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Supreme Court· 5/16/1966

Ashton v. Kentucky

Citations

  • 384 U.S. 195
  • 86 S. Ct. 1407
  • 16 L. Ed. 2d 469
  • 1966 U.S. LEXIS 1644

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • holding that Kentucky’s common law crime of criminal libel was unconstitutionally void, as no court case had redefined the crime’s sweeping language in understandable terms, leaving prosecution decisions to be made on a case to case basis
  • common law crime of criminal libel, defined by trial court as including \any writing calculated to create disturbances of the peace\
  • criminal libel statute construed too broadly at trial. Although the conviction was reversed, a limiting construction in the state courts eliminated the unconstitutional features and saved the statute
  • anti-noise ordinance held unconstitutionally vague because it was likely to function erratically
  • “Vague laws in any area suffer a constitutional infirmity”
  • Kentucky’s criminal libel law held inconsistent with First Amendment

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Douglas, Harlan

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

181 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

26 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Other cases named Ashton v. Kentucky

1 other CourtListener record shares this case name.

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.