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Gibson v. United States

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Gibson v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 2–3, 1946
 Reargued October 23, 1946
 Decided December 23, 1946

Full case name
Gibson v. United States
Citations
329 U.S. 338 (more)
67 S. Ct. 301; 91 L. Ed. 331; 1946 U.S. LEXIS 1584

Court membership


Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson
Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton


Gibson v. United States, 329 U.S. 338 (1946),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States that a Jehovah's Witness minister could appeal his classification without first appearing at induction camp.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 329 U.S. 338 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




Stub icon This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1946 in United States case law
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_v._United_States








Gibson v. United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Gibson v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 2–3, 1946
 Reargued October 23, 1946
 Decided December 23, 1946

Full case name
Gibson v. United States
Citations
329 U.S. 338 (more)
67 S. Ct. 301; 91 L. Ed. 331; 1946 U.S. LEXIS 1584

Court membership


Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson
Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton


Gibson v. United States, 329 U.S. 338 (1946),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States that a Jehovah's Witness minister could appeal his classification without first appearing at induction camp.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 329 U.S. 338 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




Stub icon This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1946 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1946 in religion
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_v._United_States








Gonzales v. United States

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Gonzales v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 1–2, 1955
 Decided March 14, 1955

Full case name
Gonzales v. United States
Citations
348 U.S. 407 (more)
75 S. Ct. 409; 99 L. Ed. 467; 1955 U.S. LEXIS 1081

Holding
A Jehovah's Witness was denied fair hearing because of failure to supply him with materials in his record.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Earl Warren


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Harold H. Burton · Tom C. Clark
Sherman Minton · John M. Harlan II


Case opinions

Majority
Clark, joined by Warren, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, and Harlan
Dissent
Reed, joined by Burton
Dissent
Minton
Laws applied
Universal Military Training and Service Act
Gonzales v. United States, 348 U.S. 407 (1955),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Jehovah's Witness was denied fair hearing because of failure to supply him with materials in his record.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the court
3 See also
4 References

Facts of the case[edit]
Gonzales, a member of Jehovah's Witnesses who had claimed and had been denied conscientious objector exemption, was convicted under the Universal Military Training and Service Act for refusal to submit to induction into the armed forces.
Decision of the court[edit]
The 6-3 opinion of the court was written by Justice Clark, holding that the petitioner was entitled to receive a copy of the recommendation made by the Department of Justice to the Appeal Board under the provisions of 6 (j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act. Justice Reed, joined by Justice Burton, and Justice Minton each filed a dissenting opinion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 348
Oyez Gonzales v. United States 346 US 59 (1960)
Justia: Gonzales v. United States 364 U.S. 59 (1960)
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 348 U.S. 407 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




Stub icon This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1955 in United States case law
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._United_States








Gonzales v. United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Gonzales v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 1–2, 1955
 Decided March 14, 1955

Full case name
Gonzales v. United States
Citations
348 U.S. 407 (more)
75 S. Ct. 409; 99 L. Ed. 467; 1955 U.S. LEXIS 1081

Holding
A Jehovah's Witness was denied fair hearing because of failure to supply him with materials in his record.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Earl Warren


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Harold H. Burton · Tom C. Clark
Sherman Minton · John M. Harlan II


Case opinions

Majority
Clark, joined by Warren, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, and Harlan
Dissent
Reed, joined by Burton
Dissent
Minton
Laws applied
Universal Military Training and Service Act
Gonzales v. United States, 348 U.S. 407 (1955),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Jehovah's Witness was denied fair hearing because of failure to supply him with materials in his record.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the court
3 See also
4 References

Facts of the case[edit]
Gonzales, a member of Jehovah's Witnesses who had claimed and had been denied conscientious objector exemption, was convicted under the Universal Military Training and Service Act for refusal to submit to induction into the armed forces.
Decision of the court[edit]
The 6-3 opinion of the court was written by Justice Clark, holding that the petitioner was entitled to receive a copy of the recommendation made by the Department of Justice to the Appeal Board under the provisions of 6 (j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act. Justice Reed, joined by Justice Burton, and Justice Minton each filed a dissenting opinion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 348
Oyez Gonzales v. United States 346 US 59 (1960)
Justia: Gonzales v. United States 364 U.S. 59 (1960)
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 348 U.S. 407 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




Stub icon This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1955 in United States case law
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1955 in religion
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._United_States








Holmes v. United States

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Holmes v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 27, 1968

Full case name
'
Citations
391 U.S. 936 (more)
88 S. Ct. 1835; 20 L. Ed. 2d 856; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1576

Holding
Certiorari denied.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Earl Warren


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · William O. Douglas
John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan, Jr.
Potter Stewart · Byron White
Abe Fortas · Thurgood Marshall


Case opinions

Concurrence
Stewart
Dissent
Douglas
For similarly titled cases, see United States v. Holmes (disambiguation).
Holmes v. United States, 391 U.S. 936 (1968),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for writ of certiorari to a Jehovah's Witnesses minister who asked the Court to decide whether a draft of men into the Armed Forces in times of peace is constitutionally permissible. The minister argued that, in the absence of a declaration of war, a draft was not authorized and was equivalent to involuntary servitude.
Facts of the case[edit]
Albert H. Holmes was classified in August 1965 as a conscientious objector by his Selective Service Appeal Board. Section 6(j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1948 stated that a conscientious objector who, like petitioner, is also opposed to noncombatant military service, may in lieu of induction 'be ordered by his local board ... to perform ... such civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest as the local board may deem appropriate. ...' Beginning in October 1965 Holmes exchanged a series of letters with his local board in which the Board explained to Holmes the types of civilian work available and Holmes asserted his religious scruples against serving the United States Government in any capacity, including civilian work programs. Holmes reiterated this position in a personal meeting with his local board.
On February 7, 1966, the Board sent Holmes an order to report on February 21 to an Illinois state hospital for civilian work assignment. However, on the day he was due to report, Holmes notified the Board that he refused to do so for religious reasons.
Prior history[edit]
Holmes was charged with willful failure to report as ordered, in violation of 12(a) of the Selective Service Act. At his nonjury trial Holmes moved for judgment of acquittal. That motion was denied, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 391 U.S. 936 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: United States Supreme Court cases
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Holmes v. United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Holmes v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 27, 1968

Full case name
'
Citations
391 U.S. 936 (more)
88 S. Ct. 1835; 20 L. Ed. 2d 856; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1576

Holding
Certiorari denied.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Earl Warren


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · William O. Douglas
John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan, Jr.
Potter Stewart · Byron White
Abe Fortas · Thurgood Marshall


Case opinions

Concurrence
Stewart
Dissent
Douglas
For similarly titled cases, see United States v. Holmes (disambiguation).
Holmes v. United States, 391 U.S. 936 (1968),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for writ of certiorari to a Jehovah's Witnesses minister who asked the Court to decide whether a draft of men into the Armed Forces in times of peace is constitutionally permissible. The minister argued that, in the absence of a declaration of war, a draft was not authorized and was equivalent to involuntary servitude.
Facts of the case[edit]
Albert H. Holmes was classified in August 1965 as a conscientious objector by his Selective Service Appeal Board. Section 6(j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1948 stated that a conscientious objector who, like petitioner, is also opposed to noncombatant military service, may in lieu of induction 'be ordered by his local board ... to perform ... such civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest as the local board may deem appropriate. ...' Beginning in October 1965 Holmes exchanged a series of letters with his local board in which the Board explained to Holmes the types of civilian work available and Holmes asserted his religious scruples against serving the United States Government in any capacity, including civilian work programs. Holmes reiterated this position in a personal meeting with his local board.
On February 7, 1966, the Board sent Holmes an order to report on February 21 to an Illinois state hospital for civilian work assignment. However, on the day he was due to report, Holmes notified the Board that he refused to do so for religious reasons.
Prior history[edit]
Holmes was charged with willful failure to report as ordered, in violation of 12(a) of the Selective Service Act. At his nonjury trial Holmes moved for judgment of acquittal. That motion was denied, Holmes was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 391 U.S. 936 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: United States Supreme Court cases
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Jamison v. Texas

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Jamison v. State of Texas
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 12, 1943
 Decided March 8, 1943

Full case name
Jamison v. State of Texas
Citations
318 U.S. 413 (more)
63 S. Ct. 669; 87 L. Ed. 869; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 889

Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Jamison v. State of Texas, 318 U.S. 413 (1943),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Dallas city ordinance, which prohibited distribution of handbills on the streets, violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because the material being distributed is religious in its nature.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court
3 See also
4 References

Facts of the case[edit]
Jamison, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, was charged with distributing handbills on the streets of Dallas, Texas, in violation of an ordinance of that city which prohibits their distribution. She was convicted in the Corporation Court of Dallas, and appealed to the County Criminal Court where, after a new trial, she was again convicted and a fine of $5.00 and costs was imposed.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court.
"The state can prohibit the use of the street for the distribution of purely commercial leaflets, even though such leaflets may have 'a civic appeal, or a moral platitude' appended. They may not prohibit the distribution of handbills in the pursuit of a clearly religious activity merely because the handbills invite the purchase of books for the improved understanding of the religion or because the handbills seek in a lawful fashion to promote the raising of funds for religious purposes."
See also[edit]
Largent v. Texas: A similar case in Paris, Texas
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 318 U.S. 413 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.


