INCIDENT REPORT
NAME: George Carlin
LOCATION: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
ARREST: July 21, 1972
CHARGE: Disorderly conduct;.obscenity
At the Close of his act at the Sumerfest Festival on
Lake Michigan, Mr. Carlin was arrested and charged with obscenity and disorderly conduct stemming from the language used in his routine 'The Seven Words You Can't Say on TV."
Police acted on complaints filed by families who attended the festival, many of whom had small children. The complainants stated that they were shocked by Mr. Carlin's language. He was released on a $150 cash bail. A subsequent radio broadcast of the routine by the Pacifica Foundation in New York City received a civil inquiry
by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The broadcast was the result of an on-air discussion of society's attitude toward language.
Before playing Mr. Carlin's routine, the station warned that the language could offend some listeners. A man who apparently did not hear the warning heard the broadcast while driving with his young son, and complained to the FCC. In response, Pacifica called Mr. Carlin a "significant social satirist" who, "like Twain and Sahl before him, examines the
language of ordinary people... "
In the criminal case, County Judge Thaddeus Pruss refused the motion to dismiss by Mr. Carlin's attorney, William Coffey. In court, Mr. Coffey declared that Mr. Carlin's use of language was protected under the First Amendment. The judge disagreed, as did the Wisconsin Supreme Court and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justice John Paul Stevens, who ruled in the FCC case that protection could be granted only under provisional
guidelines and that the government had the right to regulate broadcasts and performances that were deemed indecent but not obscene.
The routine would be limited to and protected by its performance in an adults-only venue. The Carlin-Pacifica First Amendment case is now studied by virtually every law student in America. Twenty-four years later, none of the seven words can be used on television.
They are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, motherfucker, cocksucker, and tits.
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