By Anabelle Espinoza, Brianna
Watkins, Emma Grundy, Jason
Patrick, Jeremy Lee, Jordan Susac,
Lauren Love, and Summer Florida

• Marvin Miller was arrested under California law for massmailing brochures containing graphic advertisements for pornographic books and films
• Miller was convicted under a
California statute which banned
“obscene matter”
• Though found guilty in Orange
County’s Superior Court, Miller appealed the Supreme Court, who granted him a hearing
• Is mature content protected under the 1 st
Amendment?

• Ruled 5-4 that Miller was guilty and that the 1 st
Amendment rights to speech and press did not protect porn, but found the definition of “obscene” to be too broad
• Defined obscenity to be any work that 1) is offensive to the average person, 2) has explicit and offensive content “defined by the applicable state law”, and 3) has no other literary, scientific, political, or artistic merit

• Did Morse violate Frederick’s right to free speech by punishing him?
• Joseph Frederick, at a schoolsponsored event in Juneau,
Alaska, held up a sign saying
“Bong Hits 4 Jesus”
• Principal Deborah Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days for his reference to illegal drugs
• Frederick won in Ninth
District court, but the school board appealed the case to
D.C.

• Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Morse was not violating Frederick’s rights by punishing him
• Established that free speech for teenagers was not as extensive as the same right for adults, and that if a student went against a school’s antidrug mission, that student could be punished

• Jay Near published an attack against local officials in
Minneapolis, saying they were affiliated with gangsters
• Near was barred from publishing thereafter by the
Minnesota “gag law,” which prevented slander of public figures
• After losing in both District and
Minnesota’s Supreme Court,
Near appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court
• Does the “gag law” violate freedom of the press?

• Ruled 5-4 that the gag law was unconstitutional due to Near’s right to free press
• Press would always be protected by 1 st
Amendment, except in rare cases

• Does “national security” forgo freedom of the press?
• The Nixon administration attempted to prevent the
Washington Post and New York
Times from publishing information about the
Watergate scandal
• Nixon argued that he had prior restraint because the information was on matters of national security
• After many court battles with no clear victor, the Supreme Court took the case

• Ruled 6-3 that prior restraint did not permit the violation of freedom of the press
• Since the nation was not in immediate danger due to the publication of the “Pentagon Papers,”
Nixon could not stop the presses

• Samuel Roth ran a literary business in New York City and was convicted of sending content to a monthly erotica magazine
• The statute under which he was convicted outlawed
“obscene” materials, and Roth took it up with the Supreme
Court after he submitted a writ of certiorari
• Was Roth’s 1 st
Amendment right to free speech infringed upon by
New York’s ordinance?

• Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Roth was guilty, and that “lewd” materials were not constitutionally protected
• Because the word “lewd” was poorly-defined, the same conflict in Miller v. California later established guidelines for prohibited materials

• Sam Sheppard was convicted of 2 nd -degree murder for bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death
• Sheppard called for a retrial after he saw the massive negative publicity his trial drew
• After being acquitted in
Appeals court and appealing again, the case went to the
Supreme Court
• Was Sheppard’s right to a fair trial compromised?

• Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Sheppard had not been given a fair trial due to the media’s attacks on Sheppard, rendering his jury biased

• Is the desecration of an American flag permitted under freedom of speech?
• Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag in front of
Dallas City Hall to protest
Reagan’s policies
• He was sentenced to 1 year in prison and given a $2000 fine
• The Texas Criminal Appeals court overturned his arrest, and the State appealed to the
Supreme Court

• Ruled 5-4 that Johnson’s symbolic speech was granted under the 1 st Amendment
• Said that the public’s offense to a form of speech does not justify taking it from the speaker

• Does forbidding students’ symbolic protest infringe on freedom of speech?
• A group of Des Moines students planned to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War
• Their school’s principals heard of this plan and created a policy: any students wearing the bands must be asked to remove them
• Mary Beth Tinker was sent home due to this policy, and after losing in Appeals, went to the Supreme Court

• Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the armbands were pure speech which was separate from the actions or conduct of the participants wearing them

• The Boy Scouts of America revoked scoutmaster James
Dale’s membership after discovering he was gay
• Dale sued and won in New
Jersey Superior and Supreme
Court on grounds of discrimination
• Boy Scouts appealed to the
Supreme Court
• Does New Jersey’s antidiscrimination law violate
BSA’s right to assembly?

• Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that because the Boy
Scouts were a private group, they did not have to conform to New Jersey’s anti-discrimination laws, which violated their right to private assembly
• Because allowing LGBT members is against the
Boy Scouts’ philosophy, they do not have to admit them

• Did Hialeah’s ordinance violate the Free Exercise
Clause?
• Santería is a religion from the
Caribbean in which animal sacrifice is frequently used
• Hialeah, Florida passed an ordinance forbidding animal sacrifice when it was announced that a church of Santería was forming in town
• Lower courts upheld the law, but the Church of Lukumi
Babalu Aye appealed the case to
Washington and was granted a trial

• Ruled 9-0 that Hialeah’s law violated Lukumi
Babalu Aye’s right to expression of religion
• The fact that Hialeah singled out elements of
Santería killed their case and turned it into one of discrimination

• Also known as National
Socialist Party v. Skokie
• Skokie, Illinois rejected the request of a group of Neo-Nazi protesters to demonstrate due to the town’s high number of
Holocaust survivors
• Party’s leader, Frank Collin, called for hearings but was rejected in Illinois court until he contacted the Supreme
Court
• Did the Illinois courts improperly deny the
Party’s right to protest?

• Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the National
Socialist Party’s use of Nazi imagery was not an issue of clear and present danger, so protest was allowed due to 1 st Amendment rights
• The NSP did not march through Skokie, in the end; they received permission to do so in
Chicago instead

• Did Louisiana’s law violate the Establishment Clause of the 1 st Amendment?
• Louisiana passed a law saying that if creationism was taught at a school, then evolution was required as well, and vice versa
• District and Appeals courts ruled against Louisiana, saying the law promoted religious tenets
• Governor Edwin Edwards of
Louisiana took the case to D.C. against a civil suit led by Don
Aguillard, a Louisiana high school biology teacher

• Ruled 7-2 that Louisiana’s law was unconstitutional because its requiring of creationism advanced the viewpoint of one particular religion in a secular setting, violating the Establishment Clause

• A state board of regents in
New York wrote a prayer to be recited at the beginning of class by schoolchildren
• A Jewish family took offense to this, and their suit was given an amicus curiae to the
Supreme Court signed by the governments of 22 states
• Did the reading of the prayer violate the
Establishment Clause?

• The Supreme Court ruled 6-1 (two justices did not participate) that the prayer violated the
Establishment Clause of the 1 st Amendment
• Neither the voluntary nor nondenominational natures of the prayer saved it from unconstitutionality