[hide]
v ·
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Jamison v. Texas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Jamison v. State of Texas
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 12, 1943
 Decided March 8, 1943

Full case name
Jamison v. State of Texas
Citations
318 U.S. 413 (more)
63 S. Ct. 669; 87 L. Ed. 869; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 889

Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Jamison v. State of Texas, 318 U.S. 413 (1943),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Dallas city ordinance, which prohibited distribution of handbills on the streets, violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because the material being distributed is religious in its nature.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court
3 See also
4 References

Facts of the case[edit]
Jamison, a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, was charged with distributing handbills on the streets of Dallas, Texas, in violation of an ordinance of that city which prohibits their distribution. She was convicted in the Corporation Court of Dallas, and appealed to the County Criminal Court where, after a new trial, she was again convicted and a fine of $5.00 and costs was imposed.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court.
"The state can prohibit the use of the street for the distribution of purely commercial leaflets, even though such leaflets may have 'a civic appeal, or a moral platitude' appended. They may not prohibit the distribution of handbills in the pursuit of a clearly religious activity merely because the handbills invite the purchase of books for the improved understanding of the religion or because the handbills seek in a lawful fashion to promote the raising of funds for religious purposes."
See also[edit]
Largent v. Texas: A similar case in Paris, Texas
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 318 U.S. 413 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
United States First Amendment case law




[show] 
Establishment Clause

























































[show] 
Free Exercise Clause























[show] 
Freedom of speech (portal)






























































































































































































































[show] 
Freedom of the press



























































[show] 
Freedom of association
















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Categories: 1943 in United States case law
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Jones v. City of Opelika (1942)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Jones v. City of Opelika
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided June 8, 1942

Full case name
Jones v. City of Opelika, Bowden et al. v. City of Fort Smith, Ark. Jobin v. State of Arizona
Citations
316 U.S. 584 (more)
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
James F. Byrnes · Robert H. Jackson


Case opinions

Majority
Reed, joined by Roberts, Frankfurter, Byrnes, Jackson
Dissent
Stone, joined by Murphy, Black, Douglas
Dissent
Murphy, joined by Stone, Black, Douglas
Overruled by

Jones v. City of Opelika (1943)
Jones v. City of Opelika, 316 U.S. 584 (1942),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a statute prohibiting the sale of books without a license was constitutional because it only covered individuals engaged in a commercial activity rather than a religious ritual.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Majority decision
2.2 Dissenting opinions
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Facts of the case[edit]
The city of Opelika, Alabama charged Jones with violating a statute by selling books without a license. All licenses were subject to immediate revocation by the city without requiring advance notice. Jones, a Jehovah's Witness alleged that this violated his rights to both freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Majority decision[edit]
Writing for the majority, Justice Reed wrote that individual rights must be balanced against competing rights of the state. He asserted that the fact that a person is engaged in disseminating religious materials does not place his action above regulation by the state. Reed wrote that, when people choose to utilize the vending of their religious books and tracts as a source of funds, the financial aspects of their transactions need not be wholly disregarded. To subject any religious or didactic group to a reasonable fee for their money-making activities does not require a finding that the licensed acts are purely commercial. It is enough that money is earned by the sale of articles. When traditional means of distribution are used by religious groups, they can be held to the same standards as non-religious groups. The court held that Jones had no standing to challenge that part of the statute because he did not have a license revoked arbitrarily by the state.
Dissenting opinions[edit]
The two dissenting opinions, by Chief Justice Harlan Stone and Justice Frank Murphy, examined both the unlimited discretion of the authorities in Opelika to withdraw a license as well as the amount of fees charged in order to get a license. The majority had considered the amount of fees ($25.00 annually in some cases or $2.50 per day in others) irrelevant because the issue had not been argued below, but the dissenters thought this amount was relevant.
Effects of the decision[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (June 2008)
This decision forced religious groups to meet the same requirements as non-religious groups engaged in a similar activity. The fact that they were selling religious materials did not exempt them from statutes regulating commercial acts.
Subsequent history[edit]
In the one paragraph Jones v. City of Opelika (II) per curiam decision (319 US 103), the Court vacated Jones v. City of Opelika (1942) on the basis of the principles articulated in Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Jones v. Opelika, 319 U.S. 103 (1943),[2] was a Jehovah's Witnesses case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that on rehearing Jones v. City of Opelika (1942) is vacated; a state may not prohibit distribution of religious handbills where handbills seek to raise funds in a lawful fashion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 316
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 316 U.S. 584 Full text of Jones v. City of Opelika opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
2.Jump up ^ 319 U.S. 103 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Jones v. City of Opelika (316 U.S. 584)

  


Categories: 1942 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
Lee County, Alabama
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1942 in religion





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Jones v. City of Opelika (1942)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Jones v. City of Opelika
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided June 8, 1942

Full case name
Jones v. City of Opelika, Bowden et al. v. City of Fort Smith, Ark. Jobin v. State of Arizona
Citations
316 U.S. 584 (more)
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
James F. Byrnes · Robert H. Jackson


Case opinions

Majority
Reed, joined by Roberts, Frankfurter, Byrnes, Jackson
Dissent
Stone, joined by Murphy, Black, Douglas
Dissent
Murphy, joined by Stone, Black, Douglas
Overruled by

Jones v. City of Opelika (1943)
Jones v. City of Opelika, 316 U.S. 584 (1942),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a statute prohibiting the sale of books without a license was constitutional because it only covered individuals engaged in a commercial activity rather than a religious ritual.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Majority decision
2.2 Dissenting opinions
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Facts of the case[edit]
The city of Opelika, Alabama charged Jones with violating a statute by selling books without a license. All licenses were subject to immediate revocation by the city without requiring advance notice. Jones, a Jehovah's Witness alleged that this violated his rights to both freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Majority decision[edit]
Writing for the majority, Justice Reed wrote that individual rights must be balanced against competing rights of the state. He asserted that the fact that a person is engaged in disseminating religious materials does not place his action above regulation by the state. Reed wrote that, when people choose to utilize the vending of their religious books and tracts as a source of funds, the financial aspects of their transactions need not be wholly disregarded. To subject any religious or didactic group to a reasonable fee for their money-making activities does not require a finding that the licensed acts are purely commercial. It is enough that money is earned by the sale of articles. When traditional means of distribution are used by religious groups, they can be held to the same standards as non-religious groups. The court held that Jones had no standing to challenge that part of the statute because he did not have a license revoked arbitrarily by the state.
Dissenting opinions[edit]
The two dissenting opinions, by Chief Justice Harlan Stone and Justice Frank Murphy, examined both the unlimited discretion of the authorities in Opelika to withdraw a license as well as the amount of fees charged in order to get a license. The majority had considered the amount of fees ($25.00 annually in some cases or $2.50 per day in others) irrelevant because the issue had not been argued below, but the dissenters thought this amount was relevant.
Effects of the decision[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (June 2008)
This decision forced religious groups to meet the same requirements as non-religious groups engaged in a similar activity. The fact that they were selling religious materials did not exempt them from statutes regulating commercial acts.
Subsequent history[edit]
In the one paragraph Jones v. City of Opelika (II) per curiam decision (319 US 103), the Court vacated Jones v. City of Opelika (1942) on the basis of the principles articulated in Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Jones v. Opelika, 319 U.S. 103 (1943),[2] was a Jehovah's Witnesses case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that on rehearing Jones v. City of Opelika (1942) is vacated; a state may not prohibit distribution of religious handbills where handbills seek to raise funds in a lawful fashion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 316
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 316 U.S. 584 Full text of Jones v. City of Opelika opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
2.Jump up ^ 319 U.S. 103 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Jones v. City of Opelika (316 U.S. 584)

