Freedom Of Speech: The RAV V. St. Paul Case

Everyone loves having the ability to voice their opinions without restrictions. This right is called Freedom of Speech, taking this away from Americans would be the equivalent to causing WWIII. People often use this right to defend themselves when stating opinions However, how long does it take before Freedom of Speech simply becomes Hate Speech? Written in 1789 the Bill of Rights contains about 27 Amendments, these were soon ratified down into the 10 Amendments we’re familiar with today. Amongst these amendments is the 1st amendment, which grants us some of our most important rights as humans. One being Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech means “the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.” Free Speech is what sets

St. Paul case. On June 21, 1990, a burning cross had been found in the front yard of a black family’s home, placed there by several teenagers. Weeks prior to this incident, the same teenagers also verbally insulted the family and vandalized their property. The bias motivated crime was taken to the US Supreme Court and had been ruled in favor of the defenders. The court felt like this had not been considered unconstitutional, and therefore would be protected under the first Amendment. The defendants would only be charged with arson. The justice who spoke for much of the court Antonin Scalia, a well-known conservative judge who always ruled in favor of the defendant in hate speech cases such as this one. This is a prime example of why there should be more restraints on freedom of speech because, a group of kids got away with hate speech all because it didn’t provoke further violence making it constitutional and

For instance, on March 6th 2011, Justice John Roberts ruled in favor of Albert Phelps of the Westboro Church declaring that, “What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to 'special protection ' under the First Amendment and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous." Albert and his followers decided to picket at the funeral of fallen soldier Matthew A. Snyder carrying demeaning signs targeted at Snyder and his family. The father of Matthew sued Phelps for emotional distress caused towards the family, which resulted in the jury deciding in favor in of Snyder and awarding him 2.9 million US dollars. Despite this ruling, the Supreme Court reversed this decision. Another case surrounding free speech is the Virginia v. Black case. On May 2nd, 1998 two men Richard Elliot and Jonathan O 'Meara, attempted to light a burning cross in the lawn of their neighbor, who happened to be black. Then on August 22nd, of 1998 Barry Black held a KKK meeting where negative comments about black people were said. After the meeting they lit a burning cross. All 3 men were finally charged, with all 3 cases being combined, it was taken to the supreme court in 2002.There it was argued that this shouldn’t be a violation of free speech, even given its history connected with terrorism. The court eventually came to their final ruling on April 7th, 2003, Justice