Case Study On The Watchtower Bible

The court case of New York Times vs Sullivan was a case that involved public officials and how they were libeled in the press in the year of nineteen sixty four. L.B. Sullivan was one of three elected commissioners of Alabama. The respondent was L. B. Sullivan was a public official from Alabama and brought a lawsuit against an clergymen, a negro and against a petitioner of the New York Times Company. L.B. Sullivan sued all of these people because he felt that he was libeled in a advertisement of the New York Times. The case had to deal with if the constitutional protections of speech and press limit the states power to award damages for the libel action brought by a public official against the critics of his official conduct.

In the R.A.V v. City of St. Paul case, a white teenager was arrested for burning a cross in the lawn of the only black family in the neighborhood. According to the state, this was in violation of a 1989 city ordinance making it a crime to place on public or public property a burning cross, swastika, or other symbol likely to arouse "anger, alarm, or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, and gender." In this case, a higher court decided that R.A.V’s first amendments were violated because the state was punishing expression. The ordinance didn’t simply make burning a cross illegal, but instead made the expression associated with this act illegal, which the court considered a violation of freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

A case challenging a statute as violating a person's rights under the U. S. Constitution.

Case: In the late 1950's the New York State Board of Regents wrote and adopted a prayer, which was supposed to be nondenominational. The board recommended that students in public schools say the prayer on a voluntary basis every morning. In New Hyde Park Long Island a parent sued the school claiming that the prayer violated the first amendment of the constitution. The school argued that the prayer was nondenominational and did not attempt to "establish or endorse" a religion and thus that it did not violate the establishment clause.

In Walker III v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (2015), the Supreme Court concerns itself with the constitutionality of a decision by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board (the DMV Board) to reject the specialty license plate designs submitted by SCV and its members, and the Court addresses possible violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Attorney Scott Keller appears for Walker, the petitioner, and attorney Roger George represents the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), the respondent. Four issues permeate the case: specialty license plates’ relevant form of speech; State control over the content of specialty license plates; specialty license plates as a limited public forum; and, ultimately, the potential violation of both the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “viewpoint neutrality.” In a divisive 5-4 decision, Justice Breyer delivers the Court’s opinion, while Justice Alito, joined by the Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Kennedy, dissents, concerned with the Court’s interpretation of government speech and the precedent it sets.

The issue of Tinker v. Des Moines ISD was that students were to wear black arm bands to school in protest of the Vietnam War; however the school warned that anyone wearing the armbands would be would be suspended, but the Tinker children wore their armbands to school (they were the only ones of the group to do so) and were suspended leading to Mr. and Mrs. Tinker filing a law suit claiming that the school violated the children's right to freedom of speech and expression. The court ruled against the school district saying that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates. In doing so the court protected what has come to be known as "symbolic speech." In the case of Engle v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled that prayers in schools were considered unconstitutional, leading to a ban of all prayers led by teachers in school, even if the prayer was considered voluntary, stating, in a way, that there was some sort of “separation of church and state” which is not true. Lastly, New York Times v. Sullivan focused more on the freedom of the press, ruling that “actual malice” must be proven to support a finding of libel against a public figure.

Procedural History: Appellants filed suit in U.S. District Court which ruled that the Appellants Constitutional rights were violated. Officials from both Burlington and Essex County Appealed

The Courts should strictly interpret the U.S Constitution to prevent personal judgement and opinions from changing a fair decision. In the case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the board of education of the West Virginia Legislature attempted to make the pledge of allegiance as a mandatory activities in public schools and refusal to participate will be dealt with in some way. Two Jehovah's Witnesses, who are not allowed to pledge to symbols according to their beliefs, were expelled for not saluting the flag. The decision of the Supreme Court was “constructed” based on the first amendment that states that promises no restriction on free exercise of religion and therefore the mandatory salute was banned. If the courts were

One of those was the case Benjamin Gitlow V. People of the State of New York, which happened on June 8, 1925. Benjamin Gitlow, a socialist, was a arrested for publishing and distributing copies of his article “left-wing manifesto”, which called for the establishment of socialism through strikes and the forceful overthrow of government, and was charged with criminal anarchy under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902. During his trial Gitlow argued that he was protected under the First amendment was he had the Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of the Press. On appeal the Supreme Court conveyed that the first amendment applied to New York through the Due Process Clause, ensures the rights and equality of all citizens, under the 14th amendment. Meaning New York had to follow Federal Government laws and not their own laws when dealing with Freedom Of Speech and Freedom of the Press which were ratified into the constitution in the year 1971. Although the Court decided Benjamin was still arrested because his speech was not protected under the First Amendment under the “clear and present danger test.” This case was very important because this was the year the first amendment was nationalized and showed how states had to follow federal government

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared that phrase did indeed endorse religion which was contrary to the law and the Constitution. The suit was, however, dismissed because Mr. Newdow did not have custody of his daughter and could not, by law, file a suit on her behalf.

The Plaintiff, Sullivan, was one of three Commissioners of Montgomery, Alabama who sued the Defendant, the New York Times, for printing and releasing an full page ad about the civil rights movement taking place in the south that defamed Sullivan. The ad was called "Heed Their Rising Voices" and it caused a "wave" of terror that had been directed against those who took place in the civil rights movement in the South. Some of the facts were false. The ad didn't single handily point out Sullivan, he claimed that it referred to him indirectly because he had oversight responsibility of the police. The Defendant stated that they didn't have any reason or proof to say the facts were false. No one put out the extra effort to see if the facts were false

The next case that I will examine is the case of Procunier v. Martinez. This case dealt with the right of prison officials to censor inmate mail. The prisoners filed a class-action suit against The California Department of Corrections claiming that the prison had unlawfully censored mail that unduly complained, magnified grievances or expressed racial, religious or politically inflammatory content. The inmates argued that the prison had violated their first amendment right of freedom of speech. The District Court that initially ruled in the case ruled that the prison had indeed overstepped the boundaries of the Constitution. The State then appealed the District Courts ruling on the grounds that it did not have the right to rule on the Constitutionality of said statute. The Supreme Court agreed with the District Court. It decided that the lower court did not err in ruling on the legality of the mail censorship program. It further explained that by censoring personal mail between inmates and correspondents without safeguard in place, the process

Many studies about Jehovah Witnesses state that they are the strictest religion out there. They have rules that should be followed or the person ends up condemned. They do not believe in other religions whatsoever, in any shape or form. Jehovah Witnesses God’s name to them is Jehovah. The sociological concepts discussed will be social class and norms, a function and a dysfunction of Jehovah Witness religion, a symbolic ritual, and an aspect of this religion that entails conflict.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a people known widely throughout the world. They are well-dressed people who come knocking at your door on different occasions offering religious literature for sale or trying to introduce their beliefs through carefully prepared conversation. People young, old, rich, poor, well educated and non-educated have embraced them. Their enthusiasm as proclaimers of God’s Kingdom has impressed even their harshest critics. Their love toward one another makes some non-witnesses hope and pray that more people would act in that manner. Yet, some may still wonder, who really are the Jehovah’s Witnesses? What is their history, their practices and their beliefs? Why are they the most attacked new religious

The intention of the Quakers was to rehabilitate the offender and bring him/her to repentance understanding that all answers came through God. As the laws changed abolishing the use of capital punishment for any crime other than first-degree murder, Quaker ideology recognized that the opportunity to rehabilitate individuals incarcerated or their crimes would make them better citizens and not merely institutionalized individuals when they were released. “It was believed that penitence; pastoral counseling and reasonable discipline would correct antisocial behavior” (Bartollas, 2013). The goal of the institution was solitude as this would provide the individuals time for reflection