Opinion ID: 1695502
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: threats and fighting words

Text: The First Amendment promotes the free flow of ideas and information in our society by prohibiting government from restricting speech or expressive conduct because of the message expressed. See, e.g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989). Content-based restrictions are presumptively invalid. See, e.g., Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). Limited exceptions to this rule are allowed where the speech or expressive conduct constitutes no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and [is] of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from [it] is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). Such speech can, consistently with the First Amendment, be regulated because of [its] constitutionally proscribable content. R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 383, 112 S.Ct. at 2543. Examples of proscribable speech include defamation and obscenity. See id. Threats of violence against individual citizens is one such category. Cf. Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969) (threats of violence against the President are outside the First Amendment). Threats of violence can be regulated because government has a valid interest in protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 388, 112 S.Ct. at 2546. Fighting words is another such proscribable category. Chaplinsky. These words by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Id., 315 U.S. at 572, 62 S.Ct. at 769. The present statute proscribes conduct that falls within the category of threats of violence. An unauthorized cross-burning by intruders in one's own yard constitutes a direct affront to one's privacy and security and has been inextricably linked in this state's history to sudden and precipitous violence  lynchings, shootings, whippings, mutilations, and home-burnings. The connection between a flaming cross in the yard and forthcoming violence is clear and direct. A more terrifying symbolic threat for many Floridians would be difficult to imagine. The banned conduct also constitutes fighting words. A flaming cross erected by intruders on one's property inflicts [real] injury on the victim in the form of fear and intimidation and also tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace where the victim or intruder may be inclined to take further action. See generally Chaplinsky. In the lexicon of the United States Supreme Court, it is the extraordinarily threatening mode of expression, not the idea expressed, that is intolerable. See R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 391-93, 112 S.Ct. at 2548-49. Again, it is difficult to imagine a scenario more rife with potential for reflexive violence and peacebreaching.