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Free Speech And Civil Liberties In The Second Circuit, Floyd Abrams

Fordham Law Review

Much of the development of First Amendment law in the United States has occurred as a result of American courts rejecting well-established principles of English law. The U.S. Supreme Court has frequently rejected English law, permitting far more public criticism of the judiciary than would be countenanced in England, rejecting English libel law as being insufficiently protective of freedom of expression and holding that even hateful speech directed at minorities receives the highest level of constitutional protection. The Second Circuit has played a major role in the movement away from the strictures of the law as it existed in the …