  


Categories: 1942 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
Lee County, Alabama
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1942 in religion





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Largent v. Texas

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Jump to: navigation, search


Largent v. State of Texas
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 12, 1943
 Decided March 8, 1943

Full case name
Largent v. State of Texas
Citations
318 U.S. 418 (more)
63 S. Ct. 667; 87 L. Ed. 873; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 890

Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Reed, joined by Stone, Roberts, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy, Jackson
Rutledge took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Largent v. Texas, 318 U.S. 418 (1943),[1] was a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a city ordinance of Paris, Texas requiring permits in order to solicit orders for books is unconstitutional as applied to the distribution of religious publications. The church members were represented by Hayden C. Covington.
See also[edit]
Jamison v. State of Texas: A similar case in Dallas
References[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Largent v. Texas

1.Jump up ^ 318 U.S. 418 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




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Categories: 1943 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
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Largent v. Texas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Largent v. State of Texas
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 12, 1943
 Decided March 8, 1943

Full case name
Largent v. State of Texas
Citations
318 U.S. 418 (more)
63 S. Ct. 667; 87 L. Ed. 873; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 890

Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Reed, joined by Stone, Roberts, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy, Jackson
Rutledge took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Largent v. Texas, 318 U.S. 418 (1943),[1] was a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a city ordinance of Paris, Texas requiring permits in order to solicit orders for books is unconstitutional as applied to the distribution of religious publications. The church members were represented by Hayden C. Covington.
See also[edit]
Jamison v. State of Texas: A similar case in Dallas
References[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Largent v. Texas

1.Jump up ^ 318 U.S. 418 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.



Stub icon This Jehovah's Witnesses-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




Stub icon This article related to the Supreme Court of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1943 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
Paris, Texas
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1943 in religion
Jehovah's Witnesses stubs
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Lovell v. City of Griffin

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Jump to: navigation, search


Lovell v. City of Griffin
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 4, 1938
 Decided March 28, 1938

Full case name
Alma Lovell v. City of Griffin, Georgia
Citations
303 U.S. 444 (more)
58 S. Ct. 666; 82 L. Ed. 949; 1938 U.S. LEXIS 297

Prior history
Appeal from the Court of Appeals of Georgia
Holding
An ordinance broadly regulating the distribution of literature within the city limits was unconstitutional on its face.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Charles E. Hughes


Associate Justices
James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis
Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone
Owen J. Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed


Case opinions

Majority
Hughes, joined by McReynolds, Brandeis, Butler, Stone, Roberts, Black, Reed
Cardozo took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV
Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938), is a United States Supreme Court case. This case was remarkable in its discussion of the requirement of persons to seek government sanction to distribute religious material. In this particular case, the Supreme Court ruled it was not constitutional for a city to require such sanction.
Background[edit]
Appellant, Alma Lovell, had been distributing literature as a Jehovah's Witness. She was arrested for this, pursuant to a Griffin, Georgia city ordinance which read, in part, that the

practice of distributing, either by hand or otherwise, circulars, handbooks, advertising, or literature of any kind, whether said articles are being delivered free, or whether same are being sold, within the limits of the City of Griffin, without first obtaining written permission from the City Manager of the City of Griffin, such practice shall be deemed a nuisance, and punishable as an offense against the City of Griffin.
Alma Lovell did not contest the fact that she was distributing material in violation of this ordinance, but attested that the ordinance itself was unconstitutional, in that it violated her First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Lovell was convicted in the recorder's court of the City of Griffin, and sentenced to punishment of 50 days in jail, as she had not paid her fine of $50. The county court denied Lovell's appeal. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the lower court, upholding her conviction. The Supreme Court of Georgia denied an application for certiorari. Lovell appealed further, reaching the jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court.
Opinion of the Court[edit]
Chief Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court. Justice Cardozo did not take part in the proceedings.
The Court decided that the city ordinance was unconstitutionally overbroad. Because the ordinance restricted not merely the time, place, or manner of the materials distributed, the Court believed that it was in violation of the First Amendment, and, by extension, the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed that the federal constitutional guarantees would be binding on individual states.
The Court reasoned that the ordinance violated the Freedom of the Press condition of the First Amendment, as the city demanded that all distributed periodicals, not merely those that were considered obscene, offensive to public morals, or which advocate unlawful conduct, obtain a license from the city before they could be distributed. The Court felt that the First Amendment was not limited to periodicals and newspapers, that it necessarily included the publication of leaflets and pamphlets as well.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Lovell v. City of Griffin

Text of Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938) is available from:  Findlaw  Justia





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v ·
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United States First Amendment case law




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[hide] 
Freedom of the press




Prior restraints
 and censorship
Near v. Minnesota (1931) ·
 Lovell v. City of Griffin (1938) ·
 Hannegan v. Esquire (1946) ·
 New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) ·
 Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974) ·
 Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart (1976) ·
 Tory v. Cochran (2005)
 

Privacy
Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) ·
 Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn (1975) ·
 Florida Star v. B. J. F. (1989)
 

Taxation and
 privileges
Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936) ·
 Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) ·
 Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner (1983)
 

Defamation
Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952) ·
 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) ·
 Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967) ·
 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) ·
 Time, Inc. v. Firestone (1976) ·
 Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. (1984) ·
 Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985) ·
 McDonald v. Smith (1985) ·
 Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) ·
 Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton (1989) ·
 Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. (1990) ·
 Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox (2014)
 

Broadcast media
Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) ·
 FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) ·
 Turner Broadcasting v. FCC (1994) ·
 Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001)
 





[show] 
Freedom of association













  


Categories: United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1938 in United States case law
American Civil Liberties Union litigation
Griffin, Georgia
United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1938 in religion


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Lovell v. City of Griffin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Lovell v. City of Griffin
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 4, 1938
 Decided March 28, 1938

Full case name
Alma Lovell v. City of Griffin, Georgia
Citations
303 U.S. 444 (more)
58 S. Ct. 666; 82 L. Ed. 949; 1938 U.S. LEXIS 297

Prior history
Appeal from the Court of Appeals of Georgia
Holding
An ordinance broadly regulating the distribution of literature within the city limits was unconstitutional on its face.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Charles E. Hughes


Associate Justices
James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis
Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone
Owen J. Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed


Case opinions

Majority
Hughes, joined by McReynolds, Brandeis, Butler, Stone, Roberts, Black, Reed
Cardozo took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV
Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938), is a United States Supreme Court case. This case was remarkable in its discussion of the requirement of persons to seek government sanction to distribute religious material. In this particular case, the Supreme Court ruled it was not constitutional for a city to require such sanction.
Background[edit]
Appellant, Alma Lovell, had been distributing literature as a Jehovah's Witness. She was arrested for this, pursuant to a Griffin, Georgia city ordinance which read, in part, that the

practice of distributing, either by hand or otherwise, circulars, handbooks, advertising, or literature of any kind, whether said articles are being delivered free, or whether same are being sold, within the limits of the City of Griffin, without first obtaining written permission from the City Manager of the City of Griffin, such practice shall be deemed a nuisance, and punishable as an offense against the City of Griffin.
Alma Lovell did not contest the fact that she was distributing material in violation of this ordinance, but attested that the ordinance itself was unconstitutional, in that it violated her First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Lovell was convicted in the recorder's court of the City of Griffin, and sentenced to punishment of 50 days in jail, as she had not paid her fine of $50. The county court denied Lovell's appeal. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the lower court, upholding her conviction. The Supreme Court of Georgia denied an application for certiorari. Lovell appealed further, reaching the jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court.
Opinion of the Court[edit]
Chief Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court. Justice Cardozo did not take part in the proceedings.
The Court decided that the city ordinance was unconstitutionally overbroad. Because the ordinance restricted not merely the time, place, or manner of the materials distributed, the Court believed that it was in violation of the First Amendment, and, by extension, the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed that the federal constitutional guarantees would be binding on individual states.
The Court reasoned that the ordinance violated the Freedom of the Press condition of the First Amendment, as the city demanded that all distributed periodicals, not merely those that were considered obscene, offensive to public morals, or which advocate unlawful conduct, obtain a license from the city before they could be distributed. The Court felt that the First Amendment was not limited to periodicals and newspapers, that it necessarily included the publication of leaflets and pamphlets as well.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Lovell v. City of Griffin

