Shouting fire in a crowded theater

"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular analogy for speech or actions whose principal purpose is to create panic, and in particular for speech or actions which may for that reason be thought to be outside the scope of free speech protections. The phrase is a paraphrasing of a dictum, or non-binding statement, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The case was later partially overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot). The paraphrasing differs from Holmes's original wording in that it typically does not include the word falsely, while also adding the word "crowded" to describe the theatre. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, panics caused by false shouts of "fire" in crowded theaters and other venues were not uncommon. Most notably, the Canonsburg Opera House disaster of 1911 led to 26 deaths, and the 1913 Italian Hall disaster saw 73 people die in the crush that ensued from a false alarm in a crowded banquet hall. The problem was widespread enough that the person falsely shouting "fire" became a stock character in popular writing, representing an example of foolish or villainous behavior. Laws were enacted in some jurisdictions to protect the public from such panics, such as the Indianapolis municipal code of 1917, which made it illegal to "[c]ry out a false alarm of 'fire' in any church, public hall, theater, moving picture showroom, or any other building of a similar or different character, while the same is occupied by a public assemblage." The first known use of the analogy in the context of free speech occurred in the 1918 trial of Eugene V. Debs. Debs was charged with violations of the Espionage Act of 1917 for an anti-war speech he had delivered in Canton, Ohio.