Police Sent to California Home of "Innocence of Muslims" Producer (for protection)

[frylock]

129. let me introduce you to Walter Chaplinsky..

In late November 1941, Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, was using the public sidewalk as a pulpit in downtown Rochester, passing out pamphlets and calling organized religion a "racket." After a large crowd had begun blocking the roads and generally causing a scene, a police officer removed Chaplinsky to take him to police headquarters. Along the way, he met the town marshal, who had earlier warned Chaplinsky to keep it down and avoid causing a commotion. Upon meeting the marshal for the second time, Chaplinsky attacked him verbally. He was arrested. The complaint against Chaplinsky charged that he had shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist". Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity.

For this, he was charged and convicted under a New Hampshire statute preventing intentionally offensive speech being directed at others in a public place. Under New Hampshire's Offensive Conduct law (chap. 378, para. 2 of the NH. Public Laws) it is illegal for anyone to address "any offensive, derisive or annoying word to anyone who is lawfully in any street or public place ... or to call him by an offensive or derisive name."

Chaplinsky was fined, but he appealed, claiming the law was "vague" and infringed upon his First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free speech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplinsky_v._New_Hampshire