Text of Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938) is available from:  Findlaw  Justia





[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
United States First Amendment case law




[show] 
Establishment Clause

























































[show] 
Free Exercise Clause























[show] 
Freedom of speech (portal)






























































































































































































































[hide] 
Freedom of the press




Prior restraints
 and censorship
Near v. Minnesota (1931) ·
 Lovell v. City of Griffin (1938) ·
 Hannegan v. Esquire (1946) ·
 New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) ·
 Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974) ·
 Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart (1976) ·
 Tory v. Cochran (2005)
 

Privacy
Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) ·
 Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn (1975) ·
 Florida Star v. B. J. F. (1989)
 

Taxation and
 privileges
Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936) ·
 Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) ·
 Minneapolis Star Tribune Company v. Commissioner (1983)
 

Defamation
Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952) ·
 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) ·
 Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967) ·
 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) ·
 Time, Inc. v. Firestone (1976) ·
 Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. (1984) ·
 Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985) ·
 McDonald v. Smith (1985) ·
 Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) ·
 Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton (1989) ·
 Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. (1990) ·
 Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox (2014)
 

Broadcast media
Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) ·
 FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) ·
 Turner Broadcasting v. FCC (1994) ·
 Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001)
 





[show] 
Freedom of association













  


Categories: United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1938 in United States case law
American Civil Liberties Union litigation
Griffin, Georgia
United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1938 in religion


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This page was last modified on 13 March 2015, at 00:15.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovell_v._City_of_Griffin








Marsh v. Alabama

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Jump to: navigation, search


Marsh v. Alabama
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 7, 1945
 Decided January 7, 1946

Full case name
Marsh v. State of Alabama
Citations
326 U.S. 501 (more)
Prior history
Defendant found guilty in Alabama Circuit Court; Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed; Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari
Subsequent history
Reversed and Remanded
Holding
Constitutional protections of free speech under First and Fourteenth Amendments still applicable within the confines of a town owned by a private entity.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson
Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton


Case opinions

Majority
Black, joined by Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge
Concurrence
Frankfurter
Dissent
Reed, joined by Stone, Burton
Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const., amend. I, amend. XIV
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk, notwithstanding the fact that the sidewalk where the distribution was taking place was part of a privately owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Facts of the case
3 The court's decision 3.1 Frankfurter's concurring opinion
3.2 Reed's dissenting opinion
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References

Background[edit]
The town of Chickasaw, Alabama was a company town near Mobile, Alabama which was owned and operated by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation ("Gulf"). Aside from the fact that it was owned by a private entity, the town exhibited the general characteristics of a more traditional settlement. The town's policeman was a deputy from the Mobile County Sheriff's Department who was paid by Gulf. The town was surrounded by a number of adjacent neighborhoods which were not located on Gulf property. The Court noted that the residents of these non-Gulf neighborhoods were freely allowed to use the company-owned streets and sidewalks to access the town's businesses and facilities.
Facts of the case[edit]
The appellant, Marsh, a Jehovah's Witness, stood near the post office one day, and began distributing religious literature. Marsh was warned that she needed a permit to do so, and that none would be issued to her. When she was asked to leave, she refused on the grounds that the company rule could not be constitutionally applied to her. The deputy sheriff arrested her and she was charged with the Alabama criminal code's trespassing equivalent.
During her trial, Marsh contended that the statute could not be constitutionally applied to her, as it would necessarily violate her rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments. This contention was rejected and Marsh was convicted. The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the statute as applied was constitutional because the title to the sidewalk was in the corporation's name and because the public use of the sidewalk had not been such as to give rise to a presumption under Alabama law of its irrevocable dedication to the public. The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari, and Marsh appealed her case directly to the United States Supreme Court.
The court's decision[edit]
In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of Marsh. The opinion, joined by three justices, was authored by Justice Hugo Black, with Justice Felix Frankfurter authoring a concurrence, and Justice Stanley Forman Reed authoring a dissent.
The Court initially noted that this would be an easy case if the town were a more traditional, publicly administered, municipality. In such a case it would be a clear violation of the right to free speech for the government to bar the sidewalk distribution of such material. The question became, therefore, whether or not constitutional freedom of speech protections could be denied simply because a single company held title to the town.
The State attempted to analogize the town's rights to the rights of homeowners to regulate the conduct of guests in their home. The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially using a balancing test, weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted, however, that the latter occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
Frankfurter's concurring opinion[edit]
Justice Frankfurter concurred in the Court's opinion with one exception. The majority opinion briefly mentioned the Commerce Clause as possibly being analogous to the case's circumstances. In his concurrence, Justice Frankfurter expressed his opinion that it was unnecessary to look to the Commerce Clause for guidance on a First Amendment issue.
Reed's dissenting opinion[edit]
Justice Reed introduced his dissent by noting that the Constitutional protections for religion, speech, and press are not absolute or unlimited in respect to the manner or place of their exercise. Furthermore, Reed asserted that property rights, which are also protected by the Constitution, "are not outweighed by the interests of the trespasser, even though he trespasses in behalf of religion or free speech."
Subsequent history[edit]
While the Marsh holding at first appears somewhat narrow and inapplicable to the present day due to the disappearance of company towns from the United States, it was raised in the somewhat high-profile 1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996).[1] In that case, Cyber Promotions wished to send out "mass email advertisements" to AOL customers. AOL installed software to block those emails. Cyber Promotions sued on free speech grounds, and cited the Marsh case as authority for the proposition that, even though AOL's servers were private property, AOL had opened them to the public to a degree sufficient that constitutional free speech protections could be applied. The federal district court disagreed, thereby paving the way for spam filters at the ISP level.
In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 326
References[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Marsh v. Alabama

1.Jump up ^ Link to Cyber Promotions opinion (.pdf download)
  


Categories: 1946 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1946 in Alabama
Legal history of Alabama
Mobile County, Alabama
Company towns in Alabama
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
1946 in religion
Christianity and law in the 20th century


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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama








Marsh v. Alabama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Marsh v. Alabama
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 7, 1945
 Decided January 7, 1946

Full case name
Marsh v. State of Alabama
Citations
326 U.S. 501 (more)
Prior history
Defendant found guilty in Alabama Circuit Court; Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed; Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari
Subsequent history
Reversed and Remanded
Holding
Constitutional protections of free speech under First and Fourteenth Amendments still applicable within the confines of a town owned by a private entity.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy · Robert H. Jackson
Wiley B. Rutledge · Harold H. Burton


Case opinions

Majority
Black, joined by Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge
Concurrence
Frankfurter
Dissent
Reed, joined by Stone, Burton
Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const., amend. I, amend. XIV
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk, notwithstanding the fact that the sidewalk where the distribution was taking place was part of a privately owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Facts of the case
3 The court's decision 3.1 Frankfurter's concurring opinion
3.2 Reed's dissenting opinion
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References

