LEWIS
v.
CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring in the result.
Under Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942), the issue in a case of this kind is whether “fighting words” were used. Here a police officer, while in the performance of his duty, was called “g— d— m-f-” police.
If these words had been addressed by one citizen to another, face to face and in a hostile manner, I would have no doubt that they would be “fighting words.” But the situation may be different where such words are addressed to a police officer trained to exercise a higher degree of restraint than the average citizen. See Model Penal Code § 250.1, Comments 14 (Tent. Draft No. 13, 1961). I see no genuine overbreadth problem in this case for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, ante, p. 903.
I would remand for reconsideration only in light of Chaplinsky.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Burger, see ante, p. 902.]
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Rehnquist, see ante, p. 909.]
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Canney v. State, 298 So. 2d 495 (Fla. 2d DCA 1973)…. .” Jones was a case very much like this one and it does support the position of the majority, but in my view it is clearly and directly contrary to Gooding v. Wilson, 1972, 405 U.S. 518, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408; Lewis v. New Orleans, 1972, 408 U.S. 913, 92 S.Ct. 2499, 33 L.Ed.2d 321 and Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, 1972, 408 U.S. 901, 92 S.Ct. 2484, 33 L.Ed.2d 321, possibly through inadvertence. The central question which is involved in Jones was not touched upon by the majority opinion in that case.…
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Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n v. Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 726 (U.S. 1978)…condemnable here are fully protected by the First Amendment in other contexts. See Eaton v. Tulsa, 415 U. S. 697 (1974); Papish v. University of Missouri Curators, 410 U. S. 667 (1973); Brown v. Oklahoma, 408 U. S. 914 (1972); Lewis v. New Orleans, 408 U. S. 913 (1972); Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, 408 U. S. 901 (1972); Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971). Yet despite the Court’s refusal to create a sliding scale of First Amendment protection calibrated to this Court’s perception of the worth of a commun…
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Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130 (U.S. 1974)…est and with wantonly reviling the police. She was convicted on both charges but appealed only the conviction of wantonly reviling the police. We remanded this case to the Supreme Court of Louisiana to construe the meaning of the ordinance.1 [*139] 408 U. S. 913 (1972). That court, after reviewing the applicable precedents, including Chaplinsky and Good-ing, specifically construed the ordinance as “not offensive to protected speech; it is narrowed to ‘fighting words’ uttered to specific persons at a specifi…1 / 4
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- Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (U.S. 1942)