Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Background

A man who identified himself as a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses was handing out religious literature on a busy Rochester, New Hampshire, sidewalk. After warnings from police that a crowd was getting restless, he called a city marshal insulting names, including “damned racketeer” and “damned Fascist.” He was charged and convicted under a state law that forbids addressing offensive, derisive, or annoying words to someone lawfully in a public place. State courts affirmed the conviction, and the case reached the Nation’s highest court.

Reasoning

The key question was whether the state statute unreasonably restricted the man’s free speech under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court explained that freedom of speech is not absolute and identified narrow categories of speech that may be punished, including insulting or “fighting” words that by their very utterance tend to provoke immediate violence. The state high court had interpreted the law to cover only face-to-face words plainly likely to cause the average person to respond violently. Applying that limited reading, the Court held the statute constitutional and found the insults at issue fit the fighting-words category, so the conviction did not violate the Constitution.

Real world impact

The decision allows states to punish direct, face-to-face abusive words that are likely to provoke a breach of the peace. The Court also approved the state court’s refusal to admit evidence about provocation or the truth of the insults as irrelevant to the constitutional question, leaving such procedural or mitigating matters to state courts to address.