Background[edit]
The town of Chickasaw, Alabama was a company town near Mobile, Alabama which was owned and operated by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation ("Gulf"). Aside from the fact that it was owned by a private entity, the town exhibited the general characteristics of a more traditional settlement. The town's policeman was a deputy from the Mobile County Sheriff's Department who was paid by Gulf. The town was surrounded by a number of adjacent neighborhoods which were not located on Gulf property. The Court noted that the residents of these non-Gulf neighborhoods were freely allowed to use the company-owned streets and sidewalks to access the town's businesses and facilities.
Facts of the case[edit]
The appellant, Marsh, a Jehovah's Witness, stood near the post office one day, and began distributing religious literature. Marsh was warned that she needed a permit to do so, and that none would be issued to her. When she was asked to leave, she refused on the grounds that the company rule could not be constitutionally applied to her. The deputy sheriff arrested her and she was charged with the Alabama criminal code's trespassing equivalent.
During her trial, Marsh contended that the statute could not be constitutionally applied to her, as it would necessarily violate her rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments. This contention was rejected and Marsh was convicted. The Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the statute as applied was constitutional because the title to the sidewalk was in the corporation's name and because the public use of the sidewalk had not been such as to give rise to a presumption under Alabama law of its irrevocable dedication to the public. The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari, and Marsh appealed her case directly to the United States Supreme Court.
The court's decision[edit]
In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of Marsh. The opinion, joined by three justices, was authored by Justice Hugo Black, with Justice Felix Frankfurter authoring a concurrence, and Justice Stanley Forman Reed authoring a dissent.
The Court initially noted that this would be an easy case if the town were a more traditional, publicly administered, municipality. In such a case it would be a clear violation of the right to free speech for the government to bar the sidewalk distribution of such material. The question became, therefore, whether or not constitutional freedom of speech protections could be denied simply because a single company held title to the town.
The State attempted to analogize the town's rights to the rights of homeowners to regulate the conduct of guests in their home. The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially using a balancing test, weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted, however, that the latter occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
Frankfurter's concurring opinion[edit]
Justice Frankfurter concurred in the Court's opinion with one exception. The majority opinion briefly mentioned the Commerce Clause as possibly being analogous to the case's circumstances. In his concurrence, Justice Frankfurter expressed his opinion that it was unnecessary to look to the Commerce Clause for guidance on a First Amendment issue.
Reed's dissenting opinion[edit]
Justice Reed introduced his dissent by noting that the Constitutional protections for religion, speech, and press are not absolute or unlimited in respect to the manner or place of their exercise. Furthermore, Reed asserted that property rights, which are also protected by the Constitution, "are not outweighed by the interests of the trespasser, even though he trespasses in behalf of religion or free speech."
Subsequent history[edit]
While the Marsh holding at first appears somewhat narrow and inapplicable to the present day due to the disappearance of company towns from the United States, it was raised in the somewhat high-profile 1996 cyberlaw case, Cyber Promotions v. America Online, 948 F. Supp. 436, 442 (E.D. Pa. 1996).[1] In that case, Cyber Promotions wished to send out "mass email advertisements" to AOL customers. AOL installed software to block those emails. Cyber Promotions sued on free speech grounds, and cited the Marsh case as authority for the proposition that, even though AOL's servers were private property, AOL had opened them to the public to a degree sufficient that constitutional free speech protections could be applied. The federal district court disagreed, thereby paving the way for spam filters at the ISP level.
In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the Supreme Court distinguished a private shopping mall from the company town in Marsh and held that the mall had not been sufficiently dedicated to public use for First Amendment free speech rights to apply within it.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 326
References[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Marsh v. Alabama

1.Jump up ^ Link to Cyber Promotions opinion (.pdf download)
  


Categories: 1946 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1946 in Alabama
Legal history of Alabama
Mobile County, Alabama
Company towns in Alabama
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
1946 in religion
Christianity and law in the 20th century


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Martin v. City of Struthers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search



 This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)

Martin v. Struthers
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 11, 1943
 Decided May 3, 1943

Full case name
Martin v. City of Struthers, Ohio
Citations
319 U.S. 141 (more)
63 S. Ct. 862; 87 L. Ed. 1313; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 1188

Prior history
Appeal from the Supreme Court of Ohio
Holding
A law prohibiting the distribution of handbills from door to door violated the First Amendment rights of a Jehovah's Witness.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Black, joined by Stone, Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge
Concurrence
Murphy
Dissent
Frankfurter
Dissent
Reed, joined by Roberts, Jackson
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a law prohibiting the distribution of handbills from door to door violated the First Amendment rights of a Jehovah's Witness.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Opinion of the Court 2.1 Dissents
3 External links

Background[edit]
"Martin...went to the homes of strangers, knocking on doors and ringing doorbells in order to distribute to the inmates of the homes leaflets advertising a religious meeting. In doing so, she proceeded in a conventional and orderly fashion."
She was convicted "in the Mayor's Court" and fined $10.00 for violating a Struthers, Ohio city ordinance which made it illegal to distribute door-to-door any "handbills, circulars or other advertisements."
Opinion of the Court[edit]
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the lower court. The Court held that the First Amendment protects both "the right to distribute literature" and "the right to receive it" and stated that the distribution of literature is protected "even if it creates the minor nuisance for a community of cleaning liter from its streets." Justice Hugo Black, writing the opinion of the court, stated,

While door to door distributors of literature may be either a nuisance or a blind for criminal activities, they may also be useful members of society engaged in the dissemination of ideas in accordance with the best tradition of free discussion. ...
The ordinance does not control anything but the distribution of literature, and in that respect it substitutes the judgment of the community for the judgment of the individual householder. It submits the distributor to criminal punishment for annoying the person on whom he calls, even though the recipient of the literature distributed is in fact glad to receive it. ...
In any case the problem must be worked out by each community for itself with due respect for the constitutional rights of those desiring to distribute literature and those desiring to receive it, as well as those who choose to exclude such distributors from the home. ...
The Struthers ordinance does not safeguard these constitutional rights. ...
We conclude that the ordinance is invalid because [it is] in conflict with the freedom of speech and press.
Dissents[edit]
Justices Reed, Roberts and Jackson dissented. Justice Reed wrote that

The most ... that can be or has been read into the ordinance is a prohibition of free distribution of printed matter by summoning inmates to their doors. There are excellent reasons to support a determination of the city council that such distributors may not disturb householders while permitting salesmen and others to call them to the door. Practical experience may well convince the council that irritations arise frequently from this method of advertising. The classification is certainly not discriminatory.
...
To prohibit such a call leaves open distribution of the notice on the street or at the home without signal to announce its deposit. Such assurance of privacy falls far short of an abridgment of freedom of the press.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Martin v. City of Struthers

Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com


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Sedition and
 imminent danger
Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) ·
 Schenck v. United States (1919) ·
 Abrams v. United States (1919) ·
 Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten (S.D.N.Y. 1917) ·
 Gitlow v. New York (1925) ·
 Whitney v. California (1927) ·
 Dennis v. United States (1951) ·
 Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1955, 1961) ·
 Yates v. United States (1957) ·
 Bond v. Floyd (1966) ·
 Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)
 

False speech
United States v. Alvarez (2012)
 

Fighting words and
 the heckler's veto
Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) ·
 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) ·
 Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) ·
 Feiner v. New York (1951) ·
 Gregory v. Chicago (1969) ·
 National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977) ·
 R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) ·
 Snyder v. Phelps (2011)
 

Freedom of assembly
 and public forums
Hague v. CIO (1939) ·
 Schneider v. New Jersey (1939) ·
 Martin v. Struthers (1943) ·
 Niemotko v. Maryland (1951) ·
 Edwards v. South Carolina (1963) ·
 Cox v. Louisiana (1965) ·
 Brown v. Louisiana (1966) ·
 Adderley v. Florida (1966) ·
 Carroll v. Princess Anne (1968) ·
 Coates v. Cincinnati (1971) ·
 Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) ·
 Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner (1972) ·
 Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980) ·
 Hill v. Colorado (2000) ·
 McCullen v. Coakley (2014)
 

Symbolic speech
Stromberg v. California (1931) ·
 United States v. O'Brien (1968) ·
 Cohen v. California (1971) ·
 Smith v. Goguen (1974) ·
 Texas v. Johnson (1989) ·
 United States v. Eichman (1990) ·
 Virginia v. Black (2003)
 

Compelled speech
Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) ·
 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) ·
 Wooley v. Maynard (1977) ·
 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth (2000) ·
 Davenport v. Washington Education Association (2007) ·
 Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (2012) ·
 Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. (2013)
 

Loyalty oaths
American Communications Association v. Douds (1950) ·
 Garner v. Board of Public Works (1951) ·
 Speiser v. Randall (1958) ·
 Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1965) ·
 Communist Party of Indiana v. Whitcomb (1974)
 

School speech
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) ·
 Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) ·
 Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986) ·
 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) ·
 Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995) ·
 Morse v. Frederick (2007)
 

