Essay Database

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992). Issue: A teenager who placed a burning cross in the fenced back yard of a black family was charged under a City of St. Paul bias-motivated crime ordinance. At trial, the teenager moved for dismissal, alleging the ordinance was violative of the First Amendment. The Trial Court agreed and dismissed the case. On appeal, the MN Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling, citing …

…is therefore fatally overbroad and invalid on its face. Whether the ordinance is overbroad or invalid under the scope of the fighting words doctrine, the end result was the correct and best summarized by Justice Scalia: Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone’s yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire.