First Amendment

Mr. Vishinsky s proposal to repeal the First Amendment may find support in some quarters in this country. The Numbers trial crowd. . . should welcome it. The Vishinsky proposal would provide a sort of legislative endorsement. .. of the indictment under which the Nazi leaders were judicially murdered. With these exceptions, it seems most improbable that the Soviet Revolution will be taken seriously outside Russia. 

I was more amused than disturbed. The First Amendment A better example of freedom of the press could hardly be imagined than this description of legal proceedings as murder, and these suggestions that somehow the Numberg trials abridged freedom of speech and of the press. Were such crackpot notions to be taken seriously We did not think so. 

Department of Defense Ammunition and Explosives Safety Standards, DOD 6055.9-STD, Jul 1984 (First Amendment, Change 1, 19 Aug 86... 

Hate speech, when it incites violence, does not fall under protection of the First Amendment. 

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that freedom of thought is one of the most elementary and important rights inherent in the First Amendment. Without freedom of thought, freedom of speech is moot. You cannot express what you cannot think. Likewise, you can only express what you can think. Chemical manipulation of the brain, therefore, could become the ultimate prior restraint on speech. 

In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, invalidated a school requirement that compelled a flag salute on the ground that it was an unconstitutional invasion of the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from official control. The First Amendment, declared the Court, gives a constitutional preference for individual freedom of mind over officially disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end. At the center of our American freedom, is the freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds, the Court explained, only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. ... 

In Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1977), the Supreme Court invalidated a New Hampshire statute that required all noncommercial vehicle license plates to bear the state motto Live Free or Die, finding the requirement inconsistent with the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment. ... 

The federal district court ruled that the statute was not vague, because it addresses an understandable core of banned guns and adequately puts gun owners on notice that their weapon could be prohibited. The Court also ruled that the law did not violate anyone s equal protection rights any burden on those rights was acceptable because the rationality of the link between public safety and proscribing assault weapons is obvious. Finally, under the lesser standards protecting commercial speech under the First Amendment, no violation of free speech rights was found. 

Polsby, Daniel B. Treating the Second Amendment as Normal Constitutional Law. Kentucky Firearms Foundation. Available online. URL http //www.kyfirearms.org/news/polsby.htm. Posted on December 13, 1997. Explores how the Second Amendment would be applied if it were treated like other first class provisions of the Bill of Rights, such as the First Amendment. Polsby suggests that, like speech, the time, place and manner of bearing arms could be regulated, but the right itself would have to be respected. 

In a decision written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal and ruled against the Virginia State Board of Pharmacy. The ruling concluded that commercial speech has some protection under the First Amendment, particularly in relation to the right of citizens to receive information. Because the individual consumer and society in general may have strong interests in the free flow of commercial information, even commercial speech that has an economic rather than a political or artistic motivation deserves protection. Indeed, such information is crucial to the... 

The Oregon Supreme Court then decided that although the state law did forbid use of controlled drugs even for religious purposes, this prohibition violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the free exercise of religion. Upon appeal by the government the case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision. 

The issue is whether prohibiting the use of drugs associated with religious traditions violates the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment. 

Alcohol Prohibition is repealed by ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The focus of federal agencies shifts increasingly to combating illicit drug use. 

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the First Amendment protection for religious freedom does not require states to allow use of peyote. September The three Ochoa brothers who had been major Medellin cartel leaders agree to surrender to Colombian authorities in exchange for a reduced prison sentence and no extradition to the United States. 

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