California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Cohen, 1 Cal.App.3d 94, 81 Cal.Rptr. 503 (Cal. App. 1969):
The First Amendment does not afford any protection to one who uses language which tends to incite violence or a disturbance of the peace by others. 'There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words--those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite to an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any such exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. 'Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.' Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 309, 310, 60 S.Ct. 900, 906, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 128 A.L.R. 1352.' (Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 255, 72 S.Ct. 725, 730, 96 L.Ed. 919; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571--572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031.)
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