Home >  Browse the Constitution Annotated >  First Amendment >  Amdt1.2.3.1.2.3 Advocacy of Illegal Conduct: Current Doctrine 

Amdt1.2.3.1.2.3 Advocacy of Illegal Conduct: Current Doctrine

First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio,1 a conviction under a criminal syndicalism statute of advocating the necessity or propriety of criminal or terrorist means to achieve political change was reversed. The prevailing doctrine developed in the Communist Party cases was that mere advocacy was protected but that a call for concrete, forcible action even far in the future was not protected speech and knowing membership in an organization calling for such action was not protected association, regardless of the probability of success.2 In Brandenburg, however, the Court reformulated these and other rulings to mean that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.3 The Court has not revisited these issues since Brandenburg, so the long-term significance of the decision is yet to be determined.4

Footnotes

  1.  Jump to essay-1395 U.S. 444 (1969).
  2.  Jump to essay-2Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957); Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203 (1961); Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290 (1961). See also Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116 (1966); Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969).
  3.  Jump to essay-3395 U.S. at 447. Subsequent cases relying on Brandenburg indicate the standard has considerable bite, but do not elaborate sufficiently enough to begin filling in the outlines of the test. Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 928 (1982). But see Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 308–09 (1981).
  4.  Jump to essay-4In Stewart v. McCoy, 537 U.S. 993 (2002), Justice Stevens, in a statement accompanying a denial of certiorari, wrote that, while Brandenburg’s requirement that the consequence be ‘imminent’ is justified with respect to mere advocacy, the same justification does not necessarily adhere to some speech that performs a teaching function. . . . Long range planning of criminal enterprises – which may include oral advice, training exercises, and perhaps the preparation of written materials – involve speech that should not be glibly characterized as mere ‘advocacy’ and certainly may create significant public danger. Our cases have not yet considered whether, and if so to what extent, the First Amendment protects such instructional speech. Id. at 995.