Law Commons^™

Freedom Of Speech And True Threats, Jennifer E. Rothman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes a new test for determining what is a true threat - speech not protected by the First Amendment. Despite the importance of the true threats exception to the First Amendment, this is an underexplored area of constitutional law.

Even though the Supreme Court has made clear that true threats are punishable, it has not clearly defined what speech constitutes a true threat. To make this determination circuit courts have adopted inconsistent and inadequate tests including a reasonable listener test. The Supreme Court has never granted certiorari to resolve the issue.

The law surrounding threats has gained recent …

This Gun For Hire: Dancing In The Dark Of The First Amendment, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

Classified advertisements in newspapers and magazines represent a uniquely democratic access to the media for the individual. Without having to pay the thousands of dollars for full-page advertisements, buyers and sellers can purchase space for their offers for only a few dollars, yet have them seen by city-wide or nation-wide audiences. Democracy, though, breeds its own excesses, and the legal question is always how to control that excess without harming the freedom.

As befits a medium open to all, classified advertisements run the gamut of human activity, from the sale of a used automobile to employment to lonely singles looking …