Law professor comments on First Amendment

James Weinstein, Amelia Lewis Professor of Constitutional Law at the College of Law, was recently quoted in an Arizona Republic article, titled “Peoria’s sergeant’s post of Obama photo leads to debate.” It reported on whether a northwest Valley police sergeant was within his First Amendment right to post a Facebook photo showing a T-shirt with President Barack Obama’s image apparently riddled with bullets.

In the Feb. 5 article, Weinstein said that the general legal test on the boundaries of free speech is if it incites someone toward imminent violent action or to break the law.

He also said that the picture could be interpreted as suggesting violence against the president. But the other argument is that the photo is a legitimate protest or commentary on social concerns.

“Generally speaking you can’t be punished for posting politically obnoxious pictures even though it may refer to the death of the president, unless it’s a true threat,” Weinstein said.

Weinstein's areas of academic interest are constitutional law, especially free speech, as well as jurisprudence and legal history. He is co-editor of Extreme Speech and Democracy (Oxford University Press 2009, paperback edition 2010); the author of Hate Speech, Pornography and the Radical Attack on Free Speech Doctrine (Westview Press 1999); and has written numerous articles in law review symposia on a variety of free speech topics, including: free speech theory, obscenity doctrine, institutional review boards, commercial speech, database protection, campaign finance reform, the relationship between free speech and constitutional rights, hate crimes, and campus speech codes.