cross-referenced news and research resources about
Chaplinsky V. New Hampshire
There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words -- those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
(Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. at 571-2).
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the criminal conviction of Walter Chaplinsky, who, proselytizing on the street in Rochester, New Hampshire, denounced organized religion as a "racket." When Chaplinsky would not moderate his attacks, and when the crowd got angry and restive, a police officer took Chaplinsky toward the police station (but did not yet arrest him). During this trip, Chaplinsky accused the city marshal of being "a goddamned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist," and when on to charge that "the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists." For this, Chaplinsky was arrested and charged under a statute prohibiting anyone from addressing "any offensive, derisive or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place, nor call[ing] him by any offensive and derisive name."
The Shadow University, 40.
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updated Mon. October 23, 2023
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Middlebury Campus
February 28, 2018
Bigoted thought is protected under the Constitution, and so too is bigoted or otherwise inflammatory speech — that is, unless it rises to the level of “fighting words.” As defined in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), fighting words are “those which, by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend toÃâà...
Above the Law
February 2, 2018
... Lawyer) taking deep dives into First Amendment history. In the first episode, Ken speaks with Professor Shawn Peters of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution” about Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.
Purdue Exponent
January 25, 2018
The Supreme Court and other courts have already determined that it is illegal and not protected by the First Amendment. In the 1942 case presented to the Supreme Court (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568), the court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect “fighting words,” or statements,Ãâà...
HuffPost
September 19, 2017
California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)), defamation (New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)), “fighting words” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568)), fraud (statutes require proof that the misrepresentation was relied on by the victim and an actual injury occurred), child pornography (New York v.
Newsday
August 20, 2017
Charlottesville shows that keeping a safe distance between protesters and counterprotesters is all-important to keeping the peace. That brings us to the hardest category, legally speaking: provocative speech that is aimed to produce conflict. In a World War II-era case, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, theÃâà...
Hollywood Reporter
August 16, 2017
Attached to her tweet was a screenshot referring to the Supreme Court's ruling on Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. "In 1942, the Supreme Court ruled that 'fighting words' are not protected under the First Amendment. The Court defines fighting words as 'those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tendÃâà...
Romper
August 16, 2017
Two years later, in the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, Justice Frank Murphy wrote that a "certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech" was not protected under the First Amendment, including "the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' wordsÃâà...
ThisisReno
August 16, 2017
As far as the “Fighting Words” doctrine: in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the court held that fighting words, or words “that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace,” are unprotected. The Court has tended to interpret this doctrine narrowly since that time.
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chaplinsky v. new hampshire
US Supreme Court free speech decisions:
chaplinsky v. new hampshire
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