ABSTRACT
In United States v. O'Brien, 391 US 367, the US Supreme Court upheld the conviction of an individual who burned his draft card in violation of federal law. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, and on May 27, 1968, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The Court then delineated a four-part analytical framework that has become a key pillar of its First Amendment jurisprudence. The O'Brien Court found that the federal statute prohibiting the intentional destruction of draft cards easily met these requirements, and therefore upheld the constitutionality of the statute and O'Brien's conviction. The "important or substantial interest" prong of the test would later be used as a baseline for other Court attempts to finesse what would otherwise be hard-and-fast distinctions. Most notably, in Craig v. Boren, 429 US 190, the Court adopted this language as the test to evaluate gender-discrimination claims.
