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Constitutional Law Keyed to Maggs
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, Minn.
Citation:
505 U.S. 377 (1992)Only StudyBuddy Pro offers the complete Case Brief Anatomy*
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- Topic: Identifies the topic of law and where this case fits within your course outline.
- Parties: Identifies the cast of characters involved in the case.
- Procedural Posture & History: Shares the case history with how lower courts have ruled on the matter.
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- Brief Facts: A Synopsis of the Facts of the case.
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- Facts: What are the factual circumstances that gave rise to the civil or criminal case? What is the relationship of the Parties that are involved in the case. Review the Facts of this case here:
In June 21, 1990, petitioner and several other teenagers allegedly assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs. They then allegedly burned the cross inside the fenced yard of a black family that lived across the street from the house where petitioner was staying. Although this conduct could have been punished under any of a number of laws, one of the two provisions under which respondent city of St. Paul chose to charge petitioner was the St. Paul Bias-motivated Crime Ordinance. The ordinance prohibits anyone from placing on public or private property a symbol, object, including a burning cross, which one knows arouses anger, alarm, or resentment in others on the basis of race, color shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The petitioner argued that this ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content based and thus invalid under the First Amendment.
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