How did a 1992 Supreme Court case involving a 100 ft buffer zone of political activity outside a polling place help registered sex offenders in 2017- PB/TK
Supreme Court Strikes Down State Ban On Registered Sex Offender Social Media Use – By Chris Geidner / June 19 2017
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of free speech in two cases where governments, the court held, had impermissibly limited speech in order to protect against disparagement against certain groups and reduce the risk of registered sex offenders contacting minors, respectively.
No justices dissented from either of the decisions, although there were disagreements about how the First Amendment should be applied in both cases — and how the decisions should affect future cases.
The first case involved the closely watched dispute over whether the Patent and Trademark Office can deny a trademark to an applicant because it violated the trademark law’s “disparagement clause” — which bars granting trademarks to those that would “disparage” any “persons, living or dead.”
The court ruled that, under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, it can’t.
In the case before the justices, a band — The Slants — had their trademark application denied because the federal office decided the name was disparaging to people of Asian descent — despite the fact that members of the band are Asian-Americans. Justices heard arguments in the case in January, before Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court, and he did not participate in Monday’s decision.
Continue to buzzfeed.com article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/supreme-court-strikes-down-speech-restrictions-in-two-cases?utm_term=.ic5z8633a#.mxGDzqvv6
