"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote for the Supreme Court in Schenk v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919). It also does not protect urging draft resistance in wartime, which is the actual holding of the case.
How about yelling "bitch" in a theater? How the issues change with the times. David Hudson at the First Amendment Center has this post on an unpublished opinion of the Kansas Court of Appeals In the Matter of H.A.-G. (Thanks to How Appealing for the tip.) The profanity by itself probably wouldn't have done it, but "'H.A.-G's adjudication of disorderly conduct was based upon her disruptive conduct in the movie theatre and not based solely upon her speech,' the appeals court wrote." Kansas does not make the full text of unpublished opinions available on its court web site.
BTW, does it really help to identify a juvenile by her initials when the initials are distinctive in a way that everyone who knows her will recognize them? One more reason not to give kids hyphenated names.
How about yelling "bitch" in a theater? How the issues change with the times. David Hudson at the First Amendment Center has this post on an unpublished opinion of the Kansas Court of Appeals In the Matter of H.A.-G. (Thanks to How Appealing for the tip.) The profanity by itself probably wouldn't have done it, but "'H.A.-G's adjudication of disorderly conduct was based upon her disruptive conduct in the movie theatre and not based solely upon her speech,' the appeals court wrote." Kansas does not make the full text of unpublished opinions available on its court web site.
BTW, does it really help to identify a juvenile by her initials when the initials are distinctive in a way that everyone who knows her will recognize them? One more reason not to give kids hyphenated names.
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