美国最高法院新的一年

Dracula

美国最高法院新的一年

美国最高法院新的term将于下个星期一开始。最受大家瞩目的是禁止同性婚姻的法律是否违宪的问题。过去一年多，美国第4，7，10联邦巡回法庭都判决这一类法律违宪。目前的消息，最高法院还没有决定是否接受对这些判决的上诉。如果接受而且明年6月判决同性婚姻是宪法权利的话，对美国社会造成的震动可能会不亚于当年Roe v. Wade将堕胎合法化。

最高法院已经决定接的案子里，有几个涉及宗教自由，言论自由的问题，我挺感兴趣，简单介绍一下。

Holt v. Hobbs
Gregory Holt是个阿肯色州的犯人，正在服无期徒刑。他是个穆斯林，根据伊斯兰的教义，想留大胡子。但是阿肯色监狱规定犯人只能留梳理得很整齐的小胡子。于是他在2011年提出诉讼，认为监狱的规定违反了他宗教自由的宪法权利。监狱的反驳是监狱的规定同宗教无关，完全是从安全考虑，因为大胡子里可能会藏凶器。因此这个案子是关于如何平衡宗教自由和监狱安全考虑之间的冲突。之前的联邦地区法院和上诉法院都判决监狱胜诉。这个案子的Oral Argument被安排在下个星期二。

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch
这个案子是关于宗教歧视的问题。Abercrombie & Fitch是家服装连锁店，销售人员在那里被称为model，必须要长得好，而且对他们的着装有很详细的规定。面试的时候会对应聘人员的相貌打分。Samantha Elauf 是个穆斯林，平时都戴头巾。面试之前向Abercrombie的一个助理经理询问Abercrombie是否允许员工在工作的时候戴头巾。这个助理经理觉得应该不会有问题。面试那天，Elauf戴着头巾，开始很顺利，相貌的3分得了两分，总共得了6分，符合公司录用的标准。但当时进行面试的那个人觉得拿不准，向她的上级询问公司关于头巾的政策。得到的回复是不允许。这样Elauf在相貌上被扣了一分，没有被公司录用。她向EEOC投诉，EEOC认为Abercrombie的做法是宗教歧视，向法院起诉。联邦地区法院判决EEOC胜诉，但是巡回法院则改判为Abercrombie胜诉。今天最新的消息，最高法院接了这个案子。如果最高法院判决Elauf胜诉的话，会和法国禁止在公共场合戴头巾的法律形成有意思的对比。

Elonis v. United States
这个案子是关于言论自由。Anthony Elonis是宾夕法尼亚人。在他的前妻和他离婚，把他的两个孩子带走后，他的行为变得很怪异。据法庭文件，一天晚上，他来到办公室，当着他的一个女下属的面，开始脱衣裳。当他把上衣脱光的时候，那个女下属已经吓得跑出了办公室。他也因此丢了工作。此后，他就在Facebook发了大量的帖子，主要内容就是想象各种各样的方法来谋杀他的前妻。比如

“If I only knew then what I know now, I would have … dumped your body in the back seat, dropped you off in Toad Creek, and made it look like a rape and murder.”

“There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.”

Elonis的前妻将他告上法庭，他的辩护是他的这些言论并不真是对他前妻的威胁。Rap 歌手Eminem写过并且录制过一首歌，歌词就是描述谋杀自己的前妻。他不过是受Eminem启发，自己写的歌词，因此应该受言论自由保护。不过这个辩护没能说服陪审团，他被判了44个月。在威胁性言论这个问题上，美国最高法院的标准是true threat。在Elonis审判的时候，法官给陪审团的指示是一个reasonable person 是否会读了这些言论后会感到威胁。而他的律师则认为正确的标准应该是他发表这些言论时，本意是否是出于威胁。true threat 这个标准的含义有些模糊，最高法院对这个案子的判决会让它变得明确一些。

还有一个案子，Mehanna v. United States，我特别关心。这个案子涉及言论自由，具体就是将Al Qaeda的宣传材料由阿拉伯语翻译成英语，在网上发表是否是犯罪。最高法院还没有宣布是否会接这个案子，如果接的话，我会写篇文章，将这个案子的来龙去脉详细解释一下。


