Source: https://openjurist.org/384/us/195
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 22:21:20+00:00

Document:
Petitioner was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $3,000 for printing a pamphlet found to be prohibited by the common law of criminal libel in Kentucky. The Kentucky Court of Appeals, with three judges dissenting, affirmed petitioner's conviction. Ky., 405 S.W.2d 562. We granted certiorari (382 U.S. 971, 86 S.Ct. 537, 15 L.Ed.2d 464) and reverse.
The court also charged that malice is 'an essential element of this offense' and falsity as well.
The case is close to Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213, involving a conviction of the common-law crime of inciting a breach of the peace. The accused was charged with having played in the hearing of Catholics in a public place a phonograph record attacking their religion and church. In reversing we said: 'The offense known as breach of the peace embraces a great variety of conduct destroying or menacing public order and tranquility. It includes not only violent acts but acts and words likely to produce violence in others. * * * Here we have a situation analogous to a conviction under a statute sweeping in a great variety of conduct under a general and indefinite characterization, and leaving to the executive and judicial branches too wide a discretion in its application.' Id., at 308, 60 S.Ct. at 905.
'The vitality of civil and political institutions in our society depends on free discussion. As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in De Jonge v. State of Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 365 (57 S.Ct. 255, 260, 81 L.Ed. 278), it is only through free debate and free exchange of ideas that government remains responsive to the will of the people and peaceful change is effected. The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.
'Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.' Id., at 4, 69 S.Ct. at 895—896.
Convictions for 'breach of the peace' where the offense was imprecisely defined were similarly reversed in Edwards v. State of South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 236—238, 83 S.Ct. 680, 683—684, 9 L.Ed.2d 697, and Cox v. State of Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 551—552, 85 S.Ct. 453, 462—463, 13 L.Ed.2d 471. These decisions recognize that to make an offense of conduct which is 'calculated to create disturbances of the peace' leaves wide open the standard of responsibility. It involves calculations as to the boiling point of a particular person or a particular group, not an appraisal of the nature of the comments per se. This kind of criminal libel 'makes a man a criminal simply because his neighbors have no self-control and cannot refrain from violence.' Chafee, Free Speech in the United States 151 (1954).
Here, as in the cases discussed above, we deal with First Amendment rights. Vague laws in any area suffer a constitutional infirmity.1 When First Amendment rights are involved, we look even more closely lest, under the guise of regulating conduct that is reachable by the police power, freedom of speech or of the press suffer.2 We said in Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, that such a law must be 'narrowly drawn to prevent the supposed evil,' 301 U.S. at 307, 60 S.Ct., at 905, and that a conviction for an utterance 'based on a common law concept of the most general and undefined nature,' id., at 308, 60 S.Ct., at 905, could not stand.
All the infirmities of the conviction of the common-law crime of breach of the peace as defined by Connecticut judges are present in this conviction of the common-law crime of criminal libel as defined by Kentucky judges.
International Harvester Co. of America v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 234 U.S. 216, 34 S.Ct. 853, 58 L.Ed. 1284; Collins v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 234 U.S. 634, 34 S.Ct. 924, 58 L.Ed. 1510; United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81, 41 S.Ct. 298, 65 L.Ed. 516; Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322; Cline v. Frink Dairy Co., 274 U.S. 445, 47 S.Ct. 681, 71 L.Ed. 1146; Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553, 51 S.Ct. 582, 75 L.Ed. 1264; Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Commission of State of Oklahoma, 286 U.S. 210, 52 S.Ct. 559, 76 L.Ed. 1062; Lanzetta v. State of New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 59 S.Ct. 618, 83 L.Ed. 888; Wright v. State of Georgia, 373 U.S. 284, 83 S.Ct. 1240, 10 L.Ed.2d 349; Giaccio v. State of Pennsylvania, 382 U.S. 399, 86 S.Ct. 518, 15 L.Ed.2d 447. Cf. Scull v. Commonwealth of Virginia, etc., 359 U.S. 344, 79 S.Ct. 838, 3 L.Ed.2d 865; Raley v. State of Ohio, 360 U.S. 423, 79 S.Ct. 1257, 3 L.Ed.2d 1344.
Stromberg v. People of State of California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117; Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242, 57 S.Ct. 732, 81 L.Ed. 1066; Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093; Winters v. People of State of New York, 333 U.S. 507, 68 S.Ct. 665, 92 L.Ed. 840; Smith v. People of State of California, 361 U.S. 147, 80 S.Ct. 215, 4 L.Ed.2d 205; Cramp v. Board of Public Instruction, 368 U.S. 278, 82 S.Ct. 275, 7 L.Ed.2d 285; NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405; Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 84 S.Ct. 1316, 12 L.Ed.2d 377; Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 14 L.Ed.2d 22.

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