Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf
Page Number: 16

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

It is true that our incitement decisions demand more— 
but the reason for that demand is not present here.  When 
incitement is at issue, we have spoken in terms of specific 
intent,  presumably  equivalent  to  purpose  or  knowledge. 
See  Hess,  414  U. S.,  at  109;  supra,  at  8.  In  doing  so,  we 
recognized that incitement to disorder is commonly a hair’s-
breadth  away  from  political  “advocacy”—and  particularly
from strong protests against the government and prevailing 
social order.  Brandenburg, 395 U. S., at 447.  Such protests
gave  rise  to  all  the  cases  in  which  the  Court  demanded  a
showing  of  intent.  See  ibid.;  Hess,  414  U. S.,  at  106; 
Claiborne  Hardware  Co., 458 U. S., at 888, 928.  And the 
Court  decided  those  cases  against  a  resonant  historical 
backdrop:  the  Court’s  failure,  in  an  earlier  era,  to  protect
mere advocacy of force or lawbreaking from legal sanction. 
See, e.g., Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927); Gitlow 
v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925); Abrams v. United States, 
250 U. S. 616 (1919).  A strong intent requirement was, and 
remains, one way to guarantee history was not repeated.  It 
was  a  way  to  ensure  that  efforts  to  prosecute  incitement
would not bleed over, either directly or through a chilling
effect,  to  dissenting  political  speech  at  the  First  Amend-
ment’s  core.  But  the  potency  of  that  protection  is  not 
needed  here.  For  the  most  part,  the  speech  on  the  other 
side  of  the  true-threats  boundary  line—as  compared  with 
the advocacy addressed in our incitement decisions—is nei-
ther so central to the theory of the First Amendment nor so 
vulnerable to government prosecutions.  It is not just that
our incitement decisions are distinguishable; it is more that 
they compel the use of a distinct standard here.6 

—————— 

6 Our  obscenity  decisions  are  of  no  help  in  this  inquiry,  because  the 
Court has never determined the precise mens rea needed to impose pun-
ishment.  In arguing to the contrary, the concurrence relies mainly on 
Hamling.  Post, at 18–19 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.).  But if the dissent 
is wrong in saying that Hamling (and other obscenity decisions) allowed 
an  objective  inquiry,  see  supra,  at  9, n.  4,  the concurrence  is wrong  in