来自群组: 酒庄

隧道

第一个简单，监狱本来就是失去自由的地方，而且是要害特殊部门。监狱的理由也正当，成立。
第二个也简单，接受不了公司规定就别去呗，其实法国的做法不合适。宗教自由是可以在公共场合戴头巾。
但是也有检查戴头巾的权利i，有戴头巾的就检查他好几次。他自己就不戴了。
第三个有点意思，法律的确应当保证公民生活在没有恐惧威胁的社会。
但也不能因言获罪，干脆找个威胁言论，或者危害公共安全的理由关他一个月。
这样就不会靠言论自由乱说话了。
第四个，有点意思，成年人应该有能力判断所翻译的内容是否反动，但是有些洗脑材料的确写得很晦涩，很潜移默化，法院根据宣传材料的晦涩程度，来量刑吧。放网上发表，要看内容，前面内容如果定罪的话，宣传行为更要定罪。

其实因言获罪挺有意思的。我理想中，应该是公民应该拥护政府以前做出的判决，但是有讨论，评论的权利。但是负评多了，或者宣传鼓动煽动上来了和推翻政府也没多大区别了。

natasa

最后一个案子，我觉得虽然律师说的有一定道理，但是实际上他面对的是整个社会（社交网络），如果大部分人都认为他有伤害倾向的话，即使他本意并不是打算要实施，社会也会认为他是一个潜在的罪犯的，我觉得这里面有人的社会性的一面，不是光谈论个人自由就足够的，具体法律应该怎么规范我就不清楚了。

南京老萝卜

隧道 发表于 2014-10-3 06:30
第一个简单，监狱本来就是失去自由的地方，而且是要害特殊部门。监狱的理由也正当，成立。
第二个也简单， ...

也来参与一下。

第一个，大胡子应该剪掉。理由是：监狱里的平等就是大家平等。

第二个，公司的做法是对的。允许戴头巾，也允许查头巾的做法不靠谱。因为99.9%的头巾是正常的，最后大家都烦了，所以不可持续。再说她宣布头巾意味着我这个宗教的privacy, holy something，外人不能碰。你允许也允许了，查还没法查，不是偷鸡不成反蚀一把米吗。

上面两个都是牵扯到宗教自由。我觉得，这个宗教自由也不是绝对的，也要在一定的范围之内。比如我也建立一个宗教，要求每隔五分钟说一声“去你妈的”。或者就像下一个例子，我这个宗教要求在女同事面前脱光上衣，公司能不能开我呢？你要敢开我我就告你宗教歧视。这不是乱了套啦。

就算在家里，宗教自由也有限制。比如不能强迫子女进行宗教仪式，不能按宗教仪式惩罚等等。

宗教自由，多少坏事儿借你而行。

第三个，我觉得判他监禁还是有道理的。因为这个指向性已经非常明显了。但是我觉得找另外一个理由不是办法，是什么理由就是什么理由。

第四个，一个美国的网站把ISIS的宣传材料译成英文发到网上，只要这个网站明确指出这个是ISIS的宣传材料，这个网站本身应该没有问题。假如一个在美国注册的宗教组织，不是一个简单的网站，宣传我们要建立什么什么样的真主安拉国家，女人该是二等公民，等等，而这种宣传和ISIS宣称的“理想国”相差不大，这种宣传我觉得应该在美国能通得过。假如讲一个在美国注册的组织宣扬推翻政府，按D伯爵原来讲的，只要没有即时的危险，也应该没有问题。

这个第四条让我又想起来大人说的文革时候的事情。那时候有好多1949-1966年的小说电影被打成了大毒草，像青春之歌，早春二月，阿诗玛，五朵金花，洪湖赤卫队这些，各个单位都要组织批判。可是这些小说电影也不是人人都看过，没看过你怎么让人批？于是有人就说，那把电影给我们看一遍吧，我们没看过怎么批？但是单位说了，这些是大毒草，不能看，看了中毒。没看过更好，干批。

能有网站把ISIS的言论翻译成英语，也免得“干批”。不过我觉得ISIS主要是它的行为定性的，而不是言论。

不知道这个最高法院啥时候判下来。我们可以开个赌场赌一把。

隧道

南京老萝卜 发表于 2014-10-3 10:47
也来参与一下。

第一个，大胡子应该剪掉。理由是：监狱里的平等就是大家平等。

第三并不是另找理由，而是美国有个不能因言获罪的前例。
如果法院判他自己写出来威胁，自己看，或者和别人聊天说出来，不获罪。
但是直接告诉潜在的受害对象，或者贴到网站上有被潜在受害者知道可能性，就是威胁了。
这样他就不是因言获罪而是靠自己的行为获罪了。

你的第四和第三矛盾呀。
第三因言获罪，第四就不因言获罪了。
其实因言获罪，有个范围就好了。
自己对自己说不算犯罪，自己在私人场合说也不算犯罪，在公共场合宣传就是犯罪了。

南京老萝卜

隧道 发表于 2014-10-3 11:26
第三并不是另找理由，而是美国有个不能因言获罪的前例。
如果法院判他自己写出来威胁，自己看，或者和别 ...

