United States v. O'Brien
E666862
United States v. O'Brien is a landmark 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a federal law banning the destruction of draft cards and established an important test for evaluating government regulation of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Selective Draft Law Cases | 1 |
| United States v. O'Brien canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7476254 — 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: United States v. O'Brien Context triple: [Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, relatedCase, United States v. O'Brien]
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A.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
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B.
Olmstead v. United States
Olmstead v. United States was a 1928 U.S. Supreme Court case that held warrantless wiretapping did not violate the Fourth Amendment, a stance later curtailed by modern privacy jurisprudence.
-
C.
Abrams v. United States
Abrams v. United States was a 1919 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the conviction of antiwar activists under federal law and is best known for Justice Holmes’s famous dissent articulating the “marketplace of ideas” concept in free speech jurisprudence.
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D.
Ocampo v. United States
Ocampo v. United States is a 1914 U.S. Supreme Court decision that applied and developed the Insular Cases framework governing constitutional rights in unincorporated American territories.
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E.
United States v. Comstock
United States v. Comstock is a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s authority to civilly commit mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoners beyond their release date under the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause.
- 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: United States v. O'Brien Target entity description: United States v. O'Brien is a landmark 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a federal law banning the destruction of draft cards and established an important test for evaluating government regulation of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
-
A.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
-
B.
Olmstead v. United States
Olmstead v. United States was a 1928 U.S. Supreme Court case that held warrantless wiretapping did not violate the Fourth Amendment, a stance later curtailed by modern privacy jurisprudence.
-
C.
Abrams v. United States
Abrams v. United States was a 1919 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the conviction of antiwar activists under federal law and is best known for Justice Holmes’s famous dissent articulating the “marketplace of ideas” concept in free speech jurisprudence.
-
D.
Ocampo v. United States
Ocampo v. United States is a 1914 U.S. Supreme Court decision that applied and developed the Insular Cases framework governing constitutional rights in unincorporated American territories.
-
E.
United States v. Comstock
United States v. Comstock is a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s authority to civilly commit mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoners beyond their release date under the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
U.S. Supreme Court case
ⓘ
landmark First Amendment case ⓘ |
| arguedOn | 1968-01-24 ⓘ |
| chiefJusticeAtDecision | Earl Warren NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| citation | 391 U.S. 367 ⓘ |
| concernsProvision | federal prohibition on destruction or mutilation of draft cards ⓘ |
| concernsStatute | Universal Military Training and Service Act NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
John M. Harlan II
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Potter Stewart NERFINISHED ⓘ Thurgood Marshall NERFINISHED ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvisionInterpreted |
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Free Speech Clause NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decade | 1960s ⓘ |
| decidedOn | 1968-05-27 ⓘ |
| defendant | David Paul O'Brien NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| dissentBy | William O. Douglas NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 232 ⓘ |
| established | O'Brien test NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| fullName | United States v. David Paul O'Brien NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| holding |
Government regulation of symbolic speech is permissible if it meets the O'Brien test
ⓘ
The federal law prohibiting destruction of draft cards is constitutional as applied to O'Brien ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Byron R. White
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Hugo L. Black NERFINISHED ⓘ John M. Harlan II NERFINISHED ⓘ Potter Stewart NERFINISHED ⓘ Thurgood Marshall NERFINISHED ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ William O. Douglas NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal law NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
First Amendment freedom of speech
ⓘ
constitutionality of draft card destruction ban ⓘ symbolic speech ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Earl Warren NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| OBrienTestElement |
Governmental interest must be unrelated to the suppression of free expression
ⓘ
Incidental restriction on First Amendment freedoms must be no greater than essential to further that interest ⓘ Regulation must be within the constitutional power of the government ⓘ Regulation must further an important or substantial governmental interest ⓘ |
| page | 367 ⓘ |
| plaintiff | United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| precedentFor |
cases involving regulation of expressive conduct
ⓘ
content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| result | O'Brien's conviction was affirmed ⓘ |
| topic |
Vietnam War era draft
ⓘ
selective service system NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| volume | 391 ⓘ |
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: United States v. O'Brien Description of subject: United States v. O'Brien is a landmark 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a federal law banning the destruction of draft cards and established an important test for evaluating government regulation of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Selective Draft Law Cases