Cohen v. California (1971)

This is why you can stand up to a police officer, yell at him, and then grab your crotch and hump towards him.

The controversy in this case began in April 1968, when Paul Robert Cohen wore a jacket bearing the words “Fuck the Draft” into a Los Angeles courthouse.

He was arrested and charged with violating a state breach-of-the-peace law prohibiting disturbing of the peace by “offensive conduct.”

A Los Angeles court convicted Cohen and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. A California court of appeals affirmed his conviction, finding that it was “certainly reasonably foreseeable” that his conduct in wearing his jacket could cause a violent reaction. The Supreme Court of California declined to review the case by a 4-3 vote. Cohen appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed his conviction in a 5-4 vote.

Later On

Justice Harlan reasons profanity on jacket was protected by First Amendment. DUN DUN DUN

he noted:

One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric” and “because government officials cannot make principled distinctions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.”