Speech and Expression
Hate Speech
R.A.V. v. St Paul (1992)
505 U.S. 377 (1992)
Vote: 9-0
Majority: Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas
Concurrence: White, joined by Blackmun, O’Connor, and Stevens (in part)
Concurrence: Blackmun
Concurrence: Stevens, joined by White (in part), and Blackmun (in part)
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the predawn hours of June 21, 1990, petitioner and several other teenagers allegedly assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs. They then allegedly burned the cross inside the fenced yard of a black family … Although this conduct could have been punished under any of a number of laws, one of the two provisions under which respondent city of St. Paul chose to charge petitioner (then a juvenile) was the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, St. Paul, Minn., Legis. Code 292.02 (1990), which provides:
“Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Petitioner moved to dismiss this count on the ground that the St. Paul ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content based, and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment. The trial court granted this motion, but the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed. That court rejected petitioner’s overbreadth claim because, as construed in prior Minnesota cases, the modifying phrase “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others” limited the reach of the ordinance to conduct that amounts to “fighting words.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, (1942). The court also concluded that the ordinance was not impermissibly content based because, in its view, “the ordinance is a narrowly tailored means toward accomplishing the compelling governmental interest in protecting the community against bias-motivated threats to public safety and order.” We granted certiorari.
In construing the St. Paul ordinance, we are bound by the construction given to it by the Minnesota court. Accordingly, we accept the Minnesota Supreme Court’s authoritative statement that the ordinance reaches only those expressions that constitute “fighting words” within the meaning of Chaplinsky … Assuming, arguendo, that all of the expression reached by the ordinance is proscribable under the “fighting words” doctrine, we nonetheless conclude that the ordinance is facially unconstitutional in that it prohibits otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech addresses.
The First Amendment generally prevents government from proscribing speech or even expressive conduct because of disapproval of the ideas expressed. Content-based regulations are presumptively invalid. From 1791 to the present, however, our society, like other free but civilized societies, has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas … We have recognized that “the freedom of speech” referred to by the First Amendment does not include a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations [obscenity, defamation, fighting words] …
We have sometimes said that these categories of expression are “not within the area of constitutionally protected speech,” or that the “protection of the First Amendment does not extend” to them. Such statements must be taken in context, however, and are no more literally true than is the occasionally repeated shorthand characterizing obscenity “as not being speech at all.” What they mean is that these areas of speech can, consistently with the First Amendment, be regulated because of their constitutionally proscribable content (obscenity, defamation, etc.) – not that they are categories of speech entirely invisible to the Constitution … Thus, the government may proscribe libel; but it may not make the further content discrimination of proscribing only libel critical of the government …
The proposition that a particular instance of speech can be proscribable on the basis of one feature (e.g., obscenity) but not on the basis of another (e.g., opposition to the city government) is commonplace and has found application in many contexts. We have long held, for example, that nonverbal expressive activity can be banned because of the action it entails, but not because of the ideas it expresses – so that burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against outdoor fires could be punishable, whereas burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against dishonoring the flag is not … And just as the power to proscribe particular speech on the basis of a non-content element (e.g., noise) does not entail the power to proscribe the same speech on the basis of a content element, so also the power to proscribe it on the basis of one content element (e.g., obscenity) does not entail the power to proscribe it on the basis of other content elements.
In other words, the exclusion of “fighting words” from the scope of the First Amendment simply means that, for purposes of that Amendment, the unprotected features of the words are, despite their verbal character, essentially a “nonspeech” element of communication. Fighting words are thus analogous to a noisy sound truck: each is, as Justice Frankfurter recognized, a “mode of speech,” both can be used to convey an idea; but neither has, in and of itself, a claim upon the First Amendment. As with the sound truck, however, so also with fighting words: the government may not regulate use based on hostility – or favoritism – towards the underlying message expressed …
When the basis for the content discrimination consists entirely of the very reason the entire class of speech at issue is proscribable, no significant danger of idea or viewpoint discrimination exists. Such a reason, having been adjudged neutral enough to support exclusion of the entire class of speech from First Amendment protection, is also neutral enough to form the basis of distinction within the class. To illustrate: a State might choose to prohibit only that obscenity which is the most patently offensive in its prurience – i.e., that which involves the most lascivious displays of sexual activity. But it may not prohibit, for example, only that obscenity which includes offensive political messages. And the Federal Government can criminalize only those threats of violence that are directed against the President, see 18 U.S.C. 871 – since the reasons why threats of violence are outside the First Amendment (protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur) have special force when applied to the person of the President … But the Federal Government may not criminalize only those threats against the President that mention his policy on aid to inner cities …
Another valid basis for according differential treatment to even a content-defined subclass of proscribable speech is that the subclass happens to be associated with particular “secondary effects” of the speech, so that the regulation is “justified without reference to the content of the … speech.” A State could, for example, permit all obscene live performances except those involving minors. Moreover, since words can in some circumstances violate laws directed not against speech but against conduct (a law against treason, for example, is violated by telling the enemy the Nation’s defense secrets), a particular content-based subcategory of a proscribable class of speech can be swept up incidentally within the reach of a statute directed at conduct, rather than speech … Where the government does not target conduct on the basis of its expressive content, acts are not shielded from regulation merely because they express a discriminatory idea or philosophy.
