Category: Volume 58 No. 4

“George Curnutt ‘pointed a gun at his father’” and pulled the trigger. When the gun failed to fire, he hit his father several times with the butt of his pistol, beat, and kicked him, inflicting serious injuries. In a separate incident, a man bought a hatchet and attempted to murder his elderly father. The father chose not to press charges against his son, who became a violent alcoholic after fighting in the Vietnam War. In another case, a deceased husband left his widowed wife financially well-endowed and with a nice home. Claiming they were going to renovate her house, the widow’s children moved her into a nursing home. They then sold their mother’s home without her knowledge, and despite her competence, a probate court granted her son durable power of attorney over her. The son also sought guardianship over his mother, depriving her of the power to make basic important life decisions. Read More …

Professor Sedler concludes his reprise on The Law of the First Amendment with the conclusion that the current structure of the law is the same as it was at the time of his original 1991 article. He notes at the outset that, if anything, with regard to the protection of expression, “the Court has increased the protection afforded to First Amendment rights and has resisted attempts to diminish that protection.” He further justifies this even stronger protection as part of American humanistic values. These values in the United States protect “bad ideas” and “harmful speech” and indicate a belief that the government should not make decisions about which ideas should be expressed. He applauds this treatment of expression, an applause in which, for the most part, I would join. Read More …

I am honored to have been asked by the editors of the Wayne Law Review to comment on Robert Sedler’s The “Law of the First Amendment” Revisited, a follow-up to his 1991 article: The First Amendment in Litigation: The “Law of the First Amendment .” I am pleased to do so not just because of my respect for Bob Sedler, but also because this commentary marks a homecoming of sorts for me. More than two decades ago, I published my first article on free speech in a symposium in this journal. Read More …

There are two excellent reasons for honoring Professor Sedler. Read More …

Some twenty-plus years ago, I undertook an exploration of what I called “The Law of the First Amendment.” My purpose in doing so was to “analyze the First Amendment as it appears to judges and lawyers in the context of actual litigation and to explicate the meaning of the “Law of the First Amendment.” I did so from the perspective of a constitutional law professor who had litigated a number of First Amendment cases over the years. Read More …