Business Law Today, Comprehensive 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

Exercise 3

Freedom of Speech. Mark Wooden sent e-mail to an alderwoman for the city of St. Louis. Attached was a nineteen-minute audio that compared her to the biblical character, Jezebel-she was a "bitch in the Sixth Ward," spending too much time with the rich and powerful and too little time with the poor. In a menacing, maniacal tone, Wooden said that he was "dusting off a sawed-off shotgun," called himself a "domestic terrorist," and referred to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the murder of a federal judge, and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Feeling threatened, the alderwoman called the police. Wooden was convicted of harassment under a state criminal statute. Was this conviction unconstitutional under the First Amendment Discuss.