No. 18-7286

Johnathan Masters v. Kentucky

Lower Court: Kentucky
Docketed: 2019-01-08
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
Amici (2)Response WaivedIFP
Tags: constitutional-rights criminal-prosecution criminal-statute first-amendment free-speech good-order-and-discipline school-speech vagueness void-for-vagueness
Key Terms:
FirstAmendment DueProcess
Latest Conference: 2019-02-15
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Does criminalizing the content of free speech based solely on how a person who heard the content reacted, or interpreted the content, violate this Court's established First Amendment jurisprudence?

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

Question Presented One area where free speech is under significant attack is within this country’s school system, where perhaps the most vulnerable class of individuals in this country — children — are under the threat of criminal prosecution and incarceration merely for vague speech that the Founding Fathers would have not considered problematic. Specifically; Kentucky Revised Statute 161.190 criminalizes free speech in the following way: Whenever a teacher, classified employee, or school administrator is functioning in his capacity as an employee of a board of education of a public school system, it shall be unlawful for any person to direct speech or conduct toward the teacher, classified employee, or school | administrator when such person knows or should know that the speech or conduct will disrupt or interfere with normal school activities or will nullify or undermine the good order and discipline of the school. In an era when being offended is traded as social capital, this statute leaves a speaker within a school, often children, vulnerable to criminal punishment for speech that is ordinarily protected and to conviction and punishment because of how hearers react to the speech. This means two people could say the exact same thing to a teacher, with it being permissible for one and criminal for the other, solely because of how that teacher who heard the speech reacted. This means the speaker must guess what speech will lead to their imprisonment based on the possible reaction any person at a school could theoretically have when the person hears the speech. The chilling effect of this statute poses a clear danger to speaker’s First Amendment rights and inhibits discussion of difficult topics in school for fear that the speech might cause a reaction that undermines the “good order and discipline”, and could lead to the speaker spending three hundred and sixty five days in a county jail. It inhibits students and parent’s rights to speak to what they believe for fear that the reaction to their belief might subject them to criminal conviction and imprisonment. Just about any speech could result in incarceration because it is impossible to predict in this day and age what speech might “undermine good order and discipline.” Simply, under the statute, no speech is clearly safe, thereby eviscerating the First Amendment within the school systems, which is something the Founding Fathers could not have anticipated and certainly would not have wanted to be the intended consequences of the First Amendment. Statutes like the one at issue here will continue to arise unless this Court resolves . the significant issues at hand, and the First Amendment, as it relates to schools, will be severely undermined without the Court’s intervention. i The questions presented are: 1. Does criminalizing the content of free speech based solely on how a person . who heard the content reacted, or interpreted the content, violate this , Court’s established First Amendment jurisprudence in Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 614 (1971) and Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), which hold that school students still possess free speech rights and that those rights cannot be governed by the yard stick of vague annoyance? . 2. Does it violate the First Amendment to criminalize free speech if the content of the speech causes consternation that disrupts the “good order and discipline” of a school? 3. Even if speech that disrupts “good order and discipline” could be criminalized, is a statute that criminalizes speech if the speaker knew, or should have known, the speech would “undermine the good order and discipline of the school,” unconstitutionally vague under the Court’s long: standing void for vagueness doctrine when the statute does not provide a narrowing definition of “good order and discipline”? ii . : .

Docket Entries

2019-02-19
Motion for leave to file amici brief filed by Student Press Law Center, et al. GRANTED.
2019-02-19
Petition DENIED.
2019-02-04
Motion for leave to file amici brief filed by Student Press Law Center, et al. (Distributed)
2019-01-24
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/15/2019.
2019-01-15
Waiver of right of respondent Commonwealth of Kentucky to respond filed.
2019-01-04
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due February 7, 2019)
2018-10-30
Application (18A456) granted by Justice Sotomayor extending the time to file until January 7, 2019.
2018-10-26
Application (18A456) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from November 6, 2018 to January 5, 2019, submitted to Justice Sotomayor.

Attorneys

Commonwealth of Kentucky
James HaveyOffice of the Attorney General, Respondent
James HaveyOffice of the Attorney General, Respondent
Johnathan Masters
John Gerhart LandonKentucky Department of Public Advocacy, Petitioner
John Gerhart LandonKentucky Department of Public Advocacy, Petitioner
Student Press Law Center, et al.
Clay CalvertUniversity of Florida, Amicus
Clay CalvertUniversity of Florida, Amicus