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Government controlled rock music?.........................................................................
Rock
Against Racism sponsored an annual concert in Central Park. After
the concert produced complaints about noise, and after several
other attempts to control the sound failed, New York established a
regulation requiring all groups using the Bandshell to use sound
equipment and technicians provided by the City. RAR sued, asking
for the regulation to be declared unconstitutional. The district
court found the regulation constitutional, but the appellate court
reversed this decision.
Further
facts and some interesting arguments can be found in the Court's
decision and the oral argument in Ward v. RAR,
Oyez
Oyez Oyez: Ward v. Rock Against Racism - Abstract
Ward v. Rock Against Racism
Greatest Hits CD-ROM
Facts of the Case
New York City, responding to complaints of high-decibel concerts
adjoining residential neighborhoods, mandated the use of
city-provided sound systems and technicians for concerts in Central Park. Members of rock
group claimed that the inability to use their own sound equipment and technicians in a concert in a public forum interfered with their
First Amendment rights of expression.Question PresentedDoes the New York ordinance substituting a city-employed
technician and mixing board for a performer's mixer and equipment violate the
First Amendment?
Conclusion
No. The Court upheld the ordinance, giving broad deference to the government's interest in maintaining order. As long as "the
means chosen are not substantially broader than necessary to achieve the
government's interest," a regulation will not be invalidated because a
court concludes that the government's interest "could be adequately served by
some less-speech-restrictive alternative."
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f
Bartolomeo
Vanzetti & Nicola Sacco>
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On
April 15 year 1920, a guard and a paymaster were killed during a
payroll hold-up outside a shoe factory near Boston, the bandits
escaped, but three weeks later two Italian immigrants were
arrested on firearms charges and subsequently charged with the
payroll murder. One was a shoemaker named Nicola Sacco, the other
a fish peddler named Bartolomeo Vanzetti -and their names were to
echo through the decades to the shame of American Justice.
The
events occurred during one of America's 'Red scares' Sacco and
held anarchist view, and their trial in May 1921 proved a
grotesque travesty. The facts that the accused were immigrants and
held anarchist views were enough to convict them. And their fates
were sealed when the prosecution tried to prove by dubious means
that Sacco's, 32 Colt was the murder weapon. The judicial
atmosphere of the court was barely credible. The accused was
referred to as 'wops', 'dagos', and sons of bitches. And judge
Webster Thayer disclosed an open detestation of foreigners. (Did
you see what I did to those anarchist bastards?) He asked after
the proceeding.
The
accused was found guilty of first-degree murder. But the courtroom
charade had not passed unnoticed among American liberals. The
immigrant case became a cause
celebre
and through the next 6 years a campaign for retrial gathered
ground on both sides of Atlantic. Worldwide protests and mass fund
raising meetings contributed to various appeals, to couple it the
entire whole affair became complicated in by 1925 when a convicted
gangster named Celestino Madeiros confessed to the payroll robbery
and stated that the two men were innocent. Since Madeiros was
awaiting execution, however, his testimony was of limited value.
In
July 1927 a three men committee was appointed to re-examine the
evidence. Authoritative testimony came for the prosecution from
Major Calvin Goddard, a pioneer of forensic ballistics. Using the
recent invention of the comparison microscope, he showed
conclusively that the fatal bullets had allegedly been fired by
Sacco's gun (but had the bullets been planted on him? So much was
at stake by now in the case that both defence and prosecutions
were fighting dirty).
On
3 August 1927, the state Governor refused a retrial. Sacco and
Vanzetti must die, and following the final denial of clemency,
riot squads were called out in several US cities, while bombs went
off in New York and Philadelphia and there were strikes and riots
in Europe and South America. It was all to no avail. Sacco and
Vanzetti went to the electric chair in Boston's Charlestown Prison
on 23 August 1927. Both men mentioned their innocence in the end
and their death inspired a wealth of poems, novels, and plays. If
historians still raise some question marks over their innocence,
it is certain that they should never have been convicted on the
evidence: in 1977, a special proclamation by the Governor of
Massachusetts officially cleared their names.
The
most moving tribute on their memory, through, was penned by
Vanzetti himself. In a statement written before his death he
willingly accepted his martyrdom. He wrote of his pride that the
pair of them -- a shoemaker and a poor fish peddler-- should have
contributed by chance to such an upheaval in the public
conscience. : 'Never
in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for
justice, for man's understanding of men as now we do with accident
The last moment belongs to us -- that agony is our triumph.'
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