Steve Palmer: Question comes from Kathy about fighting words in assault cases

>> Steve Palmer: All right, Steve Palmer here, Lawyer Talk, off the record on the air. A q and a segment coming at you. This question comes, uh, from Kathy, and there's really two parts to Kathy's questions that are. That it's not directly related. So I'm going to break this one into two parts, but still, we'll call it q and a. Kathy, uh, her first question has to do with fighting words. Um, and she asks, fighting words. I have heard in rare cases, if the insults are nasty enough, a judge may throw the whole assault case out. Yeah, them's fighting words. I think what you're asking, Kathy, is, what is it? Is it? Is an assault justified based on fighting words? And the answer is probably no. Uh, maybe sometimes yes, maybe sometimes. Who knows? Uh, and basically, let's talk about fighting words first. Back in, you know, the years ago, I, uh, think in the forties, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a case called Chaplinsky versus New Hampshire, first, uh, sort of addressed this idea of fighting words, that certain words are so nasty, so horrible, that, uh, you can criminalize them and, you know, put yourself back in that timeframe. Things were a lot different. But this quickly ran afoul of considerations of the First Amendment, which is free speech. We should be able to say whatever we want. And, uh, the State, the government, the local government, the federal government, the State government, they're not allowed to, um, uh, criminalize that. Well, the US supreme court somewhat disagreed. They said, fighting words, uh, can be so nasty that some of them can be criminalized. And they upheld the New Hampshire statute that has been slowly winnowed away, or at least chiseled back over the years. In the Vietnam era, there were several cases, uh, involving protests like, uh, fuck the government and forgive the language. But, uh, you know, then comes a bunch of cases, uh, basically, uh, screaming insults at police. And most of the Time, those have been deemed to be, uh, protected speech under the First Amendment. So the fighting words doctrine has a whole. I mean, I could do an entire breakdown for 2 hours, maybe even two weeks, on supreme court and lower court precedent on fighting words. And by the way, it applies to juveniles, although it seems sometimes juveniles fare less, uh, well, when, uh, they say things that, uh, are nasty and ugly and, uh, uh, are criminalized for it. But there was a case called tinker versus Des moines independent school district, uh, where a young man wore a black armband, I think, into school to protest the Vietnam war. And the quote goes something like this. I love this quote, is that, uh, juveniles or students don't check their constitutional rights at the door when they enter a public school district or a public school. In other words, you don't, you don't lose your constitutional rights, particularly your first amendment rights in that case, simply, uh, because you went to school. Uh, so great stuff, great question. Uh, we're going to take part two of Kathy's question in another segment, but, uh, stay tuned. And by the way, you got your own question, you got your own comment. Uh, you want to, uh, engage with the Lawyer Talk, that is me. Uh, go to lawyertalkpodcast.com dot. Lots of stuff going on there. You can submit your question. I get them on email. Um, you can check out the old episodes. So we've got like different eras of Lawyer Talk. Check out the old ones. Some of them are, it's fun to go back and check them out. Some of them, uh, maybe not so much, but lawyertalkpodcast, uh.com, submit your questions. We are off the record on the air at least until now.