12 Cases That Were Monumental in Shaping the US First Amendment - Gabriel Burgess (Gaddie - 5B)
By gvb
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Patterson v. Colorado (1907)
This case was one of the cases that changed the way speech could be criminalized and helped get rid of the bad tendency test. [exact date unclear] -
Debs v. United States (1910-1919)
Debs v. United States was a U.S. Supreme Court case that, in the end, upheld the Espionage Act of 1917. [exact dates unclear] -
Abrams v. United States (1919)
The defendants of the case of Abrams v. United States were charged and convicted of inciting resistance to the war effort and curtailing necessary materials for the war against Germany and were sentenced to 10 and 20 years in prison. This case was the case that made it a criminal offense to reduce or restrict production of military materials necessary to the war against Germany with intent to hinder the progress of the war. [exact date unknown] -
Gitlow v. New York (1925)
This U.S. Supreme Court case held that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from infringing free speech. Even so, the defense lost because the defendant was still guilty under New York's Criminal Anarchy Law since he disseminated newspapers that advocated the violent overthrow of the government. [exact date unclear] -
Whitney v. California (1927)
Charlotte Anita Whitney was convicted under the 1919 California Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party of America. The court unanimously upheld Whitney's conviction. -
Stromberg v. California (1931)
In California, a member of the Young Communist League was arrested because of a 1919 California statute banning red flags, since they were considered "an emblem of opposition to the United States government." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that the statute banning red flags was unconstitutional. They held that the statute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. -
Near v. Minnesota (1931)
Jay Near published a scandal sheet in which he attacked local officials, charging that they were implicated with gangsters. Minnesota officials obtained an injunction to prevent Near from publishing his newspaper under an state law that prevents "nuisance texts." The Court concluded that the primary aim of the First Amendment was to prevent prior restraints of the press. -
Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936)
Louisiana Governor Huey Long levied a 2% gross receipts tax in an attempt to tax newspapers critical of him into submission. Thirteen newspapers sued Long, and the Supreme Court unanimously found the tax to be an unconstitutional violation of the U.S. First Amendment. -
DeJonge v. Oregon (1937)
An Oregon statute made it a crime to assist in conducting any assemblage of persons which teaches or advocates that which advocates any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution. The Oregon Supreme Court held that peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made a crime and reversed the DeJonge's conviction as well as that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause applies to freedom of assembly. -
Thornhill v. Alabama (1940)
Byron Thornhill was arrested and convicted by the Inferior Court of Tuscaloosa County for loitering near a place of business near the Brown Wood Preserving Company with the "intent or purpose of influencing others" to interfere with lawful business. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Thornhill's petition for certiorari and reversed Thornhill's conviction by citing the freedoms of speech and the press granted in the First Amendment, and secured by the Fourteenth. -
Rosenberg v. Board of Education of City of New York (1949)
Rosenberg wanted to ban the The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens from New York City schools' curricula on the grounds that they "are objectionable because they tend to engender hatred of the Jew as a person and as a race," but the Board of Education of the City of New York refused to ban the books. The court ruled in favor of the school board and denied Rosenberg's request to ban either book from the curricula. [exact date unclear] -
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
John Tinker, Christopher Eckhardt, and Mary Beth Tinker wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended from school for refusing to remove them. The school district created a policy forbidding armbands soon after the incident, but the three students wore their armbands anyway and were suspended from school. The students sued the district for violating their 1st Amendment rights. The students won the case after it was taken to the US Supreme Court. [exact date unknown]
