BEAUHARNAIS v. ILLINOIS

Whether protests can be held liable in court for inflicting intentional emotional distress when picketing a funeral with hyperbolic signs, some of which are directed at the deceased.

Whether a federal statute criminalizing depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment.

Whether an injunction, stemming from a defamation and privacy judgment, that ordered the petitioner never again to display a sign or speak about respondent Johnnie Cochran (favorably or otherwise) in a public place violates the petitioners First Amendment rights.

Whether the state attorney generals complaint operates to limit defendants ability to engage in solicitation-an activity protected by the first amendment. General issue: how much First Amendment protection should be given to the business of charitable solicitation, including telemarketers?

Whether a statute banning cross-burning with the intent to intimidate violates the First Amendment.

Whether an ordinance punishing such action that “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender” violates the First Amendment.

Whether, consistent with the First Amendment, a public figure can recover libel damages from the publisher of an article that attributes altered quotations to the public figure.

Whether the First Amendment requires a separate "opinion" privilege that restricts the application of state libel laws.

Can a public figure recover damages for emotional distress because of an offensive parody?

Can a court, in the context of a summary judgment request, award summary judgment in a libel action if the moving party had no evidence that a reasonable jury might disbelieve its opponent's claim?

Was Consumer Union's article written with "actual malice," thereby placing it outside the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections?

Whether a New York criminal statute that prohibits persons from knowingly promoting sexual performances by children under the age of 16 by distributing material which depicts such performances violates the First Amendment.

Under the First Amendment as applied to the states, can a licensed pharmacist be disciplined for unprofessional conduct if he "publishes, advertises or promotes, directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever, any amount, price, fee, premium, discount, rebate or credit terms . . . for any drugs which may be dispensed only by prescription"?

To what extent does a publisher (monthly newsletter) have a constitutional privilege against liability for defamation of a private citizen?

Whether a Florida statute that afforded a right to reply to personal attacks on political candidates by newspapers violated the First Amendment.

Whether an Ohio law prohibiting speech that advocates for illegal activities violated Brandenburg's First Amendment rights.

Whether a 10-day restraining order issued against the "white supremacist" National States Rights Party must be set aside as violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Whether a teacher's dismissal by the Board of Education for publishing a letter in a newspaper critical of the Board's allocation of funds violated his freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

Are public figures subject to the actual malice standard for libel as articulated in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)?

Whether a newspaper column asking a series of questions that could be read as defamatory is protected by the First Amendment, as articulated by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964).

Whether the freedom of speech provisions of the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect a criminal suspect who makes a false statement about a police officer without "actual malice."

To what extent does the First Amendment protections for speech and press limit a state's power to award damages in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct?

"The dispositive question is whether obscenity is utterance within the area of protected speech and press."

Does the First Amendment protect people’s right to say things that make other people so angry that it may lead them to cause unrest?

"This case . . . raises questions concerning the constitutional power of a state to apply its antitrade restraint law to labor union activities, and to enjoin union members from peaceful picketing carried on as an essential and inseparable part of a course of conduct which is in violation of the state law. The picketing occurred in Kansas City, Missouri. The injunction was issued by a Missouri state court."

Does the New Hampshire statute violate Chaplinsky's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights?

Whether a Minnesota statute that allowed "abatement"—an injunction against future publication—of printed material deemed to be a public nuisance constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.