Case one: Beauharnais V.S Illinois: Background
Joseph Beauharnais was a man from the Chicagoland area who distributed leaflets promoting anti-African American sentiment. With these leaflets he "called whites to unite against the violence perpetrated by African Americans". Beauharnais was arrested for these leaflets.
Defense:
Beauharnais's defense claimed that his distribution of leaflets was protected under the First Amendment right to free speech.
Persecution:
Beauharnais was persecuted by the state of Illinois. The persecutions' defense was that Beauharnais's leaflets fell under criminal libel law. Criminal libel is the persecution of a defamatory statement by the state rather than an individual person. This argument countered the Defense's argument of free speech, as the prosecution argued that freedom of speech did of protect hate speech.
Connection to other cases:
Libel law- protection from damaging, false statements published in a fixed medium (writing, print, online, pictures)- has been used to decide many other famous cases. One example is New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which occurred during the Civil rights movement. The reason for the case was that The New York Times published an article about Martin Luther King Jr containing misinformation about him. L.B. Sullivan, a city commissioner in Alabama, sued Times for this misinformation under libel law.
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