J.S.G. Boggs v. Eljay Bowron
Brief
Kent A. Yalowitz
4 J.L. & Pol'y 29 (1995)
Boggs is an artist whose works portray
the currency of the United
States of America. A reproduction of his rendition of a United States
twenty dollar bill is contained in the Journal and is an exaggerated
version of the real thing. The brief, written by Kent A. Yalowitz, an
Associate at the firm of Arnold & Porter, and submitted to the D.C.
Circuit
Court of Appeals, centers on the continued harassment and censorship of
Boggs
by the United States Secret Service. Boggs claims that he has been denied
his
First Amendment rights and the procedural protection's that attach to those
rights.
The brief argues that "the First Amendment
has long been understood to forbid
the application of criminal sanction without some element of scienter on
the part of
the defendant." Scienter is regarded as the equivalent of a deliberately
fraudulent
intent to deceive. The term is used to signify a person's "guilty
knowledge".
Accordingly, in order for a person to be convicted of a violation in which
scienter
is a requisite element, an intent to deceive or defraud must be present.
The Secret
Service ignores the scienter element in Boggs, as it is clearly not present.