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Dennis v. united states
-the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the convictions of 12 Communist Party members convicted under the Smith Act of 1940.
-The Court finds that the Smith Act a measure banning speech that advocates the violent overthrow of the federal government
-does not violate the First Amendment. -
comstock law
-Anthony Comstock successfully has Congress to pass the Comstock Law.
-This is the first comprehensive anti-obscenity statute enacted at the federal level.
-The law targets the trade and obscene literature and Articles for immoral use
-makes it illegal to send any obscene, lewd or lascivious materials or any information or any article or thing related to contraception or abortion through the mail. -
grosjean v. american press co.
-the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates a state tax on newspaper advertising applied to papers with a circulation exceeding 20,000 copies per week as a violation of the First Amendment.
-The Court finds the tax unconstitutional because its seen to be a deliberate device of a tax to limit the circulation of information to which the public is entitled in virtue of the constitutional guarantees -
Prince v. Massachusetts
-a Massachusetts regulation that prohibited boys younger than age 12 and girls younger than age 18 from selling newspapers in streets and public places
-they found it was not in violation of the Amendment’s free exercise of religion.
-The case was brought by Jehovah's Witnesses who were distributing religious literature with children. -
Lloyd Corporation, Ltd. v. Tanner
-Donald Tanner, Betsy Wheeler, and Susan Roberts went inside the Lloyd Center mall in Portland, Oregon
- to distribute notices of a meeting of the Resistance Community to protest the draft and the war in Vietnam.
-The Supreme Court made a decision in 1972 saying that private shopping malls did not have to provide a forum for Vietnam War protestors who were there handing out leaflets.
-Earlier courts had held that distributing leaflets and picketing was permissible. -
miller v. california
-determines if speech is obscene
- whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
-whether the work describes sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law
-whether the work lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value. -
United States v. Edge Broadcasting Co.
-a federal law prohibiting the broadcasting of advertisements for state-run lotteries by broadcasters in nonlottery states.
-In Edge Broadcasting the Court specifically upheld a ban on a radio station’s advertisements for the Virginia lottery because the radio station was located three miles from the Virginia border in North Carolina which is a nonlottery state.
-the courts said that the lottery ads in other states protected their interest. it had flunked the first amendment -
bartnicki v. vopper
-The U.S. Supreme rules that a federal law prohibiting the publication of illegally intercepted wire communications violates the First Amendment rights who published the communications
-The Court reasoned that application of the law to the defendants, in this case, implicates the core provision of the First Amendment because it imposes sanctions on the publication of truthful information of public concern -
Thompson v. Western States Medical Center
-the Supreme Court ruled that a federal prohibition on the advertisement or promotion of compounded drugs was an unconstitutional restriction of commercial speech.
-pharmacies could only prescribe in small batches.
- A group of licensed pharmacies that specialized in compounding, enjoin the enforcement of the statute on the grounds that it was an unconstitutional restriction on commercial speech.
-The lower courts agreed that it was -
walker v. Texas division, sons of confederate veterans
-The Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans proposed a specialty plate that featured the Confederate battle flag.
-The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board rejected the plate saying that too many people find the Confederate flag offensive. -The Sons of Confederate Veterans sued to say that the Board had committed unlawful viewpoint discrimination.
-the state of Texas retained final approval authority over the content of the specialty license plates
