse. The Ninth Circuit reversed, deciding that Frederick acted during a school-authorized activity and that the banner expressed a positive sentiment about marijuana use, but finding a violation of Frederick’s First Amendment rights because the school punished Frederick without demonstrating that his speech gave rise to a risk of substantial disruption. The Ninth Circuit further concluded that Frederick’s right to display his banner was so clearly established that a reasonable principal in Morse’s position would have understood that her actions were unconstitutional, and that Morse was therefore not entitled to qualified immunity. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the questions of whether Frederick had a First Amendment right to wield his banner and whether that right was so clearly established that the principal may be held liable for damages.