FIRST AMENDMENT CASES

Reynolds v. United States (1878)

Facts of the Case: George Reynolds, secretary to Mormon Church leader Brigham Young, challenged the federal anti-bigamy statute. Reynolds was convicted in a Utah territorial district court. His conviction was affirmed by the Utah territorial supreme court.

Constitutional Question: Does the federal anti-bigamy statute violate the First Amendment's free exercise clause because plural marriage is part of religious practice?

Decision: No. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, writing for a unanimous court, held that the statute can punish criminal activity without regard to religious belief. The First Amendment protected religious belief, but it did not protect religious practices that were judged to be criminal such as bigamy. Those who practice polygamy could no more be exempt from the law than those who may wish to practice human sacrifice as part of their religious belief.

Schenck v. United States (1919)

Facts of the Case: Schenck was charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act by mailing draftees to start a petition against the Conscription Act.

Constitutional Question: Are Schenck's actions protected by the free speech of the First Amendment?

Decision: The court concluded that Schenck is not protected in this situation. The character of every act depends on the circumstances. During wartime, utterances tolerable in peacetime can be punished. SC ruled that his speech was not constitutionally protected because it posed “a clear and present danger” to the US. Akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Unanimous.

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

Facts of the Case: Gitlow, a socialist, was arrested for distributing a manifesto that called for the establishment of socialism through strikes. Gitlow was convicted under a state law that states that it is illegal to advocate overthrowing the government by force. Gitlow's argument was that since no harm came from the manifesto, the law penalized speech that wasn't necessarily backed by action.

Constitutional question: Does the New York law prohibiting the advocacy of anarchy infringe on the rights granted by the First Amendment?

Decision: Threshold issue: Does the First Amendment apply to the states? Yes, by virtue of the liberty protected by due process that no state shall deny (14th Amendment). On the merits, a state may forbid both speech and publication if they have a tendency to result in action dangerous to public security, even though such utterances create no clear and present danger. The rationale of the majority has sometimes been called the "dangerous tendency" test. SELECTIVE INCORPORATION, one of the cases that overturns Barron.

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

Facts of the Case: The Board of Regents for the State of New York had instituted a brief, voluntary, interdenominational prayer at the start of each day.

Constitutional Question: Did this prayer violate the First Amendment's establishment of religion clause?

Decision: Yes. The prayer, though interdenominational, still condoned religion, making it unconstitutional. SC ruled that nondenominational state-sponsored prayer was too religious. Even though students did not have to say it, undue pressure.

Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)

Facts of the Case: Edward Schempp filed a lawsuit against the Abington school district becuase he felt that children in public schools (specifically his daughter, Donna) should be exempt from having to read and listen to Bible readings in school. Schempp claimed that this was unconstitutional.

Constitutional Question: Schempp claimed that the readings that were read at the beginning of each class day were contradictory of some childrens religious beliefs and it was therefore unconstitutional.

Decision: After several appeals it was finally ruled that it was unconstitutional and that schools must remain neutral in the area of religion so the reading was banned.

New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)

Facts of the Case: The New York Times published a full page ad that suggested that the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. for perjury was part of a plot to destroy King's efforts of integration and encourging the black vote. The Montgomery, Alabama Commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, sued the paper for libel. Alabama's law claimed that Sullivan didn't have to prove that the ad harmed him personally.

Constitutional Question: Did the law that Sullivan didn't have to prove that the ad personally harmed him infringe on the first amendment rights of free speech and press?

Decision: Yes, the law did infringe on the first amendment rights. In a 9 to 0 vote, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times saying that the freedoms of speech and press protect all statements against public officials regardless of their factuality, unless they are purposely malicious.

Tinker v. Des Moines S.D. (1969)

Facts of the Case: John Tinker, 15 , his sister Mary Beth, 13 , and Christopher Echardt, 16 years old, decided along with their parents to protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to their schools during the Christmas holiday season. The principals of the Des Moines school district decided that all students wearing armbands be asked to remove them or face suspension. When the Tinker siblings and Christopher wore their armbands to school, they were asked to remove them. When they refused, they were suspended until after New Year's Day.

Constitutional Question: Does a prohibition against the wearing of armbands in public school, as a form of symbolic protest, violate the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections?

Conclusion: The wearing of armbands was "closely akin to 'pure speech'" and protected by the First Amendment. School environments imply limitations on free expression, but here the principals lacked justification for imposing any such limits.The principals had failed to show that the forbidden conduct would substantially interfere with appropriate school discipline. Symbolic Speech

New York Times v. United States (1971)

Facts of the Case: President Nixon claimed executive authority to force the New York Time to suspend publication of classified information (in this case the Pentagon Papers) in its possession.

Constitutional Question: Is the protection of the freedom of press subordinate to the executive need to maintain the secrecy of information?

Decision: The First Amendment does protect the New York Times' right to print information. To exercise prior restraint, the government must show sufficient evidence that the publication would cause "grave or irreparable" danger.

