High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action. In particular, it overruled Ohio`s criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence. In the process, four prior Supreme Court decisions were invalidated: