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R.A.V v. St. Paul
18
R.A.V vs. The City of St. Paul, Minnesota
505 U.S 377
Background
Argued December 4, 1990
Decided June 22, 1992
Significance
- Students were allegedly accused of burning a "crudely fashioned" cross in the front lawn of a black family's home.
- R.A.V was charged under inter alia, the St. Paul, Minnesota's Bias Motivated Crime Ordinance.
- Ordinance states: "Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
- The case decides with support of previous cases that there are types of speech that the government can censor, called unprotected speech, but it is only constitutional if the censoring is based on the type of speech, and the government regulates it in a content-neutral way.
- That there are certain fighting words that are not "worthy" of constituional protection.
- Shows the tensions between the social values of free speech and the social harm of hate speech.
What Happened Next
Cases Refered to in
R.A.V v. St. Paul
- Texas v. Johnson
-Case about Gregory Lee Johnson, who was tried for burning an American Flag to protest Reagan's administration policy.
-Court decided burning a flag is a form of speech and is protected expression under the Constitution's First Amendment.
-"The Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."
- Issue: Whether the Ordinance is substantially overbroad and impermissibly content-based?
- The trial court granted a dismissal on this charge on account of the ordinance being overbroad and content base, making it invalid under the First Amendment.
- The State Supreme Court of Minnestoa claimed that the ordinance was not impermissibly content based.
-"Fighting Words Doctrine"
- R.A.V appealed.
- Chapinsky v. New Hampshire
-Chaplinsky was a Jehovah's Witness and called a city marshal a "God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" in a public place and was arrested for a breach on peace.
-Created the "Fighting Words Doctrine"
-This stated, "Some forms of expression--among them obscenity and fighting words--do not convey ideas and thus are not subject to First Amendment protection. In this case, Chaplinsky uttered fighting words, i.e., words that "inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
-Imminent Violence
Decision
- The Supreme Court voted 9-0 for R.A.V
- The Justices determined the ordinance unconstitutional because "it prohibits otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech addresses."
- Court also concluded that the ordinance was not solely content based because it was narrowly tailored to serve a complelling governmental interest in protecting the community against bias motivated threats to public safety and order.
-Therefore in violation of the First Amendment, winning R.A.V the case.
Dissents
Content v. Context
- There were no dissents because the vote for this case was unanimous.
- However, Justice White filed an opinion concurring in the judgement in which Justice Blackmun and O'Connor joined, and Justice Stevens joined in part.
- Justice Stevens filed an opinion concurring in the judgement in which Justice White and Justice Blackmun joined in part.
- Lastly, Justice Blackmun filed an opinion concurring in the judgement.
- The Justices said content-based arguments are invalid.
- The First Amendment is a content-based amendment.
-Considers not only what is said, but how, when, and where the expression was made.
-Justice Scalia says first determine content then contextual.