Melville Bernard Nimmer (June 6, 1923 – November 23, 1985) was an American lawyer and law professor, renowned as an expert in freedom of speech and United States copyright law.
[1] Nimmer graduated from UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Harvard Law School.
[4] In Cohen, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a 5–4 vote in an opinion written by Justice Harlan, held that a state cannot criminalize speech absent a "particularized and compelling reason."
The Court struck down the conviction of a 19-year-old man who had walked into the Los Angeles courthouse with a jacket reading "Fuck the Draft."
Cohen became one of the leading cases interpreting the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protection of freedom of speech.