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I generally agree with this, but the zeitgeist on the ground has an awful lot of lawless action (political assassinations and attempts thereof) these days. It's obviously hard to tie specific actions there to specific speech, but the big picture is normalizing the idea of lawless action, not a single clear call for it. How much can I complain about "turbulent priests" before I'm responsible to the state when Thomas Becket gets murdered?
And I've never gotten a good answer on how "imminent" applies: can I promote a planned riot as long as it's more than, say, 12 months from now?
Not “turbulent priests.” “This turbulent priest.” It wasn’t ambiguous in the slightest.
And I think you’re overstating the amount of violence on the ground. One murder is too many, but it’s simultaneous not an awful lot. It represents less of an ongoing threat than, say, Summer 2020.
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The rally in Brandenburg v. Ohio was on June 28, 1964. The march was planned for July 4, 1964.
Note that the "imminent lawless action" test is for mere advocacy; actually planning a riot in detail (e.g. "Charlie, you take group B up on the hill with the bottles; Jim, take group A with the Molotovs) would probably not be protected.
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IANAL but my understanding is that, as long as your speech does not constitute a threat, and as long as you are not actively conspiring with others, that's protected speech. If you are planning the detailed logistics of a riot a year from now that might not be protected. But for a silly example, the whole area 51 raid thing a few years back - saying "that's based and I fully support this. everyone should go, they can't stop all of us" a month before is, under my understanding of the law, in the clear.
I think that one falls under criminal solicitation (intent that the crime occurs + request/order that some specific person commit the crime), because it was said to specific people who would be expected to take it as an order. The state would have to prove intent, but in the Thomas Beckett case that seems not too difficult.
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Didn't the Supreme Court rule that Trump's speech on j6 didn't count?
It depends on the judge you get and how many appeals you want to suffer through, but my understanding of the Supreme Court precedent on incitement is something like "My fellow activists, let's go right now to burn down the courthouse!" and then you all go right then to burn down the courthouse. If instead you all go to lunch, and some of the the people you talked to burn it down tomorrow but you didn't repeat your speech before they did, that wasn't incitement.
I don't believe any such case reached the Supreme Court. Or any court, for that matter. There were a lot of cases against Trump, but incitement to riot was not one of them.
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