第四条我的意思是，仅仅是翻译，转述，应该没有问题。网站贴个声明，翻译的只代表原作者的意思，不代表本站观点，就可以了。

进一步，假如讲一个实际的组织，不是翻译，转述，而是自己说要推翻美国政府，这个似乎是只要没有马上去实行具体的破坏动作，比如在大楼下安炸弹，应该是可以的。而且这个“推翻美国政府”也没有个具体的对象，奥巴马？州长？白宫？IRS？所以按我理解的“即时发生”的标准，好像也应该没事儿。

但是第三条是有具体的威胁对象的，就是那人的前妻，所以就不是言论自由，判罪是有道理的。

Dracula

南京老萝卜 发表于 2014-10-3 10:47
也来参与一下。

第一个，大胡子应该剪掉。理由是：监狱里的平等就是大家平等。

最高法院决定要接一个案子，需要有四个法官投票赞成。而且最高法院接的案子占上诉案件的比例很小。因此如果最高法院法官的普遍意见是上诉法院判的没错，这样的案子一般不会接。接的话，推翻上诉法院判决的可能性就挺大，我记得是超过70%。

我个人的看法。第一个案子，我觉得双方都有道理，但是稍微倾向于监狱的理由。下面这篇文章则认为按照几个月前在美国极受争议的Hobby Lobby判决的逻辑，监狱的安全考虑对宗教信仰的限制的标准应该是“least-restrictive means” to achieve a “compelling” goal。可以argue完全禁止留大胡子不是least restrictive ，因此监狱做法违宪。
http://www.theatlantic.com/polit ... 7/?single_page=true

第二个案子，我也是模棱两可，不过就下面这篇文章的介绍，似乎上诉法院的判决是出于技术原因，而且这个技术原因不是很站得住脚。这篇文章的作者Noah Feldman，似乎是认为最高法院会判决这种行为是宗教歧视。
http://www.bloombergview.com/art ... lash-at-abercrombie

第三个案子，我认为他的行为应该是犯罪，3年零8个月的刑期也是合适。如果我是他的前妻，读到他那些言论的话，也会对自己的安全感到担心，甚至可能会有恐惧。按照最高法院的标准，真实的威胁是犯罪，不受言论自由保护。但一个威胁是否是真实的，是从reasonable person的角度，还是从施行人的主观角度来看，没解释的很清楚。

Mehanna那个案子的情况比我提到的要复杂一些，如果他完全是自发，把Al Qaeda的宣传翻译成英语发在网上的话，按照美国的法律受言论自由保护，这一点控方也是同意的。但是他去过一趟也门，按照控方的理论，是试图同Al Qaeda取得联系，因此他的翻译活动可以被认为是同Al Qaeda协调的结果（这一点被他和他的律师所否认）。按照最高法院2010年Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project的判决，即使某一行动本身是合法，但是如果对恐怖组织提供了实质性的帮助的话，也是犯罪。因此根据这个判决，如果能证明他和恐怖主义组织的关系的话，判他有罪是有道理的。但是Holder这个判决做出后，遭到很多批评，好多人担心将其引申的话会对言论自由造成危害。过去几年，Roberts Court对言论自由一直都是很支持，如果接这个案子的话，结果很难说。我个人的看法是Mehanna的行为应该受言论自由保护。如果最高法院接这个案子的话，我会写篇文章详细解释一下它的来龙去脉。

第一个案子的oral argument是下星期，快得话，今年年底就会有结果。第三个案子的oral argument是定在12月，有结果可能得等到明年3，4月了。其它的最晚可能会是明年6月份。

Dracula

刚刚出来的结果，Mehanna那个案子最高法院没有接。我也就不用写那篇文章了。

今天最重要的新闻是出乎大家预料，对同性婚姻上诉的7个petition，最高法院一个都没有接，拒绝对禁止同性婚姻是否违宪进行表态。这么做的一个实际结果是，美国同性婚姻合法的州现在增加到了30个加上华盛顿特区。

mezhan

拒接就是表态啊.  维持联邦上诉法院的裁决 - 禁止同性婚姻违宪.

