Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

315 U.S. 568 (1942)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Chaplinsky (D), a Jehovah's Witness, preached and distributed literature on the street in Rochester, NH. He called other religions 'rackets,' resulting in an unfriendly crowd. A marshal warned D that the crowd was getting ugly. The bystanders were angered, and an incident erupted. The police lead D away intending to arrest him. D then called the marshal a 'God-damned racketeer' and a 'damned fascist.' D was convicted under an ordinance prohibiting the utterance of words tending to harass, annoy, or deride another who was lawfully in any public place nor call him by any offensive name nor make any noise in his presence with the intent to offend another or to prevent him from pursuing his occupation. New Hampshire (P) courts interpreted the law as forbidding only face to face words which have a direct tendency to cause violence by hearers. The court found that the statute’s purpose was to prevent retaliatory violence. D raised the question that the statute was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that it placed an unreasonable restraint on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of worship, and because it was vague and indefinite. The trial court excluded, as immaterial, testimony relating to D's mission 'to preach the true facts of the Bible,' his treatment at the hands of the crowd, and the alleged neglect of duty on the part of the police. It also held that neither provocation nor the truth of the utterance would constitute a defense to the charge.