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My debut feature Sator (out now on digital) has been the defining project of my life and took me seven years to complete, not least because I made this ever-changing, ever-evolving demonic thriller almost entirely by myself. What started as a simple run-of-the-mill film quickly morphed into something deeply personal, and led me to uncover my familys dark history.

Back in 2013, after Id been struggling for some time to raise funds for the film, a friend one day told me out of the blue that he would loan me half my budget in exchange for a percentage. I couldnt believe it and was almost in tears, knowing I could finally move forward now. So I took the offer, collected my personal savings from wedding videography, and began ordering all the gear I would need to get started.

I shot Sator over 120 days, most days of which consisted of just myself with one or two of the actors. There were about 10 days when I had someone assist me with basic tasks like holding an umbrella when it rained. There was only one day when I had three extra people help me for a couple hours, due to a stunt with fire that would have been too dangerous to do on my own. Out of all of these days, it was Day 10 that changed my world.

When I decided to use my grandmothers house as a location, I thought it would be pretty neat for her to have a quick one-scene cameo with one my childhood friends, actor Michael Daniel. When we arrived at her house, I set up lights while Michael hid out in the back room. My grandmother was so confused by the lights. Now what the hell is that contraption? she would say, and then just laugh. I said she was going to help me with something, but she didnt care she just loved the attention. I found Michael in the back room and told him to pretend to be her grandson, and since shes a very spiritual person, to maybe bring up spirits as well.

Action! Michael comes out and meets her for the first time. Hi, Nani! My grandmother is utterly confused, but Michael plays the role of grandson wonderfully. He eventually brings up the spirits, like I asked, then out of nowhere, my grandmother decides to share the voices that used to talk to her through something she called automatic writing. What is that? She has never talked to me about that before. Why hasnt anyone in my family mentioned this before?

After that day, I began doing a little research into my grandmothers supernatural past. Family members told me vague stories about Ouija boards and seances, but they were all too young at the time to remember all the details. I asked if Nani kept her automatic writings anywhere, and was disappointed to hear shed burned them all years ago. I knew I had something unique and personal here, though, so I aimed to incorporate as much of it as I could into the story I already had.

I spent a week rewriting the script and editing the footage to make Nanis scene work. Luckily, there was no schedule on this project, so I had all the time in the world to figure this out. Once the story was solid, I went back to my grandmother and did another improvisational scene. Now, you cant tell Nani what to say. I tried once: Hey, Nani. I need you to say, Does Sator love you? To which she replied, Yes, Sator loves me. You also can never predict anything she says either, so after every day of shooting with her, I would need to take a week-long break to figure out how to make the new footage work for the story. It was a draining process, but that wasnt even the worst of it.

There are so many stories of the struggle shooting this film, like almost burning down the cabin I built singlehanded for the movie, getting nearly trapped in a snowstorm, the dangers of lighting shit on fire. Or spending thousands of hours (and losing 20 pounds) working on postproduction for the film in my room. For seven years, this one project consumed my life, with little to no change. I cut myself off from everyone and started to wonder if I had just wasted years of my life. But as I love this artform so damn much, it was worth it.

Sometime while I was working on the films sound design, Nanis dementia had made it too dangerous for her to be in her house alone. After she moved into a care home, I helped my family clean out her house. I was going through the closet in the back room when I found two boxes. I opened one box, and there were her automatic writings! Not just a few, but hundreds and hundreds of the ones my family thought she had burned. Looking through them, I was seeing Sator this and Sator that. Before this point, I only knew that Sator was some sort of guardian to my grandmother, nothing more. But then I opened the next box, and inside was a thousand-page journal documenting Nanis entire journey with Sator and the massive impact he had on her life. Jackpot.

Reading through this journal, I came to learn all about my familys history with hearing voices. My great-great-grandmother had ended up in a psychiatric hospital because of it. When Nani was just four years old, her mother took her for a drive one stormy night along the coast and aimed the car towards the cliffs edge, ready to end her suffering. Just as she was about to drive off, she saw her daughter crying in the seat next to her and decided to not kill them both that night. If that had happened, I wouldnt be writing this. A few months later though, the voices became unbearable for my great-grandmother, and she put a shotgun in her mouth.