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1973)

Facts of the Case: Pennsylvania, in 1968, passed the Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools for teachers' salaries who taught secular material in these nonpublic schools, secular textbooks and secular instructional materials. The schools were primarily Catholic.

Constitutional Question: Did the state payment of teachers of secular subjects in parochial schools violate the First Amendment mandate of separation of church and state?

Decision: The Supreme Court struck down the state laws enabling such payments. Established the "Lemon Test", a three-pronged test for determining whether a statute passes scrutiny under the First Amendment's prohibition of laws "respecting an establishment of religion." 

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

Facts of case: Congress tried to get a hold of corruption by placing restrictions on financial contributions to candidates. Set limits on individual contributions and required reporting of all contributions over a certain amount.

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION: Does placing restrictions on the amount of money that can be donated violate the First Amendment?

DECISION: Restrictions on contributions did not violate the First Amendment, but governmental restriction of independent expenditures in campaigns, the limitation on expenditures by candidates from their own personal or family resources, and the limitation on total campaign expenditures did violate the First Amendment.

MONEY IS SPEECH.

McConnell v. FEC (2003)

Facts of the Case: In early 2002, a multi-year effort by Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold to reform the way money is raised and spent on political campaigns culminated in the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (the so-called McCain-Feingold bill). Its key provisions were 1) a ban on unrestricted ("soft money") donations made directly to political parties (often by corporations, unions, or wealthy individuals) and on the solicitation of those donations by elected officials; 2) limits on the advertising that unions, corporations, and non-profit organizations can engage in up to 60 days prior to an election; and 3) restrictions on political parties' use of their funds for advertising on behalf of candidates (in the form of "issue ads" or "coordinated expenditures").In June, 2003, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued a ruling on the constitutionality of the law, but the ruling never took effect because the case was immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Constitutional Question: United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, often referred to as the McCain–Feingold Act. 

Decision: Money is property, not speech. Still, not all political speech is protected by the First Amendment from government infringement. By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that it was constitutional to ban unregulated contributions known as "soft money." It also upheld restrictions on TV and radio "issue ads" by corporations and unions right before elections.

Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) 

Facts of the Case: In Alabama, a law allowed Teachers to conduct regular prayer services and other religious activities during school and class times. Jaffree had three children in the public school system.

Constitutional Question: Did Alabama’s law violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause?

Decision: Yes, it did violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. It was argued that the allowance of Alabama’s prayer and meditation statute advocated religion therefore deviating from the need to maintain a neutral and unbiased stance on religion.

Texas v. Johnson (1989)  

Facts of the Case- Gregory Lee Johnson participated in a political protest at the Republican National Convention in 1984, where he subsequently burnt the American flag. He was arested, sentenced to 1 year in jailand a $2000 dollar fine, which he appealed. He lost his appeal inTexas but his case was heard by the supreme court.

Constitutional Question- Does the First Amendment cover non-speach actions, such as symbolic buring of a flag? also, Had the state of Texas asserted an interest in support of Johnson's conviction that was unrelated to the suppression of expression?

Decision: It was in favor of Johnson the act was seen as a form of speech (expression) which is protected under the First Amendment. The Court found that burning the American flag was political speech which Justice Brennan wrote “...is the bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment. Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

Oregon v. Smith (1990)

Facts of the Case: Two counselors at a drug rehab facility in Oregon ingested peyote as part of a Native American religious ceremony. The counselors were fired from the facility and denied unemployment compensation because of the circumstances under which they were fired.

Consitutional Question: Did the state law preventing the use of drugs for religious purposes violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment?

Supreme Court Decision: Religious beliefs do not excuse any citizen from obeying a law that covers conduct that the government can regulate.

Reno v. A.C.L.U. (1997)

Facts of the Case: The 1996 Communications Decency Act was made to protect minors from indecent material on the internet. However, the Act described the types of materials very vaguely making it unclear what was in compliance with the Act and what was not.

Constitutional Question: Did the 1996 Communications Decency Act violate the First and Fifth Amendments by not clearly stating what types of communication on the internet would be considered criminal?

Supreme Court Decision: Yes, it did violate those amendments because it did not define what was considered an "indecent" act on the internet.

Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002)

Facts of the Case: The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was passed to prevent the making and distribution of child pronography. The Free Speech Coalition said that the wording of the bill was too vague and that in banned materials that were neither obscene under Miller v. CA or produced by the exploitation of real children as in New York v. Ferber.

Constitutional Question: Does the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 violate freedom of speech rights where it where it proscribes a significant universe of speech that is neither obscene under Miller v. California nor child pornography under New York v. Ferber?

Supreme Court Decision: The Supreme court decided that yes, The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 violated freedom of speech rights where it where it proscribes a significant universe of speech that is neither obscene under Miller v. California nor child pornography under New York v. Ferber.