Unit VII Essay

In this assignment, you will refer back to the two handouts indicated below and answer the questions associated with them. Both items listed below will be responded to within the same document which you will then submit. The response to each item will consist of at least 200 words each, and any sources used, including your textbook, should be cited and referenced properly at the end of your responses using APA formatting. It is not necessary to copy the items below into your document; however, please compose essays that include an introduction, body, and conclusion.

1. Please review the handout, “Should Cross Burning be Protected,” found in the required reading, and answer both of the following questions:

a. Summarize the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in both of the cases that are excerpted in the handout. In a few words, explain why the Court, in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul overturned the decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Explain why the Court upheld the Virginia statute in Virginia v. Black.

b. What did the Court mean when it held, in Virginia v. Black, that “just as any State may regulate only that obscenity which is the most obscene due to its prurient content, so too may a State choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm”?

2. Please review the handout, “Does the Sending of Obscene Material,” found in the required reading, and answer all of the following questions:

a. Do you agree that the statute in question applies to computer-generated and computer-transmitted information?

b. Should the government be required to present expert witnesses to establish that the material in question is obscene? Is this a question that a jury can decide on its own? How are jury members aware of “community standards”?

c. If the community standards are different in Milpitas, California, from those of Memphis, Tennessee, why should the defendants be held accountable for the standards in Memphis and not those in the location where the material was transmitted?

d. Are you satisfied with the test for obscenity? In what manner, if any, would you change the standard?