In 1968, Nani was in her 40s when she came in possession of a Ouija board and summoned up many beings that only went by initials like FOJ, GEK. AIK, ANN, QXS. QXI was the evil one, the one that would just stand outside your bedroom door at night, watching as you slept. But the leader of them all, and the only one with a real name, was Sator. Nani fell in love with Sator. I literally mean in love, to where she did something called spiritual lovemaking with him. I will let your mind wander with that one. Sator also taught her how to move away from the Ouija board and communicate through automatic writing. When all her children went to bed, she would sit in an armchair with a glass of gin, look forward into the void, and let Sator speak through her. Everything he said, she would scribble down. But he wasnt the only one; the other voices would write through her as well. What gives me goosebumps is that Nanis handwriting would change with each person, as if that being itself was the one doing the writing. If there was a left-handed spirit, she would write left-handed, and sometimes she would even write backwards. My uncle told me that after he went to bed as a kid, Nani would sit there all night writing and would still be there in the morning when he got ready for school.

The voices in her head eventually got her into trouble, though. She would drive around, having them tell her where to go, but the voices would all argue with each other, causing Nani to get lost. Sator also eventually convinced her that she was the biblical Eve, and after three months of getting into shenanigans with him, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital herself.

Discovering this journal and Nanis automatic writings was like finding a goldmine. I featured her writings in the opening of the film, where they are spread out for all to see, all things she wrote back in 1968. One day I would love to adapt her full story into a separate film, but at the time of finding these, I was already well into post-production and now desperately trying to find a way to incorporate Sator into the film. It became a race against time to capture Nani speaking about Sator before her dementia completely took over. The first day she talked all about him, but the last day it took 40 minutes of footage to get her to say just three sentences, because he was pretty much wiped from her mind at that point.

This project had so much to do with perfect timing. If I had waited any longer to make it, I wouldnt have been able to capture what I did with my grandmother. Also, the time I spent getting to know her and being able to immortalize her in this film was invaluable to me. She and I really bonded over this whole experience. Shed call me every day saying, Hey, when are you going to come over and spend some time with me? Unfortunately, she passed before I finished the film, but she did see one clip of herself. Her only comment was, Whos that old goat?

But I did finally finish the film! I didnt have any doubt about that, actually; I just wasnt expecting it to take so long. Sator got accepted into Fantasia International Film Festival and a handful of other festivals, and what a rollercoaster of emotions that has been! Being isolated for so long and then being thrown into crowds of people was not an easy transition for me, but it was really worth it in the end. It was an amazing experience to travel the world and talk to so many fascinating people whom the film resonated with. To everyone who has approached me, I really do appreciate the conversations we have had.

Looking back, I wouldnt recommend making a feature film by yourself, and will never do that again. But I value what the experience has taught me and have grown a lot as a filmmaker. Hopefully, I have done enough to prove my worth with Sator and will inspire some people out there to want to work with me on future projects. Or at least help me set up the tripod.

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How I Spent Seven Years Single-handedly Making a Demonic Thriller and Accidentally Uncovered My Family's Dark History - Talkhouse

The Long Island Nets will be back in action Wednesday, one of 18 teams participating in the G League bubble (gubble?) down at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, the same venue the NBA took over last summer.

The regular season is down-sized from 28 teams and 50 games to a highly compact schedule. Long Island is set to play 15 games in 25 days beginning Wednesday night against the Iowa Wolves, Minnesotas affiliate, followed by an eight-team, single-elimination playoff tournament in early March. Typically, the regular season would consist of five-month schedule plus a more robust playoffs.

With the abbreviated schedule, development - always the top priority - will be tested. Bret Brielmaier, who will be in his first season serving in the head chair for LIN, says that the dense schedule will be big for him and his team of 13 players.

The biggest probable challenge for the season is just the density of games. We are going to play 15 games in 25 days. Thats a lot of playing and we dont have a very deep roster. We have 10 guys so how we manage the attacks on these guys bodies will be important but the G League has done an incredible job of giving our guys the resources to help these guys as recovered, well-fed, hydrated, and ready to play as possible.

Matt Riccardi, the Long Island Nets General Manager and the Nets Director of Scouting, called the decision to opt into the bubble as an easy one but as an opportunity to work with players that are fresh into their system.

