Melville Nimmer

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. He was admitted to the California State Bar in January 1951^[2]. He was professor at the UCLA School of Law from 1962. One year later, he published the two-volume treatise that would become the leading secondary source on copyright law, Nimmer on Copyright.^[3] In 1984, he published a one-volume treatise on freedom of speech, titled appropriately Nimmer on Freedom of Speech: Treatise on Theory of First Amendment.

As a lawyer, he was best known as the winning attorney in the 1971 case Cohen v. California.^[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 shirt 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.

Melville Nimmer is the father of David Nimmer, who has continued to author Nimmer on Copyright.

References

1. ^ Nimmer, Melville B., and David Nimmer (1997). Nimmer on Copyright. Albany: Matthew Bender.
2. ^ "Attorney Search". State Bar of California. http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member_search.aspx?ms=Melville+Nimmer. Retrieved 2008-10-29. 
3. ^ "Georgetown Law Library: Copyright Law Research Guide". Georgetown University Law Library. May 2007. http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/guides/copyright.cfm. Retrieved 2008-10-29. "Nimmer on Copyright is a 10-volume treatise that is considered the leading secondary source on American copyright law." 
4. ^ Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).

External links

• First Amendment Library entry for Cohen v. California
• Cohen v. California decision, at BC
• Full text of Supreme Court decision on Findlaw
• Abstract on Cohen v. California, from OYEZ

Persondata
Name	Nimmer, Melville
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Date of birth	June 6, 1923
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Date of death	November 23, 1985
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