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On The Categorical Approach To Free Speech – And The Protracted Failure To Delimit The True Threats Exception To The First Amendment, Wayne Batchis
On The Categorical Approach To Free Speech – And The Protracted Failure To Delimit The True Threats Exception To The First Amendment, Wayne Batchis
Pace Law Review
On June 1, 2015, the Supreme Court decided Elonis v. United States on statutory rather than constitutional grounds. In doing so, it turned away an important opportunity to provide needed clarification of true threats, a category of expression relegated to a lower level of protection by the Court almost a half-century ago. The categorical approach to free speech made its first explicit appearance in Supreme Court case law in 1942. Since that time, the Court has relied heavily on this method of constitutional interpretation, carving out discrete exceptions from the seemingly absolutist mandate of the First Amendment that Congress make …