On April 30, 2024, the James Madison Program hosted Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, for a lecture titled, "Speech That May Cause Illegal Conduct." This event was the Annual Walter F. Murphy Lecture in American Constitutionalism, and was a part of the Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression.

Speech can often foreseeably lead to illegal conduct. That is especially so for speech broadcast to a vast audience; 99.99% of the listeners may react to it peacefully, but .01% may react criminally, whether with criminal threats, vandalism, or even violence. What should the law do about this sort of speech, whether the speech is political advocacy, personal criticism, or even just entertainment?

Eugene Volokh has taught and written about First Amendment law for 30 years, and has also focused on law and technology, Second Amendment law, tort law, and criminal law. He is the author of a First Amendment textbook, a book on academic legal writing, and over 100 law journal articles. Before he went into law teaching, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Before that, he spent 12 years as a computer programmer.

This event was supported by the Bouton Law Lecture Fund.

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