Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

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Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Argued February 5, 1942
Decided March 9, 1942


Full case name:	Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire

Citations:	315 U.S. 568; 62 S. Ct. 766; 86 L. Ed. 1031; 1942 U.S. LEXIS 851

Prior history:	Appeal from the New Hampshire Supreme Court

Holding

A criminal conviction for violating a disorderly conduct law limited to, in a public place, the use of words directly tending to cause a breach of the peace by provoking the person addressed to acts of violence was constitutional.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone
Associate Justices: Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, James F. Byrnes, Robert H. Jackson

Case opinions

Majority by: Murphy
Joined by: unanimous

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. I; NH P. L., c. 378, § 2 (1941)

Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court articulated the fighting words doctrine, a limitation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.

Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, had said to a New Hampshire town marshal who was attempting to prevent him from preaching: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist" and was arrested. The Court, in an unanimous decision, upheld the arrest and stated:

"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."