his First Amendment freedom to exercise his religious
belief. Held: The First Amendment did not prohibit
application of air force regulation to prevent wearing of
yarmulke by plaintiff while on duty and in uniform.
VI. MISCELLANEOUS APPLICATIONS OF
FIRST AMENDMENT LAW
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State
Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S. 105 (1991).
Publisher sued members of New York State Crime
Victims Board, seeking order declaring that New York’s
“Son of Sam” statute, which required that accused or
convicted criminal’s income from works describing his
crime be deposited in escrow account, which funds were
then made available to victims of crime and criminal’s
other creditors, violated First and Fourteenth
Amendment. The Supreme Court held that: (1) statute
was presumptively inconsistent with First Amendment;
and (2) statute was not narrowly tailored to achieve
State’s objective of compensating victims from profits of
crime.
Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U.S. 476 (1995).
Held: The Federal Alcohol Administration Act
subsection that prohibits beer labels from displaying
alcohol content, violates the First Amendment.
City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999). Held:
City’s gang loitering ordinance, which required a police
officer, upon observing a person whom he reasonably
believed to be a criminal street gang member loitering in
a public place with one or more other persons, to order all
such persons to disperse, and which provided penalties
for the failure to obey such an order, was
unconstitutionally vague in failing to provide fair notice
of prohibited conduct, and in failing to establish minimal
guidelines for enforcement.
Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990).
Attorneys challenged use of dues of State Bar of California
to finance certain ideological or political activities. Held:
The State Bar’s use of compulsory dues to finance
political and ideological activities with which members
disagreed violated their First Amendment right of free
speech when such expenditures were not necessarily or
reasonably incurred for purposes of regulating the legal
profession or improving the quality of legal services.
See also Communications Workers of America v. Beck,
487 U.S. 735 (1988) (section of National Labor
Relations Act permitting employer and exclusive
bargaining representative to enter into agreement
requiring all employees in bargaining unit to pay periodic
union dues and initiation fees as condition of continued
employment, whether or not they wish to become union
members, does not also permit union, over objections of
dues-paying nonmember employees, to expend funds so
collected on activities unrelated to collective bargaining
activities).Butterworth v. Smith, 494 U.S. 624 (1990).
Reporter, who had testified before grand jury, sought
declaration that Florida statute proscribing disclosure of
his testimony was unconstitutional. Held: The Florida
statute, which prohibited witnesses from ever disclosing
testimony given before a grand jury, violated the First
Amendment insofar as it prohibited witnesses from
disclosing their own testimony after grand jury’s term
had ended.The Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989).
Rape victim brought suit against newspaper for
publishing her name, which it had obtained from a
publicly released police report. The trial court awarded
compensatory and punitive damages, but United States
Supreme Court reversed, holding that the imposition of
damages violated the First Amendment.Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal
Communications Commission, 520 U.S. 180 (1997).
Cable television system operators and programmers
brought actions against federal government and Federal
Communications Commission, challenging constitu-
tionality of must-carry provisions of Cable Television
Consumer Protection and Competition Act that required
carriage of local broadcast television stations on cable
television systems. The Supreme Court held that: (1)
Congress’s interests in preserving benefits of free, over-
the-air local broadcast television, promoting widespread
dissemination of information from multiplicity of
sources, and promoting fair competition in market for
television programming were important governmental
interests for First Amendment purposes; and (2) for
purposes of determining whether must-carry provisions
of Act were designed to address real harm under First
Amendment analysis, substantial evidence supported
Congress’s determination that significant numbers of
broadcast stations would be refused carriage on cable
systems absent must-carry requirement. See also Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications
Commission, 512 U.S. 622 (1994); Turner Broadcasting
System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 507
U.S. 1301 (1993).