Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 5, 1942 Decided March 9, 1942
Full case name	Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire
Citations	315 U.S. 568 (more) 62 S. Ct. 766; 86 L. Ed. 1031; 1942 U.S. LEXIS 851
Prior history	Appeal from the New Hampshire Supreme Court
Holding
A criminal conviction for causing a breach of the peace through the use of "fighting words" does not violate the Free Speech guarantee of the First Amendment.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Murphy, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Constitution amend. I; NH P. L., c. 378, § 2 (1941)

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court articulated the fighting words doctrine, a limitation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.

On 6 April 1940, Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, was using the public sidewalk as a pulpit in downtown Rochester, passing out pamphlets and calling organized religion a "racket." After a large crowd had begun blocking the roads and generally causing a scene, a police officer removed Chaplinsky to take him to police headquarters. Upon seeing the town marshal (who had returned to the scene after warning Chaplinsky earlier to keep it down and avoid causing a commotion), Chaplinsky attacked the marshal verbally. He was then arrested. The complaint against Chaplinsky stated that he shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist". Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity.

For this, he was charged and convicted under a New Hampshire statute preventing intentionally offensive speech being directed at others in a public place. Under New Hampshire's Offensive Conduct law (chap. 378, para. 2 of the NH. Public Laws) it is illegal for anyone to address "any offensive, derisive or annoying word to anyone who is lawfully in any street or public place ... or to call him by an offensive or derisive name."

Chaplinsky appealed the fine he was assessed, claiming that the law was "vague" and that it infringed upon his First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free speech.

Some modern legal historians have disputed the generally accepted version of events that led to Chaplinsky's arrest.