We definitely looked at this G League bubble as an opportunity to take a look at some guys that we have not had in our system before, Riccardi said. We have an incredible coaching staff and we obviously wanted to make sure that we had players that had a chance to develop, look at as call-up targets for the NBA, and that can put our program as competitive as possible. You will see the makeup of that. I think our oldest player is 28 but we do have a younger group but some veterans mixed in there with some G League experience and NBA experience as well.

Brielmaier is excited about the roster makeup of his team. The Nets G League affiliate has five tiers of players: NBA experienced players, two-way players, some standouts acquired in the off-season, returning players, and the rookies. Add all those up and the Nets think its balanced.

Matt Riccardi has done an incredible job of putting this together, Breilmaier said during a Zoom call from Disney World. It is very balanced in my opinion. We have some veteran leadership that has a good deal of NBA experience.

The format of the regular season does have a hidden benefit. The Net G League affiliate will likely not see much player movement due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Chemistry will benefit.

Beyond their initial 10-man roster, the Nets added three two-ways in the last week.

Reggie Perry, the Nets two-way rookie, was assigned to Long Island last week, following a lengthy history of past Nets rookies who put on the blue, white, and red in recent years. Perry, who has 14 NBA games under his belt, will be joined by two other two-way players from the Dallas Mavericks: Nate Hinton, a 66 shooting guard out of Houston, and Tyler Bey, a 67 small forward out of Colorado. The Mavs opted out of the bubble but under league rules can send to players to the bubble while retaining the players NBA rights.

Perry is, for fans and Nets executives alike, is the player whose progress will be most monitored ... starting with where Brielmaier will play him, at the 4, at the 5? Perry showed flashes for Brooklyn and in his next-to-last game pulled off a double-double against OKC.

Aside from the two-ways, here are some players to keep an eye on

Elie Okobo leads the Nets G League affiliate when it comes to NBA experience. The French point guard, whos only 23, has played in 108 NBA games with the Suns over the course of the last two seasons and is the highest draft pick selection (31st) on Long Island.

Riccardi called him amazing and is really excited to work with him, noting that the Nets liked him prior to the 2018 NBA Draft.

Elie is an amazing player, Riccardi said of the 63 French point guard. Weve seen him from his draft time to being on the Phoenix Suns to playing for the Northern Arizona Suns. Similar to B.J. [Johnson] and the other guys on our roster, we are really excited to get a chance to work with Elie. Someone we have seen from afar. We liked all of his intangibles, skills, NBA size, and just looking forward to seeing how he mixes with our group, our coaching staff, and vice versa.

It is worth noting that Sean Marks personally scouted Okobo in France prior to the 2018 Draft.

B.J. Johnson, who was a G League standout last season as a two-way for the Magics G League affiliate, the Lakeland Magic. A 67 small forward packed with athleticism, he too was on the Nets radar for a while as he put up big numbers playing against Long Island. In addition to his familiarity with Long Island, Johnson has appeared in 17 NBA games with the Hawks and the Magic.

We have seen BJ play a ton in the past, Riccardi said. We played against him in the playoffs two years ago when he was playing with Lakeland. We have seen him in the NBA. We think he is a really good player and a high-quality player that has a chance to continue to develop. Not just him but a lot of our guys, we feel the same way about it. They would not be here if we did not think highly of them and we didnt think they can contribute to this group and make it as competitive as possible for us.

To Brielmaier, both Okobo and Johnson are the high-level experienced guys in their unit. The 35-year-old head coach called them impressive and is fortunate to coach the two.

Both B.J. and Elie, you can tell they have had high-level experience through their careers so far, Brielmaier said. They have a way about them. They understand the game and their ability to help the younger guys, the less seasoned guys, has been really impressive. In both of them, you see great bodies, understand angles, great anticipation, and we are very fortunate to have those guys.

Paul Eboua may be Long Islands most intriguing player. Eboua, who is only 20 years old, is 68, built like a wall and has a 73 wingspan to go with it all.

The 20-year-old, who was claimed by Brooklyn after being waived by the Heat in December, (the first waiver claim in Sean Marks five-year tenure). He is viewed as raw and undeveloped by many pro scouts but Riccardi credits his international scouts for finding him. Long Island is thrilled to have him, he said.

