Citizen Committees: What They Are and How They Work

The summary of the Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Both Cases 

Ideally, over the past few decades, the U.S. supreme court has expertly made decisions primarily regarding two prime cases involving cross-burning that is Virginia v. Black (2003), as well as the R.A.V. v. The city of St. Paul (1992). Besides, the culprits in both cases were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly committing a crime of cross burning. However, still, in each care, the Supreme court ultimately overturned the opinions concerning the defendants. The Minnesota trial court decision to dismiss the R.A.V. charge was based on the fact that the ordinance was considerably overbroad and impermissibly content-based. However, this was reversed by the nation's supreme court (Moore, 1992) . The court, however, rejected the overbreadth declaration mainly because the phrase that stated: “arouses anger, alarm or resentment” had effectively been interpreted in the previous cases to restrict the regulation’s accomplishment of “fighting words” in the implication of the court’s choice in Chaplinsky v (Huhn, 2009) . The court’s decision was also grounded on the concept that the ordinance was narrowly created to satisfy a convincing governmental interest in defending the citizens from bias-motivated challenges to safety . 

In the other case, the court upheld the Virginia statute primarily because unlike in R.A.V., the principal of the statue in Black made it a crime to burn a cross to intimidate an individual (Huhn, 2009) . Also, in contrast to the St. Paul regulation, the Virginia statute prohibits intimidation and requires significant mental guilt on the defendant. The Virginia supreme court held that "just like any nation would control the obscenity, in a similar way the state may decide to regulate only the intimidations rented to bodily harm (Huhn, 2009) .” The declaration, however, implied that just as prohibiting any content that explicitly displays sexual behaviors, the state might also proscribe actions, which seems to intimidate a person of any race or region. Thus, it is cross-burning referring the same to the white men; it should be held as a disciplinary or intimating act. 

Sending Obscene Material Over the Internet 

Obscenity law primarily deals with restricting and regulating obscenity. The enactment of the act intended to effectively limit interstate commerce from being used as a means of disseminating any message that, in essence, may communicate obscene or filthy ideas (Curtis, 2011) . Typically, the law holds that the internet use through interactive computer services significantly encompasses interstates commerce. For instance, transmitting photographs via the internet is substantially equivalent to moving photos across the state line, and there leads to transportation in interstate commerce (Stone, 2018) . From the article concerning the obscene material, it is apparent that the statue considerably applies to computer transmitted and created content (Curtis, 2011) . The government should also find expert witnesses who would be given the responsibility of determining whether the material is obscene. 

However, the material should be able to decide on the question concerning the law and the standards on itself. The Jury members are conscious of the community standards through their interpretation of the rules, and thus they should be permitted to decide the obscenity extent for themselves. Moreover, the defendants should be held accountable for the community standards in Memphis primarily because once the materials are sent to the receiver, their control and distribution standards change from those of the original sender. The obscenity test is substantially useful in the sense that transmission of the more obscene material is constitutionally protected. 

References 

Curtis, G. (2011).  The law of cybercrimes and their investigations . C.R.C. Press. 

Huhn, W. R. (2009). Cross Burning as Hate Speech Under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Amsterdam LF ,  2 , 19. 

Moore, T. H. (1992). R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul: A curious way to protect free speech. N.C.L., Rev. ,  71 , 1252. 

Muckala, E. (2005). Speech Prohibition: How Far is Too Far-The First Amendment Implications of Virginia v. Black.  Okla. City U.L. Rev. ,  30 , 397. 

Stone, G. R. (2018). Sex and the First Amendment: The Long and Winding History of Obscenity Law.  First Amend. L. Rev. ,  17 , 134.