Obscenity
Rosen v. United States (1896) ·
 United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (S.D.N.Y. 1933) ·
 Roth v. United States (1957) ·
 One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958) ·
 Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) ·
 MANual Enterprises v. Day (1962) ·
 Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) ·
 Quantity of Books v. Kansas (1964) ·
 Freedman v. Maryland (1965) ·
 Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) ·
 Redrup v. New York (1967) ·
 Ginsberg v. New York (1968) ·
 Stanley v. Georgia (1969) ·
 Cohen v. California (1971) ·
 United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) ·
 Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) ·
 Miller v. California (1973) ·
 Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) ·
 United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) ·
 Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) ·
 Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975) ·
 Young v. American Mini Theatres (1976) ·
 New York v. Ferber (1982) ·
 American Booksellers v. Hudnut (7th Cir., 1985) ·
 Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) ·
 Osborne v. Ohio (1990) ·
 United States v. X-Citement Video (1994) ·
 Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) ·
 United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000) ·
 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) ·
 Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002) ·
 Nitke v. Gonzales (S.D.N.Y., 2005) ·
 United States v. Williams (2008) ·
 FCC v. Fox Televisions Stations - 2 cases (2009 and 2012) ·
 American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Strickland (6th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Kilbride (9th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Stevens (2010) ·
 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011)
 

Public employees
Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) ·
 Perry v. Sindermann (1972) ·
 Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972) ·
 Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle (1977) ·
 Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District (1979) ·
 Connick v. Myers (1983) ·
 Rankin v. McPherson (1987) ·
 Waters v. Churchill (1994) ·
 Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) ·
 Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri (2011)
 

Hatch Act
 and similar laws
Ex parte Curtis (1882) ·
 United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947) ·
 United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers (1973) ·
 Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)
 

Licensing and
 restriction of speech
Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915) ·
 Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) ·
 Freedman v. Maryland (1965) ·
 Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976) ·
 Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982)
 

Commercial speech
Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942) ·
 Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept. (1970) ·
 Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations (1973) ·
 Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1974) ·
 Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977) ·
 Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro (1977) ·
 Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980) ·
 Consol. Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n (1980) ·
 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California (1986) ·
 Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico (1986) ·
 San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee (1987) ·
 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)
 

Campaign finance and
 political speech
Buckley v. Valeo (1976) ·
 First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) ·
 Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley (1981) ·
 California Medical Association v. FEC (1981) ·
 Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee (1982) ·
 Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington (1983) ·
 FEC v. National Conservative Political Action Committee (1985) ·
 FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (1986) ·
 Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) ·
 McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) ·
 Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC (1996) ·
 Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) ·
 FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) ·
 Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002) ·
 McConnell v. FEC (2003) ·
 FEC v. Beaumont (2003) ·
 Randall v. Sorrell (2006) ·
 FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) ·
 Davis v. FEC (2008) ·
 Citizens United v. FEC (2010) ·
 McComish v. Bennett (2011) ·
 American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock (2012) ·
 McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014)
 





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Categories: 1943 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Free Speech Clause case law
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1943 in religion
American Civil Liberties Union litigation
Mahoning County, Ohio
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century





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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_v._City_of_Struthers








Martin v. City of Struthers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search



 This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)

Martin v. Struthers
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 11, 1943
 Decided May 3, 1943

Full case name
Martin v. City of Struthers, Ohio
Citations
319 U.S. 141 (more)
63 S. Ct. 862; 87 L. Ed. 1313; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 1188

Prior history
Appeal from the Supreme Court of Ohio
Holding
A law prohibiting the distribution of handbills from door to door violated the First Amendment rights of a Jehovah's Witness.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Black, joined by Stone, Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge
Concurrence
Murphy
Dissent
Frankfurter
Dissent
Reed, joined by Roberts, Jackson
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a law prohibiting the distribution of handbills from door to door violated the First Amendment rights of a Jehovah's Witness.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 Opinion of the Court 2.1 Dissents
3 External links

Background[edit]
"Martin...went to the homes of strangers, knocking on doors and ringing doorbells in order to distribute to the inmates of the homes leaflets advertising a religious meeting. In doing so, she proceeded in a conventional and orderly fashion."
She was convicted "in the Mayor's Court" and fined $10.00 for violating a Struthers, Ohio city ordinance which made it illegal to distribute door-to-door any "handbills, circulars or other advertisements."
Opinion of the Court[edit]
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the lower court. The Court held that the First Amendment protects both "the right to distribute literature" and "the right to receive it" and stated that the distribution of literature is protected "even if it creates the minor nuisance for a community of cleaning liter from its streets." Justice Hugo Black, writing the opinion of the court, stated,

While door to door distributors of literature may be either a nuisance or a blind for criminal activities, they may also be useful members of society engaged in the dissemination of ideas in accordance with the best tradition of free discussion. ...
The ordinance does not control anything but the distribution of literature, and in that respect it substitutes the judgment of the community for the judgment of the individual householder. It submits the distributor to criminal punishment for annoying the person on whom he calls, even though the recipient of the literature distributed is in fact glad to receive it. ...
In any case the problem must be worked out by each community for itself with due respect for the constitutional rights of those desiring to distribute literature and those desiring to receive it, as well as those who choose to exclude such distributors from the home. ...
The Struthers ordinance does not safeguard these constitutional rights. ...
We conclude that the ordinance is invalid because [it is] in conflict with the freedom of speech and press.
Dissents[edit]
Justices Reed, Roberts and Jackson dissented. Justice Reed wrote that

The most ... that can be or has been read into the ordinance is a prohibition of free distribution of printed matter by summoning inmates to their doors. There are excellent reasons to support a determination of the city council that such distributors may not disturb householders while permitting salesmen and others to call them to the door. Practical experience may well convince the council that irritations arise frequently from this method of advertising. The classification is certainly not discriminatory.
...
To prohibit such a call leaves open distribution of the notice on the street or at the home without signal to announce its deposit. Such assurance of privacy falls far short of an abridgment of freedom of the press.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Martin v. City of Struthers

Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com


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Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) ·
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False speech
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Fighting words and
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Freedom of assembly
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Hague v. CIO (1939) ·
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Symbolic speech
Stromberg v. California (1931) ·
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 United States v. Eichman (1990) ·
 Virginia v. Black (2003)
 

Compelled speech
Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) ·
 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) ·
 Wooley v. Maynard (1977) ·
 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth (2000) ·
 Davenport v. Washington Education Association (2007) ·
 Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (2012) ·
 Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. (2013)
 

Loyalty oaths
American Communications Association v. Douds (1950) ·
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School speech
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Obscenity
Rosen v. United States (1896) ·
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 Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) ·
 Redrup v. New York (1967) ·
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 Stanley v. Georgia (1969) ·
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 United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) ·
 Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) ·
 Miller v. California (1973) ·
 Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) ·
 United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) ·
 Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) ·
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 Young v. American Mini Theatres (1976) ·
 New York v. Ferber (1982) ·
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 Osborne v. Ohio (1990) ·
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 Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) ·
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 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) ·
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 Nitke v. Gonzales (S.D.N.Y., 2005) ·
 United States v. Williams (2008) ·
 FCC v. Fox Televisions Stations - 2 cases (2009 and 2012) ·
 American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Strickland (6th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Kilbride (9th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Stevens (2010) ·
 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011)
 

Public employees
Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) ·
 Perry v. Sindermann (1972) ·
 Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972) ·
 Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle (1977) ·
 Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District (1979) ·
 Connick v. Myers (1983) ·
 Rankin v. McPherson (1987) ·
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Hatch Act
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Ex parte Curtis (1882) ·
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Licensing and
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Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915) ·
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 Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982)
 

Commercial speech
Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942) ·
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 Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977) ·
 Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro (1977) ·
 Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980) ·
 Consol. Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n (1980) ·
 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California (1986) ·
 Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico (1986) ·
 San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee (1987) ·
 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)
 

Campaign finance and
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Buckley v. Valeo (1976) ·
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Categories: 1943 in United States case law
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1943 in religion
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Mahoning County, Ohio
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Minersville School District v. Gobitis

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Minersville School District v. Gobitis
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 25, 1940
 Decided June 3, 1940

Full case name
Minersville School District, Board of Education of Minersville School District, et al. v. Walter Gobitis, et al.
Citations
310 U.S. 586 (more)
60 S. Ct. 1010; 84 L. Ed. 1375; 1940 U.S. LEXIS 1136; 17 Ohio Op. 417; 127 A.L.R. 1493

Prior history
Judgment for plaintiffs, injunction granted, 24 F. Supp. 271 (E.D. Pa. 1938); affirmed, 108 F.2d 683 (3d Cir. 1939); certiorari granted, 309 U.S. 645 (1940)
Subsequent history
None
Holding
The First Amendment does not require States to excuse public school students from saluting the American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance on religious grounds. Third Circuit reversed.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Charles E. Hughes


Associate Justices
James C. McReynolds
Harlan F. Stone · Owen J. Roberts
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy


Case opinions

Majority
Frankfurter, joined by Roberts, Black, Reed, Douglas, Murphy, Hughes
Concurrence
McReynolds (without separate opinion)
Dissent
Stone
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I
Overruled by

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American Flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices. This decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the United States. The Supreme Court overruled this decision a mere three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).


