Lovell v. City of Griffin

E365015

First Amendment case United States Supreme Court case landmark freedom of speech case

Lovell v. City of Griffin is a 1938 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a city ordinance requiring permission to distribute religious literature, significantly strengthening First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and press.

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All labels observed (2)

Label	Occurrences
Alma Lovell v. City of Griffin	1
Lovell v. City of Griffin canonical	1

Statements (44)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	First Amendment case ⓘ United States Supreme Court case ⓘ landmark freedom of speech case ⓘ
category	United States Supreme Court case of the Hughes Court era ⓘ United States freedom of speech case ⓘ United States freedom of the press case ⓘ
citation	303 U.S. 444 ⓘ
constitutionalProvision	First Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ Fourteenth Amendment ⓘ surface form: Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
court	Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ
decisionDate	1938-03-28 ⓘ
decisionType	unanimous decision ⓘ
doctrine	broad prior licensing schemes on distribution of literature are unconstitutional ⓘ freedom of the press applies to distribution of literature ⓘ
fullCaseName	Lovell v. City of Griffin self-linksurface differs ⓘ surface form: Alma Lovell v. City of Griffin
holding	A city may not require prior permission to distribute literature, including religious literature, without violating the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. ⓘ The Griffin, Georgia ordinance requiring written permission from the city manager to distribute literature was unconstitutional on its face. ⓘ
impact	expanded protection for religious proselytizing activities ⓘ limited municipal power to license distribution of literature ⓘ strengthened First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and press ⓘ
jurisdiction	federal judiciary of the United States ⓘ surface form: United States federal jurisdiction
lawChallenged	Griffin city ordinance regulating distribution of literature ⓘ
legalIssue	First Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ distribution of religious literature ⓘ freedom of speech ⓘ freedom of the press ⓘ prior restraint ⓘ
locationOfOrdinance	Griffin, Georgia ⓘ
majorityOpinionBy	Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes ⓘ
ordinanceRequirement	written permission from the city manager to distribute literature ⓘ
originatingJurisdiction	Georgia ⓘ surface form: State of Georgia
partyReligion	JehovahsWitnesses ⓘ surface form: Jehovah's Witnesses
petitioner	Alma Lovell ⓘ
petitionerActivity	distribution of religious pamphlets ⓘ
precedentFor	cases limiting licensing schemes as prior restraints ⓘ subsequent cases on distribution of leaflets and pamphlets ⓘ
relatedAreaOfLaw	municipal regulation of speech ⓘ religious liberty ⓘ
relatedMovement	Jehovah's Witnesses First Amendment litigation in the 1930s and 1940s ⓘ
reporter	United States Reports ⓘ
respondent	Griffin, Georgia ⓘ surface form: City of Griffin, Georgia
volume	303 ⓘ
vote	9-0 ⓘ
year	1938 ⓘ

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: Lovell v. City of Griffin
Description of subject: Lovell v. City of Griffin is a 1938 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a city ordinance requiring permission to distribute religious literature, significantly strengthening First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and press.

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania → relatedCase → Lovell v. City of Griffin ⓘ

Lovell v. City of Griffin → fullCaseName → Lovell v. City of Griffin self-linksurface differs ⓘ

this entity surface form: Alma Lovell v. City of Griffin