United States v. Dennett
E825288
United States v. Dennett was a landmark 1930 U.S. obscenity case in which birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett successfully challenged federal censorship of her sex education pamphlet, helping to expand protections for educational and reformist materials.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| United States v. Dennett canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9835109 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Dennett Context triple: [Mary Ware Dennett, legalCase, United States v. Dennett]
-
A.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
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B.
Dickerson v. United States
Dickerson v. United States is a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case that reaffirmed the constitutional basis of Miranda warnings and held that Congress could not overrule Miranda v. Arizona by statute.
-
C.
United States v. O'Brien
United States v. O'Brien is a landmark 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a federal law banning the destruction of draft cards and established an important test for evaluating government regulation of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
-
D.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
-
E.
United States v. Comstock
United States v. Comstock is a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s authority to civilly commit mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoners beyond their release date under the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Dennett Target entity description: United States v. Dennett was a landmark 1930 U.S. obscenity case in which birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett successfully challenged federal censorship of her sex education pamphlet, helping to expand protections for educational and reformist materials.
-
A.
Dennis v. United States
Dennis v. United States is a landmark 1951 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the convictions of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act, significantly shaping First Amendment jurisprudence on speech advocating the overthrow of the government.
-
B.
Dickerson v. United States
Dickerson v. United States is a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case that reaffirmed the constitutional basis of Miranda warnings and held that Congress could not overrule Miranda v. Arizona by statute.
-
C.
United States v. O'Brien
United States v. O'Brien is a landmark 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a federal law banning the destruction of draft cards and established an important test for evaluating government regulation of symbolic speech under the First Amendment.
-
D.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
-
E.
United States v. Comstock
United States v. Comstock is a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s authority to civilly commit mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoners beyond their release date under the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (37)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States federal court case
ⓘ
court case ⓘ obscenity case ⓘ |
| concerns |
definition of obscenity
ⓘ
distribution of birth control information ⓘ educational and reformist materials ⓘ federal censorship of sex education materials ⓘ |
| context | U.S. birth control and sex reform movements of the 1920s and 1930s ⓘ |
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| decidedIn | 1930 ⓘ |
| decisionYear | 1930 ⓘ |
| defendant | Mary Ware Dennett ⓘ |
| effect |
expanded protections for educational materials under obscenity law
ⓘ
limited federal power to censor sex education literature ⓘ strengthened legal protection for birth control information ⓘ |
| holding | educational sex material not obscene when intended for instruction and reform ⓘ |
| involves |
Mary Ware Dennett
ⓘ
birth control advocacy ⓘ postal censorship ⓘ sex education pamphlet ⓘ |
| issue | whether an educational sex pamphlet was legally obscene ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States federal government
ⓘ
linked to:
United States government
|
| legalSubject |
First Amendment law
ⓘ
censorship ⓘ obscenity law ⓘ |
| party |
Mary Ware Dennett
ⓘ
United States ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| plaintiff |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| precedentFor | later cases on educational and scientific materials and obscenity ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
birth control movement in the United States
ⓘ
free speech rights regarding sexual information ⓘ history of American censorship ⓘ |
| result | conviction reversed ⓘ |
| significance |
important precedent for sex education and birth control advocacy
ⓘ
landmark in U.S. obscenity jurisprudence ⓘ |
| subjectOf | legal scholarship on obscenity and sex education ⓘ |
| timePeriod | early 20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: United States v. Dennett Description of subject: United States v. Dennett was a landmark 1930 U.S. obscenity case in which birth control advocate Mary Ware Dennett successfully challenged federal censorship of her sex education pamphlet, helping to expand protections for educational and reformist materials.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.