First Amendment

New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), often referred to as The Pentagon Papers Case, is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The ruling made it possible for The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment.

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court under which prior restraint on publication was found to violate freedom of the press as protected under the First Amendment. This principle was applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence.

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limit the ability of public officials to sue for defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the…

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that recognized the First Amendment rights of students in U.S. public schools. The Tinker test, also known as the "substantial disruption" test, is still used by courts today to determine whether a school's interest in preventing disruption outweighs students' First Amendment rights.

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, ruling that the U.S. Bill of Rights did not limit the power of private actors or state governments despite the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It reversed the federal criminal convictions for the civil rights violations committed in aid of anti-Reconstruction murders.

Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had extended the First Amendment's provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press to apply to the governments of U.S. states. Along with Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago (1897), it was one of the first major cases involving the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an ordinance requiring door-to-door salespersons ("solicitors") to purchase a license was an unconstitutional tax on religious exercise.

Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of silent school prayer.

Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878), was a Supreme Court of the United States case which held that religious duty was not a defense to a criminal indictment. Reynolds was the first Supreme Court opinion to address the First Amendment's protection of religious liberties, impartial juries and the Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth Amendment.

Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials. The home of Robert Eli Stanley, a suspected bookmaker, was searched by police with a federal warrant to seize betting paraphernalia.

Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on June 9, 1980 which affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court in a case that arose out of a free speech dispute between the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, California, and several local high school students (who wished to canvass signatures for a petition against United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379).

Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88 (1940), is a US labor law case of a United States Supreme Court. It reversed the conviction of the president of a local union for violating an Alabama statute that prohibited only labor picketing.

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

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court. Alabama sought to prevent the NAACP from conducting further business in the state.

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on campaign finance. A majority of justices held that, as provided by section 608 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, limits on election expenditures are unconstitutional.

Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held, 5–4, that burning the flag of the United States was protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as doing so counts as symbolic speech and political speech. Activist Gregory Lee Johnson was convicted for burning an American flag during a protest outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, and was fined $2,000 and sentenced to one year in jail in accordance with Texas law.

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court clarifying the legal definition of obscenity. The ruling was the origin of the three-part judicial test for determining obscene media content that can be banned by government authorities, which is now known as the Miller test.

New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), is a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court, unanimously ruling that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution did not protect the sale or manufacture of child sexual abuse material (also known as child pornography) and that states could outlaw it.

Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103 (1990), is a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution allows states to outlaw the possession, as distinct from the distribution, of child pornography. In doing so, the Court extended the holding of New York v. Ferber, which had upheld laws banning the distribution of child pornography against a similar First Amendment challenge, and distinguished Stanley v. Georgia, which had struck down a Georgia law forbidding the possession of pornography by adults in their own homes.

Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938), is a United States Supreme Court case. This case was remarkable in its discussion of the requirement of persons to seek government sanction to distribute religious material.

Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), was a seminal First Amendment ruling by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court overturned a Florida state law that required newspapers to offer equal space to political candidates who wished to respond to election-related editorials or endorsements.

Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the ability of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate indecent content sent over the broadcast airwaves.

Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit's application of a Minnesota antidiscrimination law. The case established what was at the time the prevailing framework for analyzing claims of associative freedom, holding that the Minneapolis branch of the United States Jaycees could not bar women from becoming voting members.

Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557 (1995), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding free speech rights, specifically the rights of groups to determine what message their activities convey to the public. The Court held that a state may not compel private citizens organizing a public demonstration to include groups who impart a message the organizers do not want their demonstration to present, even if the state's intent was to prevent discrimination.