Constitutional Law - Freedom of Speech - Symbolic Protest by the Use of Opprobrious Language
Thomas Murphy · Digital Commons-DePaul (DePaul University) · 2015
Courthouse wearing a jacket bearing the words "Fuck the Draft."He entered the courtroom, removed his jacket, and held it folded over his arm.A police officer, who had seen the jacket, sent a message to the judge requesting that Cohen be held in contempt of court, but the judge declined and returned a message informing the officer of his refusal.Cohen, then entering a corridor where women and children were present, was arrested by the officer.He was convicted in the Los Angeles Municipal Court and sentenced to thirty-days imprisonment, for willfully disturbing the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person by the use of offensive conduct.'The California Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction 2 and the Supreme Court of California declined review in a split decision.The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on the basis of the constitutional questions presented and found that absent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions, a state may not, consistently with the first and fourteenth amendments, make the simple public display of a single four-letter expletive a criminal offense.People v. Cohen, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).It would seem that the facts indicated in Cohen, taken in and of themselves, pose merely a criminal misdemeanor problem and thus have negligible significance.However, the constitutional issues presented are highly significant, and the decision will carry a heavy impact upon subsequent 1. CAL.PENAL CODE § 415 (West 1970).The statute provides: "Every person who maliciously and willfully disturbs the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person, by loud or unusual noise, or by tumultuous or offensive conduct, or threatening, traducing, quarrelling, challenging to fight, or fighting, or who, on the public streets of any unincorporated town, or upon the public highways in such unincorporated town, runs any horse race, either for a wager or for amusement, or fire any gun or pistol in such unincorporated town, or use any vulgar, profane, or indecent language within the presence or hearing of women or children, in a loud and boisterous manner, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction by any Court of competent jurisdiction shall be punished by fine not exceeding two hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the County Jail for not more than ninety days, or by both fine and imprisonment, or either, at the discretion of the Court."It should be noted that Cohen was charged with disturbing the peace by tumultuous or offensive conduct and not for using vulgar or indecent language within the hearing of women and children.2. People v. Cohen, 1 Cal.App.3d 94, 81 Cal.Rptr.503 (1969).