Free Speech on Trial

by Parker, Richard A.; Smith, Craig (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780817350253
• ISBN10: 081735025X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr

Summary

Describes landmark free speech decisions of the Supreme Court while highlighting the issues of language, rhetoric, and communication that underlie them. At the intersection of communication and First Amendment law reside two significant questions: What is the speech we ought to protect, and why should we protect it? The 20 scholars of legal communication whose essays are gathered in this volume propose various answers to these questions, but their essays share an abiding concern with a constitutional guarantee of free speech and its symbiotic relationship with communication practices. Free Speech on Trialfills a gap between textbooks that summarize First Amendment law and books that analyze case law and legal theory. These essays explore questions regarding the significance of unregulated speech in a marketplace of goods and ideas, the limits of offensive language and obscenity as expression, the power of symbols, and consequences of restraint prior to publication versus the subsequent punishment of sources. As one example, Craig Smith cites Buckley vs. Valeoto examine how the context of corruption in the 1974 elections shaped the Court's view of the constitutionality of campaign contributions and expenditures. Collectively, the essays in this volume suggest that the life of free speech law is communication. The contributors reveal how the Court's free speech opinions constitute discursive performances that fashion, deconstruct, and reformulate the contours and parameters of the Constitution’s guarantee of free expression and that, ultimately, reconstitute our government, our culture, and our society.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
Franklyn S. Haiman
Communication Studies and Free Speech Law	9	(11)
Richard A. Parker
Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States	20	(16)
Stephen A. Smith
Whitney v. California	36	(16)
Juliet Dee
Stromberg v. California	52	(17)
John S. Gossett
Near v. Minnesota	69	(16)
John S. Gossett
Juliet Dee
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire	85	(15)
Dale Herbeck
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette	100	(16)
Warren Sandmann
New York Times v. Sullivan	116	(14)
Nicholas F. Burnett
United States v. O'Brien	130	(15)
Donald A. Fishman
Brandenburg v. Ohio	145	(15)
Richard A. Parker
Cohen v. California	160	(12)
Susan J. Balter-Reitz
Kleindienst v. Mandel	172	(15)
Mary Elizabeth Bezanson
Miller v. California	187	(16)
Joseph Tuman
Buckley v. Valeo	203	(15)
Craig R. Smith
FCC v. Pacifica Foundation	218	(16)
R. Wilfred Tremblay
Central Hudson Gas & Electric v. Public Service Commission	234	(16)
Joseph J. Hemmer Jr.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier	250	(14)
Andrew H. Utterback
Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell	264	(17)
Edward C. Brewer
Texas v. Johnson	281	(17)
David J. Vergobbi
Reno v. ACLU	298	(15)
Douglas Fraleigh
Conclusion	313	(14)
Ann M. Gill
Contributors	327	(4)
Case Index	331	(8)
Subject Index	339