Incredible young prospect that our international scouts Simone Casali, Jeff Peterson, B.J. Johnson (the Nets player development coordinator, not the player), who have done an incredible job of identifying in the past, Riccardi said. Someone we have followed closely and someone our coaching staff targeted as someone being really excited to work with.

Prior to the 2020 NBA Draft, multiple mock drafts linked Eboua falling to the Nets in the second round but the Cameroonian-Italian player went undrafted.

Some other players to keep an eye on:

Shannon Scott, who at 28 years old, is the oldest player on the roster, returns to LI. He was a member of the 2019 NBA G League Finals team. Scott is ready to apply his veteran experience to his new cast of teammates.

Just being able to talk about the foundation being built from previous years, Scott said on veteran leadership. A lot of similar schemes that we are going through to kind of help the younger guys out to let them know how things were in the past, how we were successful, and the things that didnt work out for us.

Nate Sestina, was four-year star at Bucknell, then filled a journeymans role as a grad transfer at Kentucky, is likely to serve as a stretch-5 for the Nets G League affiliate in the bubble. Sestina already provided a preview that he will be shooting from deep - a part of his game Brielmaier wants him to consistently bring to each game.

Coach Bret has messaged me and sent me clips. We have talked about it a lot, Sestina said. He said you got a flamethrower. You got to let that thing go. If you leave the game with a full clip, that is on you so they are very confident in me, and having a front office and coaching staff that is confident in you should give you the ultimate confidence to go out and play as well as knowing your teammates are confident in you as well and your ability to do something.

C.J. Massinburg, who is one of two returning Net from last seasons G League roster, is excited to be back. Massinburg missed several games last season due to injury.

Im excited to be back again, the 65 shooting guard said. When you come back the second time, you have more experience under your belt, you know how the pace of the game is, and you basically know what to expect. Im excited to be back again.

Massinburg is coming into the bubble confident with a year of experience under his belt. In addition, Massinburg is very familiar with Brielmaier from past summer workouts and Nets training camp.

Even though when Bret was with Brooklyn, I had some summer workouts with Brooklyn and I was in training camp with Brooklyn so I was pretty familiar with Bret, Massinburg said. Built a relationship with him there so now that he has the head job, everything is just comfortable and nothing is really foreign. The sets that we run, concepts, and so it is just good to be back another year and I am able to pass down that knowledge to the younger guys and guys who arent so familiar.

Jeremiah Martin, who is no longer on a two-way with Brooklyn, is a player the Nets organization still likes a lot. Martin, who has played in nine NBA games with Brooklyn, is a top-quality defender and is known for his quickness.

The Nets also signed Jordan Bowden back in November, believing he has potential as a 3-and-D possibilities. A four-year player at Tennessee, Bowden is 65 with a reputation for toughness. He played with several NBA players in Knoxville, including Grant Williams, Jordan Bone, Admiral Schofield and Kyle Alexander.

Riccardi is banking on the trio of Scott, Massinburg, and Martin to help navigate the ship as the veteran leaders through the unique bubble experience.

We have been leaning on both coach and our players a ton, especially the guys that have been in the bubble before and giving us some examples of what to expect and pointers on how we can navigate this thing to the best of our ability, Riccardi said, referring in particular to Martin who averaged 10 points in the NBA bubble. We are thankful we have such guidance in this group of people to lean on and have been there before.

The Nets traded for two other prospects in the off-season: Tariq Owens, a shot-blocking 610 center who played for St. Johns and Texas Tech in college and Northern Arizona in the G League last season. He impressed enough to be chosen for the G League team that took part in scrimmages last month with Team Ignite, the select group of high school stars the NBA recruited to play in the G League.

Kaiser Gates, a 67 wing the Celtics had on their Red Claws roster last season. A 3-point specialist, Gates is likely to see action off the bench.

No doubt development will be tested throughout the bubble experience but the duo of Brielmaier and Riccardi has a track record of finding solid players. The two 35-year-olds have already found two diamonds-in-the rough.

The head coach pushed the Nets to sign Joe Harris, a castoff struggling to find a landing spot after he joined Brooklyn. Brielmaier had served as an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Harris last stop before Brooklyn.

