NHD

Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 1 L. Ed. 2d 412, 77 S. Ct. 524 (1957)
A man convicted of selling "a book containing obscene, immoral, lewd, lascivious language, or descriptions, tending to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth" to a police officer appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court. The Court overturned the conviction and struck down the law, holding that the state's attempt to quarantine the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women to read in order to shield juvenile innocence "is to burn the house to roast the pig." Famously, the Court ruled that the state of Michigan could not "reduce[s] the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children."

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CCQ: I completely agree with the holding, books are a choice to read and most importantly protected by free speech. The adults cannot be deprived of reading material because the state thinks it is inappropriate for children.

This relates to Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press for printing the book and what is said about or in the book in question.

Why couldn't they have realized that there are better ways to protect children from inappropriate material without taking away anyone else's Constitutional rights?

Michigan should have let the parents decide what their own children can read or not, even though it is possible for the children to see the book without the parents knowing, it is really not up to the state to take away First Amendment rights to censor this book, the Supreme Court was right.

This is similar to Juan's case about a poem in school, being censored, if they don't want the children to read the poem, they don't have to put it in the curriculum but if the children choose to read, the school can't say no. The library or teachers could have not brought the poem to school, First Amendment rights didn't have to be taken away in either case.

Summary: A man was arrested for trying to sell a book that the state of Michigan thought was inappropriate for children. The Supreme Court, however, said First Amendment rights were taken away and adults shouldn't be penalized for a book that children shouldn't necessarily read.

11-3-10 Two Sources for articles: [] http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/libraries/topic.aspx?topic=banned_books



12/17/10: 2 mores sources with evaluations. http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1965/1965_368 1) No names, not a personal page, .org 2) Has about us, truncation proves it is a Supreme Court dedicated website 3) Good links, updates 4) Good on alexa.com, sites linking in good, web traffic good. 5) Gut feeling: reliable!

http://law.jrank.org/pages/23364/Roth-v-United-States-Significance.html 1) No names, not personal page, .org 2) Truncation proves it to be a law library of free law articles. 3) Has further reading and links available. 4) Pretty good traffic, not a whole lot linking in though. 5) Gut feeling: reliable

12-20-10 2 more sources in class with evaluations. [] 1) No names, not personal page, .edu 2) Truncation shows it's Cornell University's Law School 3)Has links/about us 4) OK web traffic, good amount of sites inking in. 5) Gut feeling: Reliable!

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/youth/sia/holtcases/bethel.html 1) No names, not personal page, .org 2) Truncation shows it's the American Bar Association website 3) Has links/about us 4) Great traffic/sites linking in! 5) Gut feeling: Reliable!

Additional Resource for Homework 12-20-10 http://www.streetlaw.org/en/Page.Landmark.Tinker.decision.summary.aspx 1) No names or indications of personal page, .org 2) Truncation proves it is a site resource for teachers. 3) Has an about us. 4) Very good traffic but poor amount of sites linking in. 5) Gut feeling: Reliable!