王不留

好多伊斯兰教涉及的案子啊。。。

Dracula

mezhan 发表于 2014-10-7 07:49
拒接就是表态啊.  维持联邦上诉法院的裁决 - 禁止同性婚姻违宪.

不完全是。如果最高法院接这个案子，而且判同性婚姻是宪法权利的话，同性婚姻在全美国都会变为合法。现在的情况，不受那几个上诉法院管辖的地方法院仍然有自由判决禁止同性婚姻不违宪。

sweeter

从这个帖子可以看出，有些法律不过是极少数人的意见而已。英美法系尤其如此。

但一旦制定，就会被某些人视作真理。真是笑话。

Dracula

南京老萝卜 发表于 2014-10-3 10:47
也来参与一下。

第一个，大胡子应该剪掉。理由是：监狱里的平等就是大家平等。

@隧道

第一个大胡子的案子的Oral Argument 刚结束不久，我刚刚看到的报道，看来阿肯色的监狱要输。他们提出的监狱不准留大胡子的理由不能让法官信服。

David A. Curran, a deputy attorney general from Little Rock, arguing for the state in the case of Holt v. Hobbs, took his turn before the Justices after two lawyers on the other side had repeatedly complained that the state simply had no real justification for banning all beards on inmates, even for those who might want insist that they need one for religious reasons.

Curran tried to offer two rationales:  the policy keeps prisoners from hiding anything dangerous or illegal in their chin hair, and it helps the guards identify the inmates as they move about in the prison yard or working in the farm fields.  (A third rationale, put forward only briefly, is that “prisoners are capable of a lot of mischief.”)  But the more he talked, the more the skepticism spread across the bench.

Clearly, though, his worst moments came when Justice Alito quietly probed both of the primary arguments.

As to the contraband-hiding problem, Alito suggested that the prison guards could just hand an inmate a comb and have him run it through the beard, “to see if a SIM card — or a revolver — falls out.”  It produced a broad wave of laughter in the courtroom, at the quite ridiculous image of a gun being stashed in a half-inch beard.  (There were enough modernists in the audience to know that a SIM card is a tiny electronic chip that identifies the assigned user of a cellphone; cellphones are not allowed in Arkansas prisons.)

As to the altered-identify problem, Alito tried verbally to imagine how an inmate wishing to enter the wrong barracks after a work period outside would — while out in the field — produce a razor, shave the beard, switch photo ID cards with an inmate who looked like him beardless, and go into a barracks different from the one specified on that ID card.  That, too, was such a stretch that it taxed credulity.

完整的报道在这儿。

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/1 ... ble-at-the-lectern/

这是对这个案子非专业的介绍

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/10/218456/

昨天的案子是关于4th amendment，也挺有意思，警察错误地认为一个人违了法，将他的车拦下来，在车里搜出了可卡因。这个案子涉及的问题是，由于警察对法律错误理解而搜出来的证据，能不能在法庭上使用。

http://www.bloombergview.com/art ... e-to-follow-the-law

明天的一个案子同Amazon有关，它在Nevada的一个发送中心，工人下班离开的时候要通过安全检查，确定他们没有偷东西，安全检查要排队，有时候要等25分钟。工会和雇主争执的问题是这应不应该算工作时间，支付给工人报酬。

隧道

Dracula 发表于 2014-10-8 03:06
@隧道

第一个大胡子的案子的Oral Argument 刚结束不久，我刚刚看到的报道，看来阿肯色的监狱要输。他们 ...

难以置信，监狱在收犯人的时候，连犯人的肛门都要检查，防止带入违禁物品。
要求不留胡子太正常了。

Dracula

还是关于留大胡子案子的oral argument，这一篇报道得更全面一些。

As in the state’s brief, security concerns were at the heart of Curran’s argument. Unfortunately for him, the Justices were openly dismissive of two of those concerns. Addressing the argument that the beard ban was intended to prevent inmates from hiding contraband such as a SIM card or a weapon in their beards, Ginsburg asked why the state didn’t have a similar rule for hair, where it might be easier to conceal something. Justice Stephen Breyer (who was uncharacteristically quiet today, perhaps because he was feeling under the weather) tried to nail down whether the state had any actual examples of an inmate in a state where beards are permitted hiding anything in a beard. “There is no example,” Curran conceded. But even if it were a possibility, Alito queried, why couldn’t the state just give a bearded inmate a special comb and require him to comb it to prove that he isn’t hiding anything? Drawing laughter from spectators, Alito predicted that, if an inmate is trying to hide a SIM card or a “tiny revolver” or “anything else you think can be hidden in a half-inch beard,” it will fall out. When Curran countered with possible obstacles, Alito appeared incredulous, asking him, “You really think that will be difficult, to say here’s a comb, comb your beard?”