… There may be other such bases as well … Save for that limitation, the regulation of “fighting words,” like the regulation of noisy speech, may address some offensive instances and leave other, equally offensive, instances alone.
Applying these principles to the St. Paul ordinance, we conclude that, even as narrowly construed by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the ordinance is facially unconstitutional. Although the phrase in the ordinance, “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others,” has been limited by the Minnesota Supreme Court’s construction to reach only those symbols or displays that amount to “fighting words,” the remaining, unmodified terms make clear that the ordinance applies only to “fighting words” that insult, or provoke violence, “on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” Displays containing abusive invective, no matter how vicious or severe, are permissible unless they are addressed to one of the specified disfavored topics. Those who wish to use “fighting words” in connection with other ideas – to express hostility, for example, on the basis of political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality – are not covered. The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects.
In its practical operation, moreover, the ordinance goes even beyond mere content discrimination to actual viewpoint discrimination. Displays containing some words – odious racial epithets, for example – would be prohibited to proponents of all views. But “fighting words” that do not themselves invoke race, color, creed, religion, or gender – aspersions upon a person’s mother, for example – would seemingly be usable ad libitum in the placards of those arguing in favor of racial, color, etc., tolerance and equality, but could not be used by those speakers’ opponents. One could hold up a sign saying, for example, that all “anti-Catholic bigots” are misbegotten; but not that all “papists” are, for that would insult and provoke violence “on the basis of religion.” St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquis of Queensberry rules.
What we have here, it must be emphasized, is not a prohibition of fighting words that are directed at certain persons or groups (which would be facially valid if it met the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause); but rather, a prohibition of fighting words that contain (as the Minnesota Supreme Court repeatedly emphasized) messages of “bias-motivated” hatred and, in particular, as applied to this case, messages “based on virulent notions of racial supremacy.” One must wholeheartedly agree with the Minnesota Supreme Court that “[i]t is the responsibility, even the obligation, of diverse communities to confront such notions in whatever form they appear,” but the manner of that confrontation cannot consist of selective limitations upon speech … The point of the First Amendment is that majority preferences must be expressed in some fashion other than silencing speech on the basis of its content.
Despite the fact that the Minnesota Supreme Court and St. Paul acknowledge that the ordinance is directed at expression of group hatred, Justice Stevens suggests that this “fundamentally misreads” the ordinance. It is directed, he claims, not to speech of a particular content, but to particular “injur[ies]” that are “qualitatively different” from other injuries. This is wordplay. What makes the anger, fear, sense of dishonor, etc., produced by violation of this ordinance distinct from the anger, fear, sense of dishonor, etc., produced by other fighting words is nothing other than the fact that it is caused by a distinctive idea, conveyed by a distinctive message. The First Amendment cannot be evaded that easily …
Finally, St. Paul and its amici defend the conclusion of the Minnesota Supreme Court that, even if the ordinance regulates expression based on hostility towards its protected ideological content, this discrimination is nonetheless justified because it is narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests. Specifically, they assert that the ordinance helps to ensure the basic human rights of members of groups that have historically been subjected to discrimination, including the right of such group members to live in peace where they wish. We do not doubt that these interests are compelling, and that the ordinance can be said to promote them. But the “danger of censorship” presented by a facially content-based statute, requires that that weapon be employed only where it is “necessary to serve the asserted [compelling] interest.” The existence of adequate content-neutral alternatives thus “undercut[s] significantly” any defense of such a statute, casting considerable doubt on the government’s protestations that “the asserted justification is in fact an accurate description of the purpose and effect of the law.” The dispositive question in this case, therefore, is whether content discrimination is reasonably necessary to achieve St. Paul’s compelling interests; it plainly is not. An ordinance not limited to the favored topics, for example, would have precisely the same beneficial effect …
Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone’s front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire.
The judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice White, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice O’Connor join, and with whom Justice Stevens joins except as to Part I-A, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court should be reversed. However, our agreement ends there.
This case could easily be decided within the contours of established First Amendment law by holding, as petitioner argues, that the St. Paul ordinance is fatally overbroad because it criminalizes not only unprotected expression but expression protected by the First Amendment.
…
Any contribution of this holding to First Amendment jurisprudence is surely a negative one, since it necessarily signals that expressions of violence, such as the message of intimidation and racial hatred conveyed by burning a cross on someone’s lawn, are of sufficient value to outweigh the social interest in order and morality that has traditionally placed such fighting words outside the First Amendment. Indeed, by characterizing fighting words as a form of “debate,” the majority legitimates hate speech as a form of public discussion …
As with its rejection of the Court’s categorical analysis, the majority offers no reasoned basis for discarding our firmly established strict scrutiny analysis at this time. The majority appears to believe that its doctrinal revisionism is necessary to prevent our elected lawmakers from prohibiting libel against members of one political party, but not another, and from enacting similarly preposterous laws. The majority is misguided.
Although the First Amendment does not apply to categories of unprotected speech, such as fighting words, the Equal Protection Clause requires that the regulation of unprotected speech be rationally related to a legitimate government interest. A defamation statute that drew distinctions on the basis of political affiliation or “an ordinance prohibiting only those legally obscene works that contain criticism of the city government,” would unquestionably fail rational-basis review. * * *
…
The Court has patched up its argument with an apparently nonexhaustive list of ad hoc exceptions, in what can be viewed either as an attempt to confine the effects of its decision to the facts of this case, or as an effort to anticipate some of the questions that will arise from its radical revision of First Amendment law …
The exception swallows the majority’s rule. Certainly, it should apply to the St. Paul ordinance, since “the reasons why [fighting words] are outside the First Amendment … have special force when applied to [groups that have historically been subjected to discrimination].”
To avoid the result of its own analysis, the Court suggests that fighting words are simply a mode of communication, rather than a content-based category, and that the St. Paul ordinance has not singled out a particularly objectionable mode of communication. Again, the majority confuses the issue. A prohibition on fighting words is not a time, place, or manner restriction; it is a ban on a class of speech that conveys an overriding message of personal injury and imminent violence, a message that is at its ugliest when directed against groups that have long been the targets of discrimination. Accordingly, the ordinance falls within the first exception to the majority’s theory.
… As I see it, the Court’s theory does not work, and will do nothing more than confuse the law. Its selection of this case to rewrite First Amendment law is particularly inexplicable, because the whole problem could have been avoided by deciding this case under settled First Amendment principles …
Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993)
508 U.S. 476 (1993)
Vote: 9-0
Majority: Rehnquist, joined by White, Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter and Thomas
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court.
Respondent Todd Mitchell’s sentence for aggravated battery was enhanced because he intentionally selected his victim on account of the victim’s race. The question presented in this case is whether this penalty enhancement is prohibited by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. We hold that it is not.
On the evening of October 7, 1989, a group of young black men and boys, including Mitchell, gathered at an apartment complex in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Several members of the group discussed a scene from the motion picture “Mississippi Burning” in which a white man beat a young black boy who was praying. The group moved outside and Mitchell asked them: “`Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white people?'” Shortly thereafter, a young white boy approached the group on the opposite side of the street where they were standing. As the boy walked by, Mitchell said: “`You all want to fuck somebody up? There goes a white boy; go get him.'” Mitchell counted to three and pointed in the boy’s direction. The group ran toward the boy, beat him severely, and stole his tennis shoes. The boy was rendered unconscious and remained in a coma for four days.
After a jury trial in the Circuit Court for Kenosha County, Mitchell was convicted of aggravated battery … That offense ordinarily carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment. But because the jury found that Mitchell had intentionally selected his victim because of the boy’s race, the maximum sentence for Mitchell’s offense was increased to seven years under 939.645. That provision enhances the maximum penalty for an offense whenever the defendant “[i]ntentionally selects the person against whom the crime … is committed … because of the race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry of that person. …” 939.645(1)(b). The Circuit Court sentenced Mitchell to four years’ imprisonment for the aggravated battery.
Mitchell unsuccessfully sought postconviction relief in the Circuit Court. Then he appealed his conviction and sentence, challenging the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s penalty-enhancement provision on First Amendment grounds. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected Mitchell’s challenge, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed. The [WI] Supreme Court held that the statute “violates the First Amendment directly by punishing what the legislature has deemed to be offensive thought.” It rejected the State’s contention “that the statute punishes only the `conduct’ of intentional selection of a victim.” According to the court, “[t]he statute punishes the “because of” aspect of the defendant’s selection, the reason the defendant selected the victim, the motive behind the selection.” And under R.A.V. v. St. Paul, (1992), “the Wisconsin legislature cannot criminalize bigoted thought with which it disagrees.”
The [WI] Supreme Court also held that the penalty-enhancement statute was unconstitutionally overbroad. It reasoned that, in order to prove that a defendant intentionally selected his victim because of the victim’s protected status, the State would often have to introduce evidence of the defendant’s prior speech, such as racial epithets he may have uttered before the commission of the offense. This evidentiary use of protected speech, the court thought, would have a “chilling effect” on those who feared the possibility of prosecution for offenses subject to penalty enhancement. Finally, the court distinguished antidiscrimination laws, which have long been held constitutional, on the ground that the Wisconsin statute punishes the “subjective mental process” of selecting a victim because of his protected status, whereas antidiscrimination laws prohibit “objective acts of discrimination.”
We granted certiorari because of the importance of the question presented and the existence of a conflict of authority among state high courts on the constitutionality of statutes similar to Wisconsin’s penalty-enhancement provision. We reverse.
Mitchell argues that we are bound by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conclusion that the statute punishes bigoted thought, and not conduct. There is no doubt that we are bound by a state court’s construction of a state statute … But here the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not, strictly speaking, construe the Wisconsin statute in the sense of defining the meaning of a particular statutory word or phrase. Rather, it merely characterized the “practical effect” of the statute for First Amendment purposes. This assessment does not bind us …
But the fact remains that, under the Wisconsin statute, the same criminal conduct may be more heavily punished if the victim is selected because of his race or other protected status than if no such motive obtained. Thus, although the statute punishes criminal conduct, it enhances the maximum penalty for conduct motivated by a discriminatory point of view more severely than the same conduct engaged in for some other reason or for no reason at all. Because the only reason for the enhancement is the defendant’s discriminatory motive for selecting his victim, Mitchell argues (and the Wisconsin Supreme Court held) that the statute violates the First Amendment by punishing offenders’ bigoted beliefs.
Traditionally, sentencing judges have considered a wide variety of factors in addition to evidence bearing on guilt in determining what sentence to impose on a convicted defendant … Thus, in many States, the commission of a murder or other capital offense for pecuniary gain is a separate aggravating circumstance under the capital sentencing statute.
But it is equally true that a defendant’s abstract beliefs, however obnoxious to most people, may not be taken into consideration by a sentencing judge …
Mitchell argues that the Wisconsin penalty-enhancement statute is invalid because it punishes the defendant’s discriminatory motive, or reason, for acting. But motive plays the same role under the Wisconsin statute as it does under federal and state antidiscrimination laws, which we have previously upheld against constitutional challenge. Title VII, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee “because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” (emphasis added.) … And more recently, in R.A.V. v. St. Paul, we cited Title VII … as an example of a permissible content-neutral regulation of conduct.
Nothing in our decision last Term in R.A.V. compels a different result here … But whereas the ordinance struck down in R.A.V. was explicitly directed at expression, the statute in this case is aimed at conduct unprotected by the First Amendment.
Moreover, the Wisconsin statute singles out for enhancement bias-inspired conduct because this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm. For example, according to the State and its amici, bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest … The State’s desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above mere disagreement with offenders’ beliefs or biases. As Blackstone said long ago, “it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.”
Finally, there remains to be considered Mitchell’s argument that the Wisconsin statute is unconstitutionally overbroad because of its “chilling effect” on free speech. Mitchell argues (and the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed) that the statute is “overbroad” because evidence of the defendant’s prior speech or associations may be used to prove that the defendant intentionally selected his victim on account of the victim’s protected status. Consequently, the argument goes, the statute impermissibly chills free expression with respect to such matters by those concerned about the possibility of enhanced sentences if they should, in the future, commit a criminal offense covered by the statute. We find no merit in this contention.
The sort of chill envisioned here is far more attenuated and unlikely than that contemplated in traditional “overbreadth” cases. We must conjure up a vision of a Wisconsin citizen suppressing his unpopular bigoted opinions for fear that, if he later commits an offense covered by the statute, these opinions will be offered at trial to establish that he selected his victim on account of the victim’s protected status, thus qualifying him for penalty-enhancement. To stay within the realm of rationality, we must surely put to one side minor misdemeanor offenses covered by the statute, such as negligent operation of a motor vehicle for it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of a situation where such offenses would be racially motivated. We are left, then, with the prospect of a citizen suppressing his bigoted beliefs for fear that evidence of such beliefs will be introduced against him at trial if he commits a more serious offense against person or property. This is simply too speculative a hypothesis to support Mitchell’s overbreadth claim …
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that Mitchell’s First Amendment rights were not violated by the application of the Wisconsin penalty-enhancement provision in sentencing him. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Virginia v. Black (2003)
538 U.S. 343 (2003)
Vote: 7-2
Majority: O’Connor (Parts I, II, and III), joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia, and Breyer
Concurrence: O’Connor (Parts IV, V), joined by Rehnquist, Stevens and Breyer
Concurrence: Stevens
Concur/Dissent: Scalia, joined by Thomas (Parts I and II)
Concur/Dissent: Souter, joined by Kennedy and Ginsburg
Dissent: Thomas
Justice O’Connor announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III, and an opinion with respect to Parts IV and V, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Stevens, and Justice Breyer join.
In this case we consider whether the Commonwealth of Virginia’s statute banning cross burning with “an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons” violates the First Amendment … We conclude that while a State, consistent with the First Amendment, may ban cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate, the provision in the Virginia statute treating any cross burning as prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate renders the statute unconstitutional in its current form.
Respondents Barry Black, Richard Elliott, and Jonathan O’Mara were convicted separately of violating Virginia’s cross-burning statute, §18.2-423. That statute provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person or persons, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, to burn, or cause to be burned, a cross on the property of another, a highway or other public place. Any person who shall violate any provision of this section shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony.
“Any such burning of a cross shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons.”
On August 22, 1998, Barry Black led a Ku Klux Klan rally in Carroll County, Virginia. Twenty-five to thirty people attended this gathering, which occurred on private property with the permission of the owner, who was in attendance. The property was located on an open field just off Brushy Fork Road (State Highway 690) in Cana, Virginia.
When the sheriff of Carroll County learned that a Klan rally was occurring in his county, he went to observe it from the side of the road. During the approximately one hour that the sheriff was present, about 40 to 50 cars passed the site, a “few” of which stopped to ask the sheriff what was happening on the property. Eight to ten houses were located in the vicinity of the rally. Rebecca Sechrist, who was related to the owner of the property where the rally took place, “sat and watched to see wha[t] [was] going on” …
During the rally, Sechrist heard Klan members speak about “what they were” and “what they believed in.” The speakers “talked real bad about the blacks and the Mexicans. One speaker told the assembled gathering that “he would love to take a .30/.30 and just random[ly] shoot the blacks.” The speakers also talked about “President Clinton and Hillary Clinton,” and about how their tax money “goes to … the black people.” Sechrist testified that this language made her “very … scared.”
At the conclusion of the rally, the crowd circled around a 25- to 30-foot cross. The cross was between 300 and 350 yards away from the road. According to the sheriff, the cross “then all of a sudden … went up in a flame.” As the cross burned, the Klan played Amazing Grace over the loudspeakers. Sechrist stated that the cross burning made her feel “awful” and “terrible.”
When the sheriff observed the cross burning, he … went down the driveway, entered the rally, and asked “who was responsible for burning the cross.” Black responded, “I guess I am because I’m the head of the rally.” The sheriff then told Black, “[T]here’s a law in the State of Virginia that you cannot burn a cross and I’ll have to place you under arrest for this.”
Black was charged with burning a cross with the intent of intimidating a person or group of persons, in violation of §18.2-423. At his trial, the jury was instructed that “intent to intimidate means the motivation to intentionally put a person or a group of persons in fear of bodily harm. Such fear must arise from the willful conduct of the accused rather than from some mere temperamental timidity of the victim.” The trial court also instructed the jury that “the burning of a cross by itself is sufficient evidence from which you may infer the required intent.” When Black objected to this last instruction on First Amendment grounds, the prosecutor responded that the instruction was “taken straight out of the [Virginia] Model Instructions.” The jury found Black guilty, and fined him $2,500. The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed Black’s conviction.
On May 2, 1998, respondents Richard Elliott and Jonathan O’Mara, as well as a third individual, attempted to burn a cross on the yard of James Jubilee. Jubilee, an African-American, was Elliott’s next-door neighbor in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Four months prior to the incident, Jubilee and his family had moved from California to Virginia Beach. Before the cross burning, Jubilee spoke to Elliott’s mother to inquire about shots being fired from behind the Elliott home. Elliott’s mother explained to Jubilee that her son shot firearms as a hobby, and that he used the backyard as a firing range.
On the night of May 2, respondents drove a truck onto Jubilee’s property, planted a cross, and set it on fire. Their apparent motive was to “get back” at Jubilee for complaining about the shooting in the backyard. Respondents were not affiliated with the Klan. The next morning, as Jubilee was pulling his car out of the driveway, he noticed the partially burned cross approximately 20 feet from his house. After seeing the cross, Jubilee was “very nervous” because he “didn’t know what would be the next phase,” and because “a cross burned in your yard … tells you that it’s just the first round.”
Elliott and O’Mara were charged with attempted cross burning and conspiracy to commit cross burning. O’Mara pleaded guilty to both counts, reserving the right to challenge the constitutionality of the cross-burning statute. The judge sentenced O’Mara to 90 days in jail and fined him $2,500. The judge also suspended 45 days of the sentence and $1,000 of the fine.
At Elliott’s trial, the judge originally ruled that the jury would be instructed “that the burning of a cross by itself is sufficient evidence from which you may infer the required intent.” At trial, however, the court instructed the jury that the Commonwealth must prove that “the defendant intended to commit cross burning,” that “the defendant did a direct act toward the commission of the cross burning,” and that “the defendant had the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons.” The court did not instruct the jury on the meaning of the word “intimidate,” nor on the prima facie evidence provision of §18.2-423. The jury found Elliott guilty of attempted cross burning and acquitted him of conspiracy to commit cross burning. It sentenced Elliott to 90 days in jail and a $2,500 fine. The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the convictions of both Elliott and O’Mara.
Each respondent appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, arguing that §18.2-423 is facially unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of Virginia consolidated all three cases, and held that the statute is unconstitutional on its face. It held that the Virginia cross-burning statute “is analytically indistinguishable from the ordinance found unconstitutional in R.A.V. The Virginia statute, the court held, discriminates on the basis of content since it “selectively chooses only cross burning because of its distinctive message.” The court also held that the prima facie evidence provision renders the statute overbroad because “[t]he enhanced probability of prosecution under the statute chills the expression of protected speech.”
Three justices dissented, concluding that the Virginia cross-burning statute passes constitutional muster because it proscribes only conduct that constitutes a true threat. The justices noted that unlike the ordinance found unconstitutional in R.A.V., the Virginia statute does not just target cross burning “on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.” Rather, “the Virginia statute applies to any individual who burns a cross for any reason provided the cross is burned with the intent to intimidate.” The dissenters also disagreed with the majority’s analysis of the prima facie provision because the inference alone “is clearly insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant burned a cross with the intent to intimidate.” The dissent noted that the burden of proof still remains on the Commonwealth to prove intent to intimidate. We granted certiorari.
… Burning a cross in the United States is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan.
The first Ku Klux Klan began in Pulaski, Tennessee, in the spring of 1866 … The Klan fought Reconstruction and the corresponding drive to allow freed blacks to participate in the political process.
Soon the Klan imposed “a veritable reign of terror” throughout the South … The Klan employed tactics such as whipping, threatening to burn people at the stake, and murder …
The activities of the Ku Klux Klan prompted legislative action at the national level … Congress passed what is now known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. President Grant used these new powers to suppress the Klan in South Carolina, the effect of which severely curtailed the Klan in other States as well. By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the first Klan non longer existed.
The genesis of the second Klan began in 1905, with the publication of Thomas Dixon’s The Clansmen: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan … Although the first Klan never actually practiced cross burning, Dixon’s book depicted the Klan burning crosses to celebrate the execution of former slaves … When D.W. Griffith turned Dixon’s book into the movie The Birth of a Nation in 1915, the association between cross burning and the Klan became indelible.
From the inception of the second Klan, cross burnings have been used to communicate both threats of violence and messages of shared ideology … The first known cross burning in the country had occurred a little over one month before the Klan initiation, when a Georgia mob celebrated the lynching of Leo Frank by burning a “gigantic cross” on Stone Mountain that was “visible throughout” Atlanta.
…
Often, the Klan used cross burnings as a tool of intimidation and a threat of impending violence … After one cross burning at a synagogue, a Klan member noted that if the cross burning did not “shut the Jews up, we’ll cut a few throats and see what happens …”
The Klan continued to use cross burnings to intimidate after World War II. In one incident, an African-American “school teacher who recently moved his family into a block formerly occupied only by whites asked the protection of city police … after the burning of a cross in his front yard.” And after a cross burning in Suffolk, Virginia during the late 1940’s, the Virginia Governor stated that he would “not allow any of our people of any race to be subjected to terrorism or intimidation in any form by the Klan or any other organization.” These incidents of cross burning, among others, helped prompt Virginia to enact its first version of the cross-burning statute in 1950.
… Throughout the history of the Klan, cross burnings have also remained potent symbols of shared group identity and ideology. The burning cross became a symbol of the Klan itself and a central feature of Klan gatherings. According to the Klan constitution (called the kloran), the “fiery cross” was the “emblem of that sincere, unselfish devotedness of all klansmen to the sacred purpose and principles we have espoused.” And the Klan has often published its newsletters and magazines under the name The Fiery Cross.
… To this day, regardless of whether the message is a political one or whether the message is also meant to intimidate, the burning of a cross is a “symbol of hate.” And while cross burning sometimes carries no intimidating message, at other times the intimidating message is the only message conveyed. For example, when a cross burning is directed at a particular person not affiliated with the Klan, the burning cross often serves as a message of intimidation, designed to inspire in the victim a fear of bodily harm. Moreover, the history of violence associated with the Klan shows that the possibility of injury or death is not just hypothetical. The person who burns a cross directed at a particular person often is making a serious threat, meant to coerce the victim to comply with the Klan’s wishes unless the victim is willing to risk the wrath of the Klan. Indeed, as the cases of respondents Elliott and O’Mara indicate, individuals without Klan affiliation who wish to threaten or menace another person sometimes use cross burning because of this association between a burning cross and violence.
In sum, while a burning cross does not inevitably convey a message of intimidation, often the cross burner intends that the recipients of the message fear for their lives. And when a cross burning is used to intimidate, few if any messages are more powerful.
… The hallmark of the protection of free speech is to allow “free trade in ideas”—even ideas that the overwhelming majority of people might find distasteful or discomforting. Thus, the First Amendment “ordinarily” denies a State “the power to prohibit dissemination of social, economic and political doctrine which a vast majority of its citizens believes to be false and fraught with evil consequence …
The protections afforded by the First Amendment, however, are not absolute, and we have long recognized that the government may regulate certain categories of expression consistent with the Constitution … The First Amendment permits “restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas, which are ‘of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.’ ”
… We have consequently held that fighting words-“those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction” -are generally proscribable under the First Amendment … And, the First Amendment also permits a State to ban a “true threat.”
“True threats” encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals … The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats “protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence” and “from the disruption that fear engenders,” in addition to protecting people “from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.” Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. Respondents do not contest that some cross burnings fit within this meaning of intimidating speech, and rightly so. As noted in Part II, supra, the history of cross burning in this country shows that cross burning is often intimidating, intended to create a pervasive fear in victims that they are a target of violence.
