State v. Brown
| Decision Date | 15 March 1895 |
| Citation | 68 N.H. 200,38 A. 731 |
| Parties | STATE v. BROWN. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Frank J. Brown was indicted for perjury. Submitted on facts agreed. Indictment quashed.
H. was arraigned and tried in the Laconia police court, on a complaint made by the defendant, alleging that H., At the trial, H. admitted that, on the occasion specified, he called Brown a "God damned blackmailer," and claimed that he was justified in doing so, because, as he testified, he had himself paid Brown money, in consideration of which Brown agreed to refrain, and did refrain, from prosecuting him for the unlawful sale of spirituous liquor. Thereupon Brown testified, in substance, that he had never received from H., or from anybody, money or anything else as a consideration for abstaining from prosecuting H. or any other person for the unlawful sale of liquor. The indictment charges that this testimony of the defendant was false and perjured.
W. B. Fellows, for the State.
E. H. Shannon and Cox & Dyer, for defendant.
The complaint was for a violation of section 2, c. 264, Pub. St., which provides that "no person shall address any offensive, derisive, or annoying word to any other person who is lawfully in any street or other public place, nor call him by any offensive or derisive name, nor make any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with intent to deride, offend, or annoy him, or to prevent him from pursuing his lawful business or occupation." An intent to deride, etc., was not alleged in the complaint. If such an allegation was necessary, its absence is not material here. Perjury might be committed at the trial, although the complaint was bad upon demurrer or motion in arrest of judgment. Reg. v. Meek, 9 Car. & P. 013; State v. Whittemore, 50 N. H. 245, 248. The fact that the forbidden words express the truth does not justify their use. The statute makes no distinction between truthful and untruthful expressions, but prohibits both alike. Its purpose was to preserve the public peace. The direct tendency of such conduct, like that of libel (4 Bl. Comm. 150, 151), is to provoke the person against whom it is directed, to acts of violence. The circumstance that...
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Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire
...statute, the problem of Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117, 73 A.L.R. 1484, is not present. 7 State v. Brown, 68 N.H. 200, 38 A. 731; State v. McConnell, 70 N.H. 294, 47 A. 8 We do not have here the problem of Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 59 S.Ct. 61......
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UWM Post v. Board of Regents of U. of Wis.
...acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark is addressed.'" See id. at 573, 62 S.Ct. at 770 (citing State v. Brown, 68 N.H. 200, 38 A. 731 (1895); State v. McConnell, 70 N.H. 294, 47 A. 267 (1900). The Chaplinsky court held that the limited scope of Chapter 378 § 2, as ......
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State v. Chaplinsky
...that of [criminal] libel (4 Bl. Com. 150, 151), is to provoke the person against whom it is directed, to acts of violence." State v. Brown, 68 N.H. 200, 38 A. 731. The decision seems to have assumed that the only intent required for conviction under the first part of the section was an inte......
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Svedberg v. Stamness
...excite the addressee to a breach of the peace.... Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 573, 62 S.Ct. at 770, 86 L.Ed. at 1036 (citing State v. Brown, 68 N.H. 200, 38 A. 731 (1895); quoting State v. McConnell, 70 N.H. 294, 47 A. 267, 267 (1900)). It is not sufficient, however, if words merely offend, cau......
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THOSE ARE FIGHTING WORDS, AREN'T THEY? ON ADDING INJURY TO INSULT.
...pose no problem to legal sanction."). (59.) Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1941). (60.) Id. at 573 (citing State v. Brown, 38 A. 731, 732 (N.H. (61.) See State v. Chaplinsky, 18 A.2d 754, 762 ("The test is what men of common intelligence would understand would be words like......