Lucas Et Al. v. Arkansas

Background

Two men were arrested after a motorcycle patrol officer heard loud profane insults aimed near him in a motel and restaurant parking lot around midnight. They were convicted under an Arkansas law for breaching the peace. The Arkansas Supreme Court had affirmed those convictions after concluding the words were the kind of "fighting words" the law punishes.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court did not decide the merits here. Instead it vacated the Arkansas court’s judgment and sent the case back for further consideration in light of the Court’s recent decision in Lewis v. City of New Orleans. The majority therefore asked the state court to re-evaluate the convictions under the legal standards the Court announced in Lewis. The U.S. Justices did not order a final outcome; they only required the Arkansas court to apply Lewis when rethinking the case.

Real world impact

As a practical matter, the two men’s convictions are not final right now. The state court must reconsider whether the profanity and insults in this parking lot incident meet the test set in Lewis. Depending on that reconsideration, the convictions could be upheld, narrowed, or overturned. The decision signals that state courts should follow Lewis when deciding similar speech-related breach-of-peace cases.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Blackmun, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Rehnquist, dissented. He argued Arkansas had already limited its law to true fighting words and would have left the convictions in place rather than vacate them.