United States V. Williams

United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a federal statute prohibiting the "pandering" of child pornography (offering or requesting to transfer, sell, deliver, or trade the items) did not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if a person charged under the code did not in fact possess child pornography with which to trade.

The decision overturned the Eleventh Circuit's ruling that the statute was facially void for overbreadth and vagueness. The Supreme Court reasoned that there is no First Amendment protection for offers to engage in illegal transactions, and that banning "the collateral speech that introduces such material into the child-pornography distribution network" does not in fact criminalize a "substantial amount of protected speech."

Read more about United States V. Williams:  Background, Important Notes/dictation, See Also, References

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or williams:

    As a Tax-Paying Citizen of the United States I am entitled to a voice in Governmental affairs.... Having paid this unlawful Tax under written Protest for forty years, I am entitled to receive from the Treasury of “Uncle Sam” the full amount of both Principal and Interest.
    Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)

    God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    [Urging the national government] to eradicate local prejudices and mistaken rivalships to consolidate the affairs of the states into one harmonious interest.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors.
    —Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)