Riccardi pushed hard for the front office to take a strong look at Spencer Dinwiddie a few months later. Dinwiddie, then with the Windy City Bulls, had already been cut by two NBA teams.

Wednesdays 7 p.m. game vs. Iowa and all their games will be streamed on ESPN+. The game against Team Ignite will be featured on ESPNU February 22.

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Long Island Nets Season Preview: Development will be tested in the bubble. - NetsDaily

The First Amendment is the first amendment to the Bill of Rights, which includes the original 10 amendments drafted immediately after the Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1788. Here, amendments are changes or additions to the Constitution that arent part of the original document.

In 1787, members of the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to revise the founding document of the country, the Articles of Confederation. They decided to create a new one instead, and by September, theyd drafted the Constitution. Getting the new document approved, however, was another story. Many opposed this new Constitution because it didnt specify the rights of the people. The Constitution was only passed after Congress promised to add a list of rights afterwards.

Its this proposed list of rightsthe Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791that yielded the First Amendment. Compared to some other amendments, its quite short. The full text reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The freedoms this amendment protectsreligion, speech and the press, assembly, and petitionare called the First Amendment freedoms or rights, both officially and colloquially invoked in the US.

The First Amendments provisionsprovisions in legal documents like the Constitution are called clausesregarding religion have specific names. The prohibition against establishing a religion is known as the Establishment Clause, and forbidding laws that prevent people from freely holding and practicing religious beliefs is known as the Free Exercise Clause.

Due to its brevity and ambiguity, issues regarding the interpretation of the First Amendment have been perennial points of debate throughout American history. The specific application of these rights, like other rights, has been a matter often judged by the Supreme Court. For instance, cases have determined that the First Amendments free speech clause doesnt protect fighting words, which is defined as speech intended to cause injury or breach of the peace, and that school libraries cant remove books because school officials disagree with their content.

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First amendment | Definition of First amendment at ...

Record shop owner Charles Freeman stands in handcuffs as a Broward detective searches him following his arrest in his store in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., June 9, 1990. Freeman was arrested for selling an undercover detective a cope of 2 Live Crew's album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be." A federal judge ruled the album obscene, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. (AP Photo/Doug Jennings, used with permission from the Associated Press)

Once dismissed as a fad, rap music has become a cultural mainstay and a billion dollar industry. The musical genre, a segment of which often features a hard-core assessment of societal woes in the inner cities, has come under threats of censorship through the years in a variety of contexts. Some government officials and others charged that certain rap lyrics were incendiary and contributed to violence. Case in point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent letters in 1989 to Priority Records about the rap group N.W.A.s hit song Fuck Tha Police.

Many other rappers have been threatened through the years with either obscenity charges or censorship efforts, including such rap pioneers as Ice-T and Too Short. Rap lyrics became the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case, Elonis v. United States (2015), when the Court evaluated whether a man committed a true threat when he posted rap lyrics that allegedly threatened his ex-wife and others. However, the Court did not directly address the artistic merits, or lack thereof, of Elonis lyrics in issuing its decision.

In a high profile case, Broward County, Florida sheriff Nick Navarro prosecuted record store owners who sold the rap group 2 Live Crews album As Nasty As They Wanna Be, which contained many tracks filled with profanity and sexually laced language. Navarro believed that the album constituted obscenity.

Skyywalker Records, the record company of 2 Live Crews lead performer Luther Campbell, and the four members of the group filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking a judicial declaration that their album was not obscene and that the actions of Navarro imposed an unconstitutional prior restraint on expression.

A federal district court judge declared the record obscene in Skyywalker Records v. Navarro (1990), applying the Miller Test from the U.S. Supreme Courts decision Miller v. California (1973). However, the plaintiffs appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed in Luke Records v. Navarro (1992). The appeals court explained that the plaintiffs had submitted expert testimony that the album contained serious artistic value a contention not refuted by the sheriff by any expert testimony or other evidence other than a tape recording of the album.

A work cannot be held obscene unless each element of the Miller test has been met, the appeals court wrote. We reject the argument that simply by listening to this musical work, the judge could determine that it had no serious artistic value.

