Brandenburg v. Ohio

Brandenburg v. Ohio
Brandenburg v. Ohio
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 1969; Decided June 9, 1969
Full case name	Clarence Brandenburg v. State of Ohio
Citations	395 U.S. 444 (more) 89 S. Ct. 1827; 23 L. Ed. 2d 430; 1969 U.S. LEXIS 1367; 48 Ohio Op. 2d 320
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Court of Common Pleas, Hamilton County, Ohio, (Dec. 5, 1966); affirmed without opinion, Court of Appeals of the First Appellate District of Ohio, (Feb. 16, 1968); appeal dismissed without opinion, Supreme Court of Ohio (June 12, 1968); probable jurisdiction noted, 393 U.S. 948 (1968).
Subsequent	None
Holding
	Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute violated the First Amendment, as applied to the state through the Fourteenth, because it broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence rather than the constitutionally unprotected incitement to imminent lawless action.
Court membership
	Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas; John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr.; Potter Stewart · Byron White; Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
	Per curiam
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Douglas
Laws applied
	U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; Ohio Rev. Code § 2923.13
	This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
	Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919) (in part); Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919) (in part); Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927); Dennis v. United States 341 U.S. 494 (1951);

Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[1] The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action".^[2]^[3]^: 702 Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence. In the process, Whitney v. California (1927)^[4] was explicitly overruled, and Schenck v. United States (1919),^[5] Abrams v. United States (1919),^[6] Gitlow v. New York (1925),^[7] and Dennis v. United States (1951)^[8] were overturned.

^ Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
^ Parker, Richard A. (2003). "Brandenburg v. Ohio". In Parker, Richard A. (ed.). Free Speech on Trial: Communication Perspectives on Landmark Supreme Court Decisions. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. pp. 145–159. ISBN 978-0-8173-1301-2.
^ Criminal Law - Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 2012, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business; John Kaplan (law professor), Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder, ISBN 978-1-4548-0698-1
^ Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927).
^ Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).
^ Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919).
^ Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)
^ Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951)

Brandenburg v. Ohio
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 1969 Decided June 9, 1969
Full case name	Clarence Brandenburg v. State of Ohio
Citations	395 U.S. 444 (more) 89 S. Ct. 1827; 23 L. Ed. 2d 430; 1969 U.S. LEXIS 1367; 48 Ohio Op. 2d 320
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Court of Common Pleas, Hamilton County, Ohio, (Dec. 5, 1966); affirmed without opinion, Court of Appeals of the First Appellate District of Ohio, (Feb. 16, 1968); appeal dismissed without opinion, Supreme Court of Ohio (June 12, 1968); probable jurisdiction noted, 393 U.S. 948 (1968).
Subsequent	None
Holding
Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute violated the First Amendment, as applied to the state through the Fourteenth, because it broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence rather than the constitutionally unprotected incitement to imminent lawless action.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall
Case opinions
Per curiam
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Douglas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; Ohio Rev. Code § 2923.13
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919) (in part) Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919) (in part) Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) Dennis v. United States 341 U.S. 494 (1951)