Public Defense

Will SCOTUS engage in profanity?

By Gideon

Tomorrow SCOTUS will hear argument in Fox v. FCC, “the F word case”. This has nothing to do with criminal law and everything to do with stupidity on part of the FCC. It stems from three uses of fuck and shit. One was by Bono, who said his award was “really, really, fucking brilliant”, another by Cher who told her critics to “go fuck themselves” and finally, by that veritable starlet Nicole Ritchie, who complained about having to get “shit out of a Prada purse”, which, apparently is “not so fucking simple”.

[As you can tell, we at 'a public defender' are not shy about using the most versatile word in the English language.]

The FCC, in its Victorian wisdom, has decided that no matter the context, the word always evokes a sexual connotation. Fucking stupid. Which means, apparently, that someone is copulating with someone named “stupid”. What the sex.

For more coverage, see Scott and if you’re really inclined, Adam Liptak’s NYT piece.

We’ll see if the Justices agree and at 11am tomorrow we will read whether the Justice engaged in profanity.

Unless, of course, you agree with one friend of this blog who pointed out to me on Friday that they already have [for those of you who are too fornicating lazy to click on that link, the friend was referring to McCleskey v. Kemp].

Full post as published by A Public Defender on November 03, 2008 (boomark / email).