Debate On Public Issues Should Be Uninhibited,

We Do Not Consecrate The Flag By Punishing Its Desecration, For In Doing So, We Dilute The Freedom This Cherished Emblem Represents.

Whether To The Average Person, Applying Contemporary Community Standards, The Dominant Theme Of The Material Taken As A Whole Appeals To Prurient Interest.

Death Is Not Only An Unusually Severe Punishment, Unusual In Its Pain, In Its Finality And In Its Enormity, But Is Serves No Penal Purpose More Effectively Than A Less Severe Punishment.

No Doubt, There Are Those Who Believe That Judges - And Particularly Dissenting Judges - Write To Hear Themselves Say, As It Were, 'i, I, I.' And No Doubt, There Are Also Those Who Believe That Judges Are, Like Joan Didion, Primarily Engaged In The Writing Of Fiction. I Cannot Agree With Either Of Those Propositions.

If There Is A Bedrock Principle Underlying The First Amendment, It Is That The Government May Not Prohibit The Expression Of An Idea Simply Because Society Finds The Idea Itself Offensive Or Disagreeable.