R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), is a case of the United States Supreme Court that unanimously struck down St. Paul's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance and reversed the conviction of a teenager, referred to in court documents only as R.A.V., for burning a cross on the lawn of an African-American family since the ordinance was held to violate the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech.
Facts and procedural background
In the early morning hours of June 21, 1990, the petitioner and several other teenagers allegedly assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs. The cross was erected and burned in the front yard of an African American family that lived across the street from the house where the petitioner was staying. Petitioner, who was a juvenile at the time, was charged with two counts, one of which a violation of the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance. The Ordinance provided;
Petitioner moved to dismiss the count under the Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance on the ground that it was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content based, and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment. The trial court granted the motion, but the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, rejecting petitioner's overbreadth claim because, as the Minnesota Court had construed the Ordinance in prior cases, the phrase "arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others" limited the reach of the ordinance to conduct that amounted to fighting words under the Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire decision. The Minnesota Court also concluded that the ordinance was not impermissibly content based, because "the ordinance is a narrowly tailored means towards accomplishing the compelling governmental interest in protecting the community against bias-motivated threats to public safety and order." Petitioner appealed, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Decision
Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice David Souter, and Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Justice Byron White wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joined in full, and Justice John Paul Stevens joined in part. Justice Blackmun wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Stevens wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which was joined in part by Justice White and Justice Blackmun.
The majority decision
The Court began with a recitation of the relevant factual and procedural background, noting several times that the conduct at issue could have been prosecuted under different Minnesota statutes. In construing the ordinance, the Court recognized that it was bound by the construction given by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Therefore, the Court accepted the Minnesota court's conclusion that the ordinance reached only those expressions that constitute "fighting words" within the meaning of Chaplinsky.
Petitioner argued that the Chaplinsky formulation should be narrowed, such that the ordinance would be invalidated as "substantially overbroad," but the Court declined to consider this argument, concluding that even if all of the expression reached by the ordinance was proscribable as "fighting words," the ordinance was facially unconstitutional in that it prohibited otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech addressed.
The Court began its substantive analysis with a review of the principles of free speech clause jurisprudence, beginning with the general rule that the First Amendment prevents the government from proscribing speech, or even expressive conduct, because of disapproval of the ideas expressed. The Court noted that while content-based regulations are presumptively invalid, society has permitted 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."