The Justices spent even less time on the possibility raised by the state’s brief that it needed to prohibit beards to prevent an escaped inmate from eluding capture by shaving off his beard and changing his appearance. Curran tried to fend off questions from Scalia by explaining that prison officials had not testified on this issue in the lower courts. That tactic might have worked in the lower courts, but not with Scalia, who instead seemed to regard the question as one of common sense. The solution, Scalia shot back, is to “just take a photograph of him before he grows his half-inch beard. . . . It seems to me it’s . . . obvious.”

Curran also advanced a third justification for the ban on beards: the need to be able to identify prisoners while they are in prison. Prisons in Arkansas, he emphasized repeatedly, are unique from other states that would allow Holt to have a beard. In particular, he explained, inmates go out in the fields to work during the day and then return to their assigned barracks. Prison officials need to be able to prevent a prisoner from shaving off his beard and switching prison IDs with another prisoner so that he can gain access to (and potentially cause trouble in) another barracks. Here too, though, he found a skeptical audience in Alito, who peppered him with factual questions and observed that, among other things, such a scenario would require the inmate “to find someone who also looks like him” and lives in the barracks to which the inmate wants to gain illicit access.

During his short rebuttal, Laycock seized on the Justices’ apparent doubts whether the state truly needs to ban beards for religious reasons based on its need to identify inmates inside the prison. He reminded them that, for example, inmates can also change their appearances by shaving their heads, mustaches, or beards allowed for medical reasons – which they have every right to do. And although it remains unclear precisely what an opinion in his client’s favor might look like, by the time Laycock sat down, a majority on the Court seemed to agree with him.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/1 ... e-in-plain-english/

mezhan

Dracula 发表于 2014-10-7 10:24
不完全是。如果最高法院接这个案子，而且判同性婚姻是宪法权利的话，同性婚姻在全美国都会变为合法。现在 ...

"现在的情况，不受那几个上诉法院管辖的地方法院仍然有自由判决禁止同性婚姻不违宪。"

这样的话, 最高法院就必须介入.

Dracula

南京老萝卜 发表于 2014-10-3 10:47
也来参与一下。

第一个，大胡子应该剪掉。理由是：监狱里的平等就是大家平等。

威胁前妻的那个案子前天结束了oral arguments，法官们会怎么判还不清楚，这是Economist对这个案子的报道。

FIGHTS over free speech in America don’t always produce the loveliest poster children. Gone are the days when intellectuals had to turn to the first amendment as a shield against prosecution for distributing anti-war pamphlets or publishing socialist tracts. In recent decades, fights over the boundaries of protected speech have been waged mainly by racists, anti-Semites, pornographers, dogfight videographers, cross-burners and their kin.

The most recent crusader for free speech makes some of these characters look rather tame. Anthony Elonis, whose case the Supreme Court took up on Monday, is challenging his 2011 conviction and prison sentence for a series of Facebook posts a jury determined were “true threats” against his estranged wife, which are not considered protected speech. (As Garrett Epps explains at the Atlantic, the court's conception of a "true threat" isn't a warning that necessarily materialises but an act that has the potential to cause panic or disruption, whether or not the person intends to carry out the threat.) In one post, a 27-year-old Mr Elonis wrote:

If I only knew then what I know now...I would have smothered your ass with a pillow. Dumped your body in the back seat. Dropped you off in Toad Creek and made it look like a rape and murder.

Charming, yes. It gets better:

There's one way to love ya, but a thousand ways to kill ya,

And I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess,

Soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.Hurry up and die bitch.

We should forgive Justice Antonin Scalia for saying to an agreeable Michael Dreeben, the government’s lawyer, that “this language is not worth a whole lot anyway, right?” Freedom of speech is enshrined in the first amendment to facilitate robust debate and discussion essential to democratic self-government. It serves as a bulwark against government encroachment on individual expression. It offers a safe harbour against laws or officials seeking to punish dissenters or silence unpopular views. So it’s hard to fathom what value the Founding Fathers would see in Mr Elonis’s vivid threats. The petitioner’s wife, Tara, certainly did not care for this form of personal expression. She secured a protection-from-abuse order against Mr Elonis in 2010, prompting him to craft still more abusive Facebook posts, against her and against schoolchildren and an FBI agent. This cascade led to the criminal charges, the conviction and 44 months in prison.