Another criticism of rap music, particularly the so-called gangsta rap genre, is that it can incite imminent lawless action. That was the essence of the argument filed by the attorneys for three family members of a slain Texas state trooper in Davidson v. Time Warner (1997). The state trooper was killed by Ronald Howard, who was listening to the rap album by Tupac Shakur entitled 2Pacalypse Now.

The plaintiffs contended that Time Warner, the producer of the album, was legally responsible for the death of Trooper Davidson, because the anti-police lyrics in 2Pacalypse Now caused Howard to kill the trooper. The plaintiffs argued that the music constituted incitement to imminent lawless action under Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). They cited Tupac Shakurs claim that his music was revolutionary. Time Warner contended that the music was a form of protected expression under the First Amendment.

A federal district court in Texas sided with Time Warner and ruled that the album was protected by the First Amendment. Regarding the incitement allegation, the court explained: Calling ones music revolutionary does not, by itself, mean that Shakur intended his music to produce imminent lawless conduct. At worst, Shakur's intent was to cause violence some time after the listener considered Shakur's message. The First Amendment protects such advocacy.

There is a growing number of criminal cases involving the prosecutorial use of rap music as evidence in trials. Legal commentators Donald F. Tibbs and Shelly Chauncy write: There is a new form of policing and prosecutorial decisionmaking that is as dangerous as it is unconstitutional. It involves prosecutors using amateur rap music videos sometimes with scant additional evidence to prosecute and convict Black men. (35).

Prosecutors often seek to introduce the rap videos into evidence because they show the existence of a criminal enterprise, association with other members, familiarity with firearms, and a motive to commit certain crimes. Defendants often counter that the rap music videos are speech on matters of public concern, namely commentaries on urban life, the war on drugs, and the lack of hope in the inner city. However, courts often quote the hate crime case Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) for the proposition that the First Amendment does not prohibit the evidentiary use of speech to establish the elements of a crime or to prove motive or intent.

For example, in U.S. v. Herron (2014), a federal district court in New York rejected the First Amendment arguments of Ronald Herron, a.k.a Ra Diggs, who sought to prohibit prosecutors from introducing rap music and rap-related videos. The court reasoned that the videos have bearing on issues in this case, i.e., charges of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, murder in-aid-of racketeering, firearms offenses, etc.

Contrast that reasoning with the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Skinner (2014). The state high court ruled that the introduction of graphic rap lyrics into a murder trial was unduly prejudicial evidence that outweighed any potential relevancy of the material. While the court decided the case on evidence grounds, as opposed to the First Amendment, the state high court wrote: Fictional forms of inflammatory self-expression, such as poems, musical compositions, and other like writings about bad acts, wrongful acts, or crimes, are not properly evidential unless the writing reveals a strong nexus between the specific details of the artistic composition and the circumstances of the underlying offense for which a person is charged, and the probative value of that evidence outweighs its apparent prejudicial impact.

Rap videos and lyrics have been the subject of many free-speech disputes involving public school students and discipline by school officials. In Bell v. Itawamba County Sch. Bd. (2015), the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that public school officials could discipline student Taylor Bell, whose rap persona was T-Bizzle, for his rap music video that he made off-campus after learning that two white teachers allegedly had sexually harassed several African-American students.

Bell contended that his off-campus artistic expression was protected speech under the First Amendment. However, school officials contended that the video was a form of an unprotected true threat and substantially disrupted school activities under the seminal standard from Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). The Fifth Circuit majority reasoned that Bells recording was substantially disruptive, writing that threatening, harassing, and intimidating a teacher impedes, if not destroys, the ability to teach.

In Jones v. State (2002), the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the delinquency adjudication of a student who was charged with making a terroristic threat towards a female student through rap lyrics. The student wrote the rap lyrics and handed it to the girl. The female student went to the school principal, who called the police.

After losing in the juvenile court, Jones appealed to the state high court. The state high court upheld his delinquency finding, reasoning that his lyrics were not protected by the First Amendment because they constituted a true threat.

David L. Hudson, Jr. is a law professor at Belmont who publishes widely on First Amendment topics. He is the author of a 12-lecture audio course on the First Amendment entitled Freedom of Speech: Understanding the First Amendment (Now You Know Media, 2018). He also is the author of many First Amendment books, including The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech (Thomson Reuters, 2012) and Freedom of Speech: Documents Decoded (ABC-CLIO, 2017). This article was originally published in 2009.

