Case Synopsis Exercise

The purpose of this exercise is to expose students to the actual decisions of the Supreme Court related to free speech and freedom of expression. Your assignment is to provide a synopsis of a Supreme Court case on the freedom of speech.

You may use references from your textbook to find the exact citations of these cases. You may find these case in the library in a set of volumes called US Reports or you can find the cases online through any number of resources including Findlaw (www.findlaw.com).

Your synopsis should include:

1. What communication by the defendant led to his or her conviction?

2. What test did the Court use to decide if the defendant’s conviction was constitutional? What reasons did the court give for employing the test?

3. How did the Court apply the test to the defendant’s communication to decide if the defendant’s free speech rights were violated?

4. If there was a dissent, what reasons did the dissenters give for disagreeing with the majority decision?

5. What cases did the majority (and the dissent, if applicable) find to be most persuasive in justifying their decision?

You should also include the citation for the case (ie. 355 U.S. 433), the decision of the Court (ie. 5-4, 9-0).

You should be able to accomplish this assignment in no more than four typewritten pages.

I would like you to chose a case in which you can listen to the oral arguments for the case on the Multimedia Supreme Court website--called Oyez. You can access that site at www.oyez.org.I also have a limited number of tape recordings of some recent cases, but the selection and ease of use is superior at Oyez, so please do your best to check out that site. Any computer with a good modem connection (28.8 and above) should be fine. You may need to install a Real Audio plug in for your browser. Computers in the labs on campus already have this feature. You may need to bring a set of headphones to listen to the arguments without disturbing your neighbors.

Finally, the following cases may NOT be used in a case synopsis:
New York Times v. Sullivan
Fallwell v. Flynt
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
RAV v. City of St. Paul
Miller v. California
ACLU v. Reno
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition