donal brown

A Christian church in Gilbert, Arizona is free to display signs announcing the times of its services, the Supreme Court ruled in finding that the town restrictions on the signs were content based and unconstitutional. (Courthouse News Service, June 18, 2015, by Barbara Leonard) The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled that the Gilbert ban was not born of animosity toward content and therefore constitutional. But in overturning the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme

In a departure from its steadfast defense of free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) were not entitled under the First Amendment to a Texas license plate that featured a Confederate battle flag. Judge Stephen Breyer argued that the license plate content was government rather than private speech. He wrote,  “…just as Texas cannot require SCV to convey the State’s ideological message, SCV cannot force Texas to

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in an Estonia case that Delfi was liable for hate speech on its news website. It is feared that the ruling could discourage news startups and seriously damage free expression on the Internet. (PCWorld, June 17, 2015, by Loek Essers and Peter Sayer, IDG News Service) The Court determined that it was as important to protect reputation as it was to protect free speech. It also found that

A federal district court judge ruled that a California woman sued in Utah may file a motion to strike the defamation charge under California’s anti-SLAPP law. A Utah company sued after the woman’s web site criticized the company for treatment of students at their residential youth treatment center. The judge held that the California anti-SLAPP law applied because it applied most particularly to the case since the speech was published in California where the state