In 1969, four young people driving to a nightclub in Jacksonville, Florida, were arrested for “prowling by auto.” This episode follows Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville from medieval English vagrancy law and the post–Civil War Black Codes to modern camping bans, asking how vague laws can turn a police officer’s suspicion into arrest and conviction.
From the Qi Yuling and Luo Caixia cases to Chen Chunxiu’s experience, this article traces how identity substitution in school admissions evolved from an infringement of the right to a name and a set of related offenses into an independent crime, while the Education Law added a remedy for victims seeking restoration of their admission qualifications.
In late 1998, Qi Yuling discovered that a former classmate had used her identity and admission notice to take her place at a technical secondary school eight years earlier. This episode traces how the Supreme People’s Court brought the constitutional right to education into a civil dispute through its 2001 Reply No. 25—and why the reply’s repeal seven years later left the debate over judicial application of the Constitution unresolved.
Free speech in the United States is not without limits. Through a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases, this article traces the development of the rules governing restrictions on speech.
In 1984, protester Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag during the Republican National Convention and was convicted of a crime. Beginning with Texas v. Johnson, this episode explains why political flag burning became expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment—and whether the government may impose criminal punishment simply because a political message offends the public.