Jones v. City of Opelika
E365014
Jones v. City of Opelika is a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed the constitutionality of municipal license taxes imposed on religious literature distributors, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses, under the First Amendment.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Jones v. City of Opelika canonical | 2 |
| opinion in Jones v. Opelika (dissent) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3516431 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Jones v. City of Opelika Context triple: [Murdock v. Pennsylvania, relatedCase, Jones v. City of Opelika]
-
A.
Jackson v. Georgia
Jackson v. Georgia is a United States Supreme Court case that, alongside Furman v. Georgia, addressed the constitutionality and application of the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
-
B.
NAACP v. Alabama
NAACP v. Alabama is a landmark 1958 U.S. Supreme Court case that strengthened constitutional protections for freedom of association by preventing states from forcing advocacy groups to disclose their membership lists.
-
C.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down a city ordinance that gave officials broad discretion to deny parade permits, reinforcing First Amendment protections for civil rights demonstrators.
-
D.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. is a landmark 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case that held nonviolent civil rights boycotts and related advocacy are protected by the First Amendment.
-
E.
Alabama v. Shelton
Alabama v. Shelton is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a suspended sentence that may result in imprisonment cannot be imposed unless the defendant was afforded the right to counsel.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Jones v. City of Opelika Target entity description: Jones v. City of Opelika is a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed the constitutionality of municipal license taxes imposed on religious literature distributors, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses, under the First Amendment.
-
A.
Jackson v. Georgia
Jackson v. Georgia is a United States Supreme Court case that, alongside Furman v. Georgia, addressed the constitutionality and application of the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
-
B.
NAACP v. Alabama
NAACP v. Alabama is a landmark 1958 U.S. Supreme Court case that strengthened constitutional protections for freedom of association by preventing states from forcing advocacy groups to disclose their membership lists.
-
C.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court struck down a city ordinance that gave officials broad discretion to deny parade permits, reinforcing First Amendment protections for civil rights demonstrators.
-
D.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. is a landmark 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case that held nonviolent civil rights boycotts and related advocacy are protected by the First Amendment.
-
E.
Alabama v. Shelton
Alabama v. Shelton is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a suspended sentence that may result in imprisonment cannot be imposed unless the defendant was afforded the right to counsel.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (42)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment case
ⓘ
U.S. Supreme Court case ⓘ freedom of religion case ⓘ freedom of speech case ⓘ |
| affects |
regulation of religious solicitation
ⓘ
rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses to distribute literature ⓘ scope of permissible license fees on expressive activities ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
civil liberties
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ municipal law ⓘ |
| citationJurisdiction |
United States Reports
ⓘ
surface form:
U.S. Reports
|
| concerns |
fees imposed as a condition to exercise First Amendment rights
ⓘ
licensing requirements for door-to-door religious advocacy ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
free exercise of religion ⓘ freedom of speech ⓘ freedom of the press ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| fullName | Jones v. City of Opelika self-link ⓘ |
| geographicalContext |
Opelika
ⓘ
surface form:
Opelika, Alabama
|
| involves |
JehovahsWitnesses
ⓘ
surface form:
Jehovah’s Witnesses
distribution of religious literature ⓘ municipal license taxes ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| languageOfProceedings | English ⓘ |
| legalDoctrine |
limits on municipal taxation of expressive activities
ⓘ
protection of religious proselytizing under the First Amendment ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
surface form:
First Amendment freedoms of speech and press
constitutionality of municipal license taxes on religious literature distribution ⓘ free exercise of religion ⓘ regulation of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature distribution ⓘ |
| party |
Opelika
ⓘ
surface form:
City of Opelika
Jones ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
content-neutral regulation of speech
ⓘ
prior restraint ⓘ time, place, and manner regulation ⓘ |
| relatedGroup |
Jehovah’s Witnesses publications
ⓘ
surface form:
Jehovah’s Witnesses literature distributors
|
| subjectMatter |
municipal regulatory power
ⓘ
public distribution of literature ⓘ religious proselytizing ⓘ |
| typeOfRegulationChallenged | license tax ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Jones v. City of Opelika Description of subject: Jones v. City of Opelika is a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed the constitutionality of municipal license taxes imposed on religious literature distributors, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses, under the First Amendment.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Frank Murphy
this entity surface form:
opinion in Jones v. Opelika (dissent)