Fighting words
From Free net encyclopedia
Fighting words are written or spoken words, generally expressed to incite hatred or violence and to place the targets of the words in danger of harm. Specific definitions, freedoms, and limitations of fighting words vary by jurisdiction.
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United States
The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [of which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
Chaplinsky decision
Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, had told a New Hampshire town marshal who was attempting to prevent him from preaching "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" and was arrested. The court upheld the arrest and wrote in its decision that
Post-Chaplinsky
The court has continued to uphold the doctrine but also steadily narrowed the grounds on which fighting words are held to apply. In Street v. New York (1969), which the court overturned a statute prohibiting flag-burning & verbally abusing the flag, holding that mere offensiveness does not qualify as "fighting words" and that the threat of actual violence must be present. Similarly, in Cohen v. California (1971), the fact that Cohen had been arrested for wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft" did not constitute uttering fighting words since there had been no "personally abusive epithets."
In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), the court overturned a statute prohibiting cross-burning on the grounds that governments could not prohibit speech based on its content or subjects addressed. The court went on to assign some free-speech value to fighting words (although the court ruled that cross burning was not fighting words): Template:Quotation
The court went on to say that while the government can regulate the mode of delivery of the ideas (time, place, and manner), it cannot regulate the ideas themselves. In more recent decisions, the court has held that fighting words must "reasonably incite the average person to retaliate" and risk "an immediate breach of the peace" or they could not be prohibited.
Canada
In Canada, freedom of speech is generally protected under Section 2 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Criminal Code, however, limits these freedoms and provides for several forms of punishable hate speech. The form of punishable hate speech considered to encompass fighting words is identified in Section 319: <ref>Stephen Brooks, Hate Speech and the Rights Cultures of Canada and the United States</ref>
Notes
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External links
- What is the Fighting Words doctrine? from freedomforum.org.
- First Amendment Library entry on Fighting Words