The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that in light of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, even if it is constitutional to ban cross burning in a content-neutral manner, the Virginia cross-burning statute is unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of content and viewpoint. It is true, as the Supreme Court of Virginia held, that the burning of a cross is symbolic expression. The reason why the Klan burns a cross at its rallies, or individuals place a burning cross on someone else’s lawn, is that the burning cross represents the message that the speaker wishes to communicate. Individuals burn crosses as opposed to other means of communication because cross burning carries a message in an effective and dramatic manner.
The fact that cross burning is symbolic expression, however, does not resolve the constitutional question. The Supreme Court of Virginia relied upon R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul to conclude that once a statute discriminates on the basis of this type of content, the law is unconstitutional. We disagree.
… We did not hold in R.A.V. that the First Amendment prohibits all forms of content-based discrimination within a proscribable area of speech. Rather, we specifically stated that some types of content discrimination did not violate the First Amendment …
Indeed, we noted that it would be constitutional to ban only a particular type of threat … Consequently, while the holding of R.A.V. does not permit a State to ban only obscenity based on “offensive political messages,” or “only those threats against the President that mention his policy on aid to inner cities,” the First Amendment permits content discrimination “based on the very reasons why the particular class of speech at issue … is proscribable.”
Similarly, Virginia’s statute does not run afoul of the First Amendment insofar as it bans cross burning with intent to intimidate. Unlike the statute at issue in R. A. V., the Virginia statute does not single out for opprobrium only that speech directed toward “one of the specified disfavored topics.” It does not matter whether an individual burns a cross with intent to intimidate because of the victim’s race, gender, or religion, or because of the victim’s “political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality.” …
The First Amendment permits Virginia to outlaw cross burnings done with the intent to intimidate because burning a cross is a particularly virulent form of intimidation. Instead of prohibiting all intimidating messages, Virginia may choose to regulate this subset of intimidating messages in light of cross burning’s long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence. Thus, just as a State may regulate only that obscenity which is the most obscene due to its prurient content, so too may a State choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm. A ban on cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate is fully consistent with our holding in R. A. V. and is proscribable under the First Amendment.
… The Supreme Court of Virginia has not ruled on the meaning of the prima facie evidence provision. It has, however, stated that “the act of burning a cross alone, with no evidence of intent to intimidate, will nonetheless suffice for arrest and prosecution and will insulate the Commonwealth from a motion to strike the evidence at the end of its case-in-chief.” …
The prima facie evidence provision, as interpreted by the jury instruction, renders the statute unconstitutional … As construed by the jury instruction, the prima facie provision strips away the very reason why a State may ban cross burning with the intent to intimidate … The provision permits the Commonwealth to arrest, prosecute, and convict a person based solely on the fact of cross burning itself.
It is apparent that the provision as so interpreted “‘would create an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas.'” The act of burning a cross may mean that a person is engaging in constitutionally proscribable intimidation. But that same act may mean only that the person is engaged in core political speech. The prima facie evidence provision in this statute blurs the line between these two meanings of a burning cross. As interpreted by the jury instruction, the provision chills constitutionally protected political speech because of the possibility that a State will prosecute–and potentially convict–somebody engaging only in lawful political speech at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.
As the history of cross burning indicates, a burning cross is not always intended to intimidate. Rather, sometimes the cross burning is a statement of ideology, a symbol of group solidarity. It is a ritual used at Klan gatherings, and it is used to represent the Klan itself. Thus, “[b]urning a cross at a political rally would almost certainly be protected expression.” Indeed, occasionally a person who burns a cross does not intend to express either a statement of ideology or intimidation. Cross burnings have appeared in movies such as Mississippi Burning, and in plays such as the stage adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake.
… It may be true that a cross burning, even at a political rally, arouses a sense of anger or hatred among the vast majority of citizens who see a burning cross. But this sense of anger or hatred is not sufficient to ban all cross burnings … The prima facie evidence provision in this case ignores all of the contextual factors that are necessary to decide whether a particular cross burning is intended to intimidate. The First Amendment does not permit such a shortcut.
… We recognize that the Supreme Court of Virginia has not authoritatively interpreted the meaning of the prima facie evidence provision. Unlike Justice Scalia, we refuse to speculate on whether any interpretation of the prima facie evidence provision would satisfy the First Amendment … We also recognize the theoretical possibility that the court, on remand, could interpret the provision in a manner different from that so far set forth in order to avoid the constitutional objections we have described. We leave open that possibility.
With respect to Barry Black, we agree with the Supreme Court of Virginia that his conviction cannot stand, and we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia. With respect to Elliott and O’Mara, we vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and remand the case for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
In every culture, certain things acquire meaning well beyond what outsiders can comprehend. That goes for both the sacred, see Texas v. Johnson, (1989) and the profane. I believe that cross burning is the paradigmatic example of the latter.