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Rap Music and the First Amendment | The First Amendment ...

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have filed a 78-page brief arguing that he should not be convicted by the Senate in an impeachment trial that begins Tuesday. Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection through various statements that allegedly encouraged the January 6 putsch targeting the US Capitol.

The briefs primary arguments are constitutional. It claims that the Constitution does not permit an impeachment proceeding against a former official. And the brief also argues that Trump is immune from impeachment because the actions which led to that impeachment are protected by the First Amendment.

The first argument is, at least, not entirely ridiculous. While the majority view among scholars is that a former official may be impeached and convicted by the Senate, there are non-frivolous arguments that a former president is beyond the impeachment power.

But the claim that impeaching Trump violates the First Amendment is risible. There are at least three separate reasons why the First Amendment does not protect Trump.

The first is that impeachment is, essentially, a human resources matter. The Constitution provides that Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office. So, with Trump out of office, the only question in his second impeachment trial is whether he should be permanently disqualified from certain federal jobs.

As the Supreme Court explained in Connick v. Myers (1983), the States interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general. Though the governments power to discipline employees (or former employees) for aberrant speech is not absolute, it is broad enough to allow Trump to be disqualified from office.

The second reason Trump cannot invoke the First Amendment is that many of the statements he made, which allegedly incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol, are lies. Trump accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, and he falsely claimed that he overwhelmingly won an election that he lost by over 7 million votes.

As the Supreme Court held in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the First Amendment does not protect individuals from defamation suits if they make a false claim with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. For the reasons explained below, a similar rule should apply to Trump.

Finally, some of Trumps statements such as a January 6 speech where he told his supporters to fight like hell and that youll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong may constitute incitement to imminent illegal action, which is not protected by the Constitution.

Although the First Amendment provides some protection to government employees, those protections are much weaker than those afforded to private citizens, at least when the government seeks to fire or otherwise take a job action against an employee.

Imagine, for example, that a public school hires someone to teach algebra, but this teacher refuses to follow the curriculum and instead spends their class time lecturing their students about 16th-century Japanese art. The First Amendment protects a private citizens right to speak about Japanese art, but the school district could discipline or even fire this teacher for failing to do their job properly even though their only offense was to engage in speech that is normally protected by the Constitution.

Moreover, while the First Amendment provides a relatively robust shield against workplace discipline to rank-and-file government employees, the Constitution offers very little protection to senior officials in political jobs. As a private citizen, for example, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is allowed to criticize President Joe Bidens foreign policy. But as one of Bidens top lieutenants, Blinken may be fired immediately if he makes a disparaging remark about Bidens policies.

As the Supreme Court explained in Branti v. Finkel (1980), if an employees private political beliefs would interfere with the discharge of his public duties, his First Amendment rights may be required to yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Thus, Trumps private political belief that he, and not the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election, should be president must yield to the States vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency.

Trumps lawyers, for what its worth, primarily rely on the Supreme Courts decision in Bond v. Floyd (1966), which held that the Georgia House of Representatives violated the First Amendment when it prevented state Representative-elect Julian Bond from taking his seat ostensibly because of statements Bond made criticizing the Vietnam War. (Bond, an important civil rights leader, was one of the first Black representatives elected in Georgia after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; its fairly likely that the real reason he was excluded had less to do with his opinion of the war than the color of his skin.)

The Bond decision is more than a half-century old, and since then weve seen a whole line of cases involving First Amendment protections for government employees, including the Branti case. So its not entirely clear that Bond remains good law. To the extent that Bond is still valid, however, Trumps lawyers argue that cases like Branti only apply to appointed political officials and that Bond provides much more robust protections to elected officials.

Yet even if we accept that elected officials enjoy greater First Amendment protections than political appointees, the Bond case does not help Trump escape impeachment.

In 1960, civil rights activists ran an advertisement in the New York Times alleging that Alabama police used brutal tactics to suppress protests. In response to this ad, an Alabama police official filed a defamation suit against the Times, pointing to minor factual errors in the advertisements text. An Alabama jury handed down a $500,000 verdict against the Times.

