By Jonathan Peters
This is the eighth in a series of interviews I’m conducting with lawyers and scholars around the country who’ve made a mark on the First Amendment. Follow me @jonathanwpeters on Twitter.
David Goldberger is a professor emeritus of law at The Ohio State University. He began his career as a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, and later he served as legal and legislative director of the Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1977, Goldberger won his first case before the Supreme Court: National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. It obligated state courts to provide expeditious review of injunctions against public assemblies. He argued the case McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission before the Supreme Court in 1995. It invalidated a state statute prohibiting the distribution of anonymous, non-libelous campaign literature. That same year, Goldberger was co-counsel in the Supreme Court case Capital Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette, which vindicated the right of the Ku Klux Klan to place an unattended cross on the Ohio statehouse plaza. Goldberger returned to the Supreme Court in 2005 to argue Cutter v. Wilkinson. It upheld a federal statute protecting the right of prison inmates to freedom of religion. Goldberger’s writing focuses on free speech, and he serves on the Panel on Peaceful Assemblies for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
[Read more…] about Ten questions on free speech with David Goldberger, the First Amendment lawyer who won Skokie, McIntyre and other SCOTUS cases