In reaching its verdict in the trial, the federal jury was asked to consider whether Mr Elonis’s posts would be viewed by a reasonable observer as serious plans to inflict harm. This is the test in use in most of the country, but two federal districts and some states opt for a subjective standard asking whether the person expressing himself actually intended the statement as a threat to cause another person harm. In his brief to the justices and in the hearing on Monday, Mr Elonis denied ever intending harm. He penned the posts, he claims, as “therapeutic” exercises to handle his angst in the wake of being abandoned by his wife. The missives may have been rather crude and bloody-sounding, but they were just words—harmless and worthy of constitutional protection.

The exchange on Monday was lively, with multiple views bandied about on which characteristics and what level of knowledge should be attributed to a hypothetical "reasonable person". Everyone seemed to be grasping for a definition of what kind of language may be clearly seen as threatening, either through intent or interpretation. Several justices paused to admit confusion about what each lawyer was really arguing. The jurist who stepped in to clearly sketch the possible lines of argument was, as usual, Elena Kagan. Here is her exchange early on with John Elwood, Mr Elonis’s lawyer:

JUSTICE KAGAN:  Mr Elwood,...I'm trying to figure out what exactly the level of intent you want is. So one, the very, very highest level might be I affirmatively want to place this person in fear; that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. All right? There's a step down from that which is: I don't want to do that; I'm just fulfilling my artistic fantasies, whatever you want to call it; but I know that I am going to place this person in fear. All right?  Is that what—which intent do you want?

MR ELWOOD:  The second...That if you know that you are placing someone in fear by what you are doing, that is enough to satisfy our version of—

JUSTICE KAGAN:  How about you just take it a step down more but not get to the government's. How about if you don't know to a certainty, but you know that there is a substantial probability that you will place that person in fear, which is what I take it we would usually mean when we talk about recklessness?

This “recklessness” standard, whereby someone could be convicted as long as he knew that his speech would be frightening, even if he didn’t actually intend it as a threat, garnered little support from either attorney. Mr Elwood said it would offer no protection for mouthy teenagers “shooting off their mouths or making...ill­-timed, sarcastic comments which wind up getting them thrown in jail.” On the other side, Mr Dreeben worried that a recklessness test “basically immunises somebody who makes [a threat] and then can plausibly say later, 'hey, I was dead drunk, I realized that I just called in a bomb threat and the police had to respond and an elementary school had to be evacuated and I knew what I was saying but I was too drunk'” to understand that someone might take it seriously. Samuel Alito was clearly unsympathetic to Mr Elonis’s claims; he called the abusive husband’s I’m-just-venting-and-composing-rap-lyrics defence a “roadmap for threatening a spouse and getting away with it.” But few of the other justices gave a clear indication of how they might vote.

Late in the hearing, Justice Kagan again offered a clarion explanation of what is at stake in Mr Elonis’s first-amendment challenge:

JUSTICE KAGAN: Mr Dreeben, you are asking us to go down ­­you know, it's not purpose, it's not knowledge of causing fear, it's not a conscious disregard of causing fear, it's just that you should have known that you were going to cause fear, essentially. And that's not the kind of standard that we typically use in the First Amendment...[W]e typically say that the First Amendment requires a kind of a buffer zone to ensure that even stuff that is wrongful maybe is permitted because we don't want to chill innocent behavior.

This is the core of the matter. As nasty as Mr Elonis’s Facebook posts may have been, the question is what happens in future cases when the government seeks to punish people for venting or trying their hand at some gangsta rap on their Facebook pages. What, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, distinguishes Mr Elonis’s diatribes from Eminem’s multi-platinum records, in which he speaks in excruciatingly violent terms about what he'd like to do to his wife? The main distinction, according to Mr Dreeben, is that Eminem’s lyrics are delivered “at a concert where people are going to be entertained.”

There is a plausible argument to be made that domestic violence prosecutions would be hindered by a ruling that protects Mr Elonis’s antics, but this isn’t the only consideration the justices must weigh. Why should abusive speech that entertains an audience enjoy constitutional protection while Mr Elonis’s amateurish attempts to mimic Eminem be judged beyond the pale? It is a tough question the justices will attempt to answer in a few months.  

龙血树

Dracula 发表于 2014-12-4 01:50
威胁前妻的那个案子前天结束了oral arguments，法官们会怎么判还不清楚，这是Economist对这个案子的报道 ...

有意思。

这是一个把所有美好的幻影去一一打破的时代，所谓“智慧出，有大伪”