Although I agree with the majority’s conclusion that it is constitutionally permissible to “ban … cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate,” I believe that the majority errs in imputing an expressive component to the activity in question. In my view, whatever expressive value cross burning has, the legislature simply wrote it out by banning only intimidating conduct undertaken by a particular means. A conclusion that the statute prohibiting cross burning with intent to intimidate sweeps beyond a prohibition on certain conduct into the zone of expression overlooks not only the words of the statute but also reality.
“In holding [the ban on cross burning with intent to intimidate] unconstitutional, the Court ignores Justice Holmes’ familiar aphorism that ‘a page of history is worth a volume of logic.'”
…
To me, the majority’s brief history of the Ku Klux Klan only reinforces this common understanding of the Klan as a terrorist organization, which, in its endeavor to intimidate, or even eliminate those its dislikes, uses the most brutal of methods.
Such methods typically include cross burning—“a tool for intimidation and harassment of racial minorities, Catholics, Jews, Communists, and any other groups hated by the Klan.” … As the Solicitor General points out, the association between acts of intimidating cross burning and violence is well documented in recent American history.
…
In our culture, cross burning has almost invariably meant lawlessness and understandably instills in its victims well and grounded fear of physical violence.
Virginia’s experience is not exception … Accordingly, this statute prohibits only conduct, not expression. And, just as one cannot burn down someone’s house to make a political point and then seek refuge in the First Amendment, those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate to make their point. In light of my conclusion that the statute here addresses only conduct, there is no need to analyze it under any of our First Amendment tests.
Even assuming that the statute implicates the First Amendment, in my view, the fact that the statute permits a jury to draw an inference of intent to intimidate from the cross burning itself presents no constitutional problems. Therein lies my primary disagreement with the plurality.
But even with respect to statutes containing a mandatory irrebuttable presumption as to intent, the Court has not shown much concern. For instance, there is no scienter requirement for statutory rape. That is, a person can be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for having sex with a minor, without the government ever producing any evidence, let alone proving beyond a reasonable doubt, that a minor did not consent. In fact, “[f]or purposes of the child molesting statute … consent is irrelevant. The legislature has determined in such cases that children under the age of sixteen (16) cannot, as a matter of law, consent to have sexual acts performed upon them, or consent to engage in a sexual act with someone over the age of sixteen (16).” The legislature finds the behavior so reprehensible that the intent is satisfied by the mere act committed by a perpetrator. Considering the horrific effect cross burning has on its victims, it is also reasonable to presume intent to intimidate from the act itself.
… Because the prima facie clause here is an inference, not an irrebuttable presumption, there is all the more basis under our Due Process precedents to sustain this statute.
The plurality, however, is troubled by the presumption because this is a First Amendment case. The plurality laments the fate of an innocent cross-burner who burns a cross, but does so without an intent to intimidate. The plurality fears the chill on expression because, according to the plurality, the inference permits “the Commonwealth to arrest, prosecute and convict a person based solely on the fact of cross burning itself.” First, it is, at the very least, unclear that the inference comes into play during arrest and initiation of a prosecution, that is, prior to the instructions stage of an actual trial. Second, as I explained above, the inference is rebuttable and, as the jury instructions given in this case demonstrate, Virginia law still requires the jury to find the existence of each element, including intent to intimidate, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Moreover, even in the First Amendment context, the Court has upheld such regulations where conduct that initially appears culpable, ultimately results in dismissed charges. A regulation of pornography is one such example. While possession of child pornography is illegal, Ferber v. New York (1982), possession of adult pornography, as long as it is not obscene, is allowed, Miller v. California (1973). As a result, those pornographers trafficking in images of adults who look like minors, may be not only deterred but also arrested and prosecuted for possessing what a jury might find to be legal materials. This “chilling” effect has not, however, been a cause for grave concern with respect to overbreadth of such statutes among the members of this Court.
That the First Amendment gives way to other interests is not a remarkable proposition. What is remarkable is that, under the plurality’s analysis, the determination of whether an interest is sufficiently compelling depends not on the harm a regulation in question seeks to prevent, but on the area of society at which it aims. For instance, in Hill v. Colorado (2000), the Court upheld a restriction on protests near abortion clinics, explaining that the State had a legitimate interest, which was sufficiently narrowly tailored, in protecting those seeking services of such establishments “from unwanted advice” and “unwanted communication.” In so concluding, the Court placed heavy reliance on the “vulnerable physical and emotional conditions” of patients. Thus, when it came to the rights of those seeking abortions, the Court deemed restrictions on “unwanted advice,” which, notably, can be given only from a distance of at least 8 feet from a prospective patient, justified by the countervailing interest in obtaining abortion. Yet, here, the plurality strikes down the statute because one day an individual might wish to burn a cross, but might do so without an intent to intimidate anyone. That cross burning subjects its targets, and, sometimes, an unintended audience to extreme emotional distress, and is virtually never viewed merely as “unwanted communication,” but rather, as a physical threat, is of no concern to the plurality. Henceforth, under the plurality’s view, physical safety will be valued less than the right to be free from unwanted communications.
Because I would uphold the validity of this statute, I respectfully dissent.