[2][3] Since 1969 New Hampshire had required that noncommercial vehicles bear license plates embossed with the state motto, "Live Free or Die".

He appeared in court on January 31, 1975, and again chose to represent himself; he was found guilty, fined $50, and sentenced to six months in the Grafton County House of Corrections.

Following a hearing on the merits, the District Court entered an order enjoining the State "from arresting and prosecuting [the Maynards] at any time in the future for covering over that portion of their license plates that contains the motto 'Live Free or Die'".

In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that New Hampshire could not constitutionally require citizens to display the state motto upon their vehicle license plates.

Chief Justice Burger, writing for the Court, found that the statute in question effectively required individuals to "use their private property as a 'mobile billboard' for the State's ideological message".

The Court held that the State's interests in requiring the motto did not outweigh free speech principles under the First Amendment, including "the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster ... an idea they find morally objectionable".

Rehnquist wrote that For First Amendment principles to be implicated, the State must place the citizen in the position of either apparently or actually "asserting as true" the message.

In holding that the New Hampshire statute does not run afoul of our holding in Barnette, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ... aptly articulated why there is no required affirmation of belief in this case: The defendants' membership in a class of persons required to display plates bearing the State motto carries no implication and is subject to no requirement that they endorse that motto or profess to adopt it as matter of belief.As found by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in Hoskin, there is nothing in state law which precludes appellees from displaying their disagreement with the state motto as long as the methods used do not obscure the license plates.