Beyond the Burning Cross:: The First Amendment and the Landmark R.A.V. Case

This is a worthy, instructive account of a free speech case that caused deep rifts in America's progressive firmament. On June 21, 1990, a cross was burned on the lawn of a black family, Russell and Laura Jones and their five children, who had recently moved into a mostly white working-class neighborhood in St. Paul, Minn. One suspect pleaded guilty; the other defendant, 17-year-old Robert Anthony Viktora, was not charged for his conduct under statutes prohibiting threats but under a little-used ordinance targeting motivation (prohibiting symbols aimed at provoking racial, religious and other types of animosity). Public defender Cleary, while finding his client's act abhorrent, considered that the statute had implications threatening to First Amendment rights, and appealed. Here he offers a useful minihistory of free speech doctrine and, in an account that should absorb lawyers and general readers alike, describes the path of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Included are comments of law professors and liberal groups who were critical of Cleary's position. But in June 1992, the Court invalidated the ordinance (9-0), and Cleary muses that laws criminalizing bigoted motivation are dangerous and not useful in fighting prejudice. (Sept.)