Biography
David O'Brien was one of four men who burned their Selective Service registration certificates on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse on March 31, 1966 in protest of the Vietnam War. Convicted under the August 1965 amendment criminalizing draft-card destruction, his appeal produced the landmark First Amendment ruling United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), in which the Supreme Court announced the four-part test for content-neutral regulation of expressive conduct. O'Brien lost the appeal 7-1 and served his federal sentence; the case remains foundational doctrine on the symbolic-speech / conduct distinction.