But the Supreme Court tossed out that verdict in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), a seminal decision holding that the First Amendment provides strong protections against defamation lawsuits that threaten free speech. Yet, while these protections are quite robust, especially when a defamation suit involves statements about a public figure that regard a matter of public concern, they are not unlimited.

At the very least, someone can still successfully be sued for defamation if they make a false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, according to New York Times.

Although New York Times was a case about defamation and not about the First Amendment rights of elected officials, the Court relied heavily on New York Times when it decided Bond. In explaining why Rep. Bonds rights were violated, the Court said that the central commitment of the First Amendment, as summarized in the opinion of the Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.

Under Bond, the New York Times principle was extended to statements by a legislator.

Two years after Bond, the Court handed down its decision in Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District (1968), which established the modern framework governing First Amendment suits by government employees. Pickering involved a public school teacher, not an elected official, but it provides additional support for the view that government employees do not have a First Amendment right to lie.

In Pickering, the Court held that absent proof of false statements knowingly or recklessly made by him, a teachers exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.

New York Times, Bond, and Pickering, in other words, all suggest that a government employees First Amendment rights regardless of whether that employee is elected do not include a right to knowingly make false statements, or to make statements with reckless disregard as to whether they are true or not.

So when Trump riled up his supporters by falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he was not protected by the First Amendment.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court held that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

Thus, while speakers, including Trump, are protected even if they advocate illegal actions, this protection has limits. If such advocacy is made with the intent to incite imminent lawless action, and if such action is likely to result from a persons speech, then that speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Brandenburg sets a high bar for incitement prosecutions. But Trumps statements immediately before the January 6 putsch were so egregious that they may overcome this high bar. In a speech that he gave right before his supporters attacked the Capitol, Trump told them that if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore, that they need to take back our country, and that they cant show weakness and have to be strong.

Writing in the Washington Post, Harvard law professor Einer Elhauge argues that these statements constitute constitutionally unprotected incitement, even under Brandenburg:

Although Trump tried to protect himself by stating that he was sure that the crowd would peacefully march to the Capitol, that does not alter the fact that he was inciting the crowd to forcibly stop Congress from counting the certified electoral votes once they got there.

Trump thus clearly incited lawless action (obstructing the operations of Congress is a crime) that was imminent (right after the speech, a short walk away). That he wanted to incite such lawless action is confirmed by reporting that for hours he watched the Capitol attack with pleasure and did not take any steps to stop it by calling out the National Guard or by urging his supporters to stand down.

Again, its far from clear that Trump could be prosecuted in a criminal court for his statements Brandenburg makes it extraordinarily difficult for prosecutors to win such cases. But thats not the issue in Trumps impeachment trial.

The issue in Trumps impeachment trial is whether, given the fact that the government has broad authority to make human resources decisions under the First Amendment, Congress may conclude that Trumps statements were so beyond the pale that he should be disqualified from holding high federal office in the future.

Setting aside these legal flaws in Trumps First Amendment argument, theres also a profound practical reason public officials should be subject to impeachment, even if theyve done nothing more than give an illiberal or anti-democratic speech.

Imagine that someday in the future, a new president is elected after campaigning on a fairly mainstream platform. Then, in the presidents inaugural address, they reveal that the entire campaign was a charade: I am a great admirer of Nazi Germany, the new president declares in their inaugural address, and I plan to use my presidency to build a Fourth Reich.

Should Congress really have to wait until this Nazi president takes some affirmative step to implement this agenda before they can be impeached and removed from office?

As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin writes, the implication of Trumps argument that he cannot be impeached for his speech is that Congress could not impeach and remove a president who openly proclaimed his intention to turn the United States into a communist or fascist dictatorship, because speech advocating despotism is protected against criminal punishment by the First Amendment if uttered by a private citizen.

But Trump is wrong that he is protected by the First Amendment. The government has far more leeway when it makes personnel decisions than it does when it regulates speech by private citizens. And even if Trump had simply spoken as a private citizen, there is a strong argument that his conduct was so egregious that it could be prosecuted as incitement.

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Trump claims impeachment violates the 1st Amendment. Thats absurd. - Vox.com