Contents  [hide]
1 Background 1.1 Jehovah's Witnesses and compulsory flag pledges
1.2 Facts of the case
1.3 Trial
1.4 Third Circuit
1.5 Oral argument
2 Opinion of the court 2.1 Dissenting opinion
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 Notes
7 Further reading
8 External links

Background[edit]
Jehovah's Witnesses and compulsory flag pledges[edit]
Compulsory flag pledges. Mandatory flag pledges in public schools were motivated by patriotic fervor in wartime America. The first known mandatory flag pledges were instituted in a number of states during the Spanish–American War. During World War I, many more states instituted mandatory flag pledges with only a few dissents recorded by the American Civil Liberties Union.
1935, June: Position of the Jehovah's Witnesses. On Monday, June 3, 1935, Watch Tower Society president J. F. Rutherford, was interviewed at a Witness convention about "the flag salute by children in school". He told the convention audience that to salute an earthly emblem, ascribing salvation to it, was unfaithfulness to God. Rutherford said that he would not do it."[1] While the matter was not yet established doctrine or written policy of Jehovah's Witnesses, at least some Witness families quickly made a personal conscientious decision on the matter.[2]
1935, September: First refusal by a Jehovah's Witness. In 1935 in Lynn, Massachusetts, a third-grader and Jehovah’s Witness named Carleton Nichols[3] refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was expelled from school.[4] The Nichols incident received widespread media attention, and other Witness students soon followed suit. Rutherford gave a radio address praising Nichols,[5] and schools around the country began expelling Witness students and firing Witness teachers. Jehovah's Witnesses published the booklet Loyalty, making the matter an official doctrine of the faith before the end of 1935. Witnesses hired teachers and set up “Kingdom schools” to continue their children’s education.
The national leadership subsequently decided to make an issue of the forced pledges and asked people to stand up for their right to religious freedom.[6]
Facts of the case[edit]
Walter Gobitas[7] was a recent convert to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Gobitas was inspired by stories of other Jehovah's Witnesses who challenged the system and suffered for it, and decided to make a stand himself and instructed his children not to pledge allegiance when at school.
Minersville, Pennsylvania was predominantly Roman Catholic and there was significant animosity towards the Jehovah's Witnesses. Tensions were already high before this case arose and many viewed this as one way to get back at the Witnesses. As a result, his children were subjected to teasing, taunting, and attacks from the other kids. For Lillian, this meant giving up her status as class president and losing most of her friends. "When I'd come to school," she said, "they would throw a hail of pebbles and yell things like, 'Here comes Jehovah!' Billy's fifth grade teacher attempted to physically force his arm out of his pocket to make the requisite salute[8]
A local Catholic church started a boycott of the family store and its business dropped off. Because of their eventual expulsion, their father had to pay for them to enroll in a private school, resulting in even more economic hardship[citation needed].
At first the school board was in a quandary because the law did not provide penalties for those who refused to pledge. Finally, though, the school board got permission to punish the Gobitas children and expelled them, without appeal[citation needed].
Trial[edit]
The case was argued in Philadelphia on 15 February 1938. During the trial, school superintendent Roudabush displayed contempt for the beliefs of the children, stating that he felt they had been "indoctrinated" and that the existence of even a few dissenters would be "demoralizing," leading to widespread disregard for the flag and American values. Four months later District Judge Albert B. Maris found that the board's requirement that the children salute the flag was an unconstitutional violation of their free exercise of religious beliefs.[9]
Third Circuit[edit]
Within two weeks, the school board unanimously agreed to appeal the decision. Oral arguments in the appeal were made before the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals on 9 November 1938. One year later, the three-judge court unanimously affirmed the district court decision.[10]
Despite its two defeats in the lower courts, the school board decided to take its case to the Supreme Court, authorizing its attorney to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the Court granted on 4 March 1940.[11]
Oral argument[edit]
The Court heard oral arguments on 25 April. Joseph Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Society, and himself a lawyer, took over the defense, assisted by the new head of the religious group's Legal Department, Hayden Covington.[12] The ACLU and the Committee on the Bill of Rights of the American Bar Association filed amicus curiae briefs.[12]
Opinion of the court[edit]
The Court's decision was nearly unanimous; only Justice Harlan F. Stone dissented. In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the mandatory flag salute, declining to make itself "the school board for the country."
Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote the majority decision; in doing so, he relied primarily on the "secular regulation" rule, which weighs the secular purpose of a nonreligious government regulation against the religious practice it makes illegal or otherwise burdens the exercise of religion. He identified the Pennsylvania flag-salute requirement as an intrinsically secular policy enacted to encourage patriotism among school children.
Frankfurter wrote that the school district's interest in creating national unity was enough to allow them to require students to salute the flag. According to Frankfurter, the nation needed loyalty and the unity of all the people. Since saluting the flag was a primary means of achieving this legitimate goal, an issue of national importance was at stake.
The Court held that the state's interest in "national cohesion" was "inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values".

National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.
Weighing the circumstances in this case, he argued that the social need for conformity with the requirement was greater than the individual liberty claims of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He emphasized that

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs
Frankfurter further wrote that the recitation of a pledge advanced the cause of patriotism in the United States. He said the country's foundation as a free society depends upon building sentimental ties.
The flag, the Court found, was an important symbol of national unity and could be a part of legislative initiatives designed "to promote in the minds of children who attend the common schools an attachment to the institutions of their country."[13]



Dissenting opinion[edit]
Harlan Stone, the lone dissenter from the majority's decision wrote:

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...
Effects of the decision[edit]
On June 9, a mob of 2,500 burned the Kingdom Hall in Kennebunkport, Maine.[14] On June 16, Litchfield, Illinois police jailed all of that town's sixty Witnesses, ostensibly protecting them from their neighbors. On June 18, townspeople in Rawlins, Wyoming brutally beat five Witnesses; on June 22, the people of Parco, Wyoming tarred and feathered another.
American Legion posts harassed Witnesses nationwide. For example, on June 27, members of the American Legion forced Witnesses from a trailer camp in Jackson, Mississippi and escorted them across state lines to Louisiana, where they were "...passed from county to county, finally winding up in the vicinity of Dallas, Texas."[citation needed] A Nebraska Witness was castrated[citation needed]. Little Rock Witnesses were beaten with pipes and screwdrivers[citation needed]. West Virginia Witnesses were forced to drink castor oil and then tied together with police department rope[citation needed]. Witnesses were jailed for sedition, jailed for distributing literature, jailed for holding a parade, jailed for canvassing without a license[citation needed].
The American Civil Liberties Union reported to the Justice Department that nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically attacked in more than 300 communities nationwide. One Southern sheriff told a reporter why Witnesses were being run out of town: "They're traitors; the Supreme Court says so. Ain't you heard?"[citation needed]
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed publicly for calm, while newspaper editorials and the American legal community condemned the Gobitis decision as a blow to liberty. On June 8, 1942, Supreme Court Justices Black, Douglas and Murphy stated in their opinion on Jones v. City Of Opelika that although they concurred with the majority in the Gobitis case, they now believed that case had been wrongly decided.[15]
Subsequent history[edit]
Partly because of the violent reaction to its decision, including the lynching of Jehovah Witnesses according to Shawn Francis Peters in his book Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution And the Dawn of the Rights Revolution, the Supreme Court reversed itself a few years later. On 14 June 1943 (Flag Day), the court handed down West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Justice Robert Jackson echoed Justice Stone's dissent when he wrote, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion".[16]
Justice Frank Murphy considered the reversal to be an important personal landmark.[17]
The elevation of Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice, and the appointment of two new members to the Supreme Court, were also factors in the Court's reversal of policy.[18]
The active persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses abated somewhat, although thousands were arrested during World War II for seeking religious exemption from military service. They were accused of being unpatriotic, even being Nazi sympathizers.[19]
See also[edit]
Knocking, a documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses that features Lillian and William Gobitis
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 310
Letter, Billy Gobitas to Minersville, Pennsylvania, school directors, explaining why the young Jehovah's Witness refused to salute the American flag, 5 November 1935. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/016))
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1975 Watch Tower, page 168
2.Jump up ^ The Gobitas family seems to have made such a personal conscientious decision in the weeks between the convention and the beginning of the new school year (typically about September 1 in the United States). According to her later written account, then-eleven-year-old Lillian Gobitas and her ten-year-old brother were impressed by Rutherford's answer, and they "talked about it with our parents and looked up Exodus 20:4-6, 1 John 5:21, and Matthew 22:21. Mom and Dad never pressured us or made us feel guilty. When school opened in September, we were very much aware of what we ought to do." - See Lillian Gobitas memoir "The Courage to Put God First", Awake!, July 22, 1993, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 13
3.Jump up ^ Nichols name was misspelled in some reports, and in the early case Carlton B. Nicholls v. Mayor and School Committee of Lynn (Massachusetts), wherein Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that no allowance need be made for religious belief by mandatory school flag salutes. See "‘Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News’", Jehovah's Witnesses – Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 684-685
4.Jump up ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1975 Watch Tower, page 168, "[In addition to Nichols, at least one other Witness student,] Barbara Meredith, took the same stand at her school in Sudbury, Massachusetts, the same day.” But her situation did not reach the press, as she had a teacher who was tolerant and did not make an issue out of it."
5.Jump up ^ Anecdotally, Rutherford's radio address further solidified the resolution of Witnesses and their children to pointedly refuse to salute the flag. Lillian Gobitas writes that for the first few weeks of school in September 1935 she had silently mouthed, but not actually uttered, the pledge; she changed her view, she writes, when on...
 "October 6, Brother Rutherford made a coast-to-coast radio broadcast entitled “Saluting a Flag.” He explained that we respect the flag but that going through rituals before an image or emblem was actually idolatry. Our relationship with Jehovah would strictly forbid this.
 "On October 22, Bill [Gobitas, her brother], just ten years old, came home from school all smiles. “I stopped saluting the flag!” he said triumphantly. “The teacher tried to put up my arm, but I held on to my pocket.”
"The next morning, heart pounding, I went to my teacher before class so that I wouldn’t weaken. “Miss Shofstal,” I stammered, “I can’t salute the flag anymore. The Bible says at Exodus chapter 20 that we can’t have any other gods before Jehovah God.” To my surprise she just hugged me and said what a dear girl I was. Well, when the flag ceremony time came, I did not join in the salute."
 -"The Courage to Put God First", Awake!, July 22, 1993, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 13
6.Jump up ^ Those who heeded this call and challenged the practice of pledging the flag were accused of working with or being duped by German sympathizers. Ironically, Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany under Hitler rule were sentenced to concentration camps for the same reason, namely the denial to salute national symbols. A further irony lay in the fact that, at the time, many flag pledges were performed not with the right hand over the heart as they are today, but instead with an outstretched right hand, a gesture which has now become associated with the "Sieg Heil" salute of the Nazis.
7.Jump up ^ The name was misspelled "Gobitis" in the Court's decision, but was in fact "Gobitas."
8.Jump up ^ Panchyk, Richard (2007). "sidebar:Interview with Lillian Gobitas Klouse". Our Supreme Court: A History with 14 Activities. Chicago Review Press, Inc. p. 77.
9.Jump up ^ Gobitis v, Minersville School District, 24 F.Supp. 271 (E.D. Pa. 1938)
10.Jump up ^ Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 108 F.2d 685 (3d Cir. 1939)
11.Jump up ^ Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 309 U.S. 645 (1940)
12.^ Jump up to: a b Manwaring, Render Unto Caesar
13.Jump up ^ "Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586". The Oyez Project (U.S. Supreme Court media). 1940. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
14.Jump up ^ "The Courage to Put God First". Awake!: p. 15. 1993-07-22.
15.Jump up ^ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=316&page=584
16.Jump up ^ Konkoly, Toni. Law, Power & Personality, The Supreme Court, Famous Dissents: Minersville School District v. Gobitis. Public Broadcasting Service.
17.Jump up ^ University of Michigan Law Quadrangle Notes on Frank Murphy.
18.Jump up ^ Leming, Robert S. ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN. Teaching about Landmark Dissents in United States Supreme Court Cases. ERIC Digest.
19.Jump up ^ Sittser, Gerald Lawson (1 June 1997). A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches & the Second World War. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-8078-2333-0. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
Further reading[edit]
Tushnet, Mark, ed. (2008) I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases, Malaysia: Beacon Press, pp. 256, ISBN 978-0-8070-0036-6.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Minersville School District v. Gobitis

Full text of decision at findlaw.com
Billy Gobitas' letter to Minersville, Pennsylvania, school directors, explaining why the young Jehovah's Witness refused to salute the American flag, 5 November 1935. (image)
Lillian Gobitas Klose, Schoolgirl at Center of Historic 1940 Supreme Court Case, Dies at 90


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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minersville_School_District_v._Gobitis








Minersville School District v. Gobitis

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Minersville School District v. Gobitis
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 25, 1940
 Decided June 3, 1940

Full case name
Minersville School District, Board of Education of Minersville School District, et al. v. Walter Gobitis, et al.
Citations
310 U.S. 586 (more)
60 S. Ct. 1010; 84 L. Ed. 1375; 1940 U.S. LEXIS 1136; 17 Ohio Op. 417; 127 A.L.R. 1493

Prior history
Judgment for plaintiffs, injunction granted, 24 F. Supp. 271 (E.D. Pa. 1938); affirmed, 108 F.2d 683 (3d Cir. 1939); certiorari granted, 309 U.S. 645 (1940)
Subsequent history
None
Holding
The First Amendment does not require States to excuse public school students from saluting the American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance on religious grounds. Third Circuit reversed.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Charles E. Hughes


Associate Justices
James C. McReynolds
Harlan F. Stone · Owen J. Roberts
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Frank Murphy


Case opinions

Majority
Frankfurter, joined by Roberts, Black, Reed, Douglas, Murphy, Hughes
Concurrence
McReynolds (without separate opinion)
Dissent
Stone
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I
Overruled by

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American Flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices. This decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the United States. The Supreme Court overruled this decision a mere three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).


Contents  [hide]
1 Background 1.1 Jehovah's Witnesses and compulsory flag pledges
1.2 Facts of the case
1.3 Trial
1.4 Third Circuit
1.5 Oral argument
2 Opinion of the court 2.1 Dissenting opinion
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 Notes
7 Further reading
8 External links

Background[edit]
Jehovah's Witnesses and compulsory flag pledges[edit]
Compulsory flag pledges. Mandatory flag pledges in public schools were motivated by patriotic fervor in wartime America. The first known mandatory flag pledges were instituted in a number of states during the Spanish–American War. During World War I, many more states instituted mandatory flag pledges with only a few dissents recorded by the American Civil Liberties Union.
1935, June: Position of the Jehovah's Witnesses. On Monday, June 3, 1935, Watch Tower Society president J. F. Rutherford, was interviewed at a Witness convention about "the flag salute by children in school". He told the convention audience that to salute an earthly emblem, ascribing salvation to it, was unfaithfulness to God. Rutherford said that he would not do it."[1] While the matter was not yet established doctrine or written policy of Jehovah's Witnesses, at least some Witness families quickly made a personal conscientious decision on the matter.[2]
1935, September: First refusal by a Jehovah's Witness. In 1935 in Lynn, Massachusetts, a third-grader and Jehovah’s Witness named Carleton Nichols[3] refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was expelled from school.[4] The Nichols incident received widespread media attention, and other Witness students soon followed suit. Rutherford gave a radio address praising Nichols,[5] and schools around the country began expelling Witness students and firing Witness teachers. Jehovah's Witnesses published the booklet Loyalty, making the matter an official doctrine of the faith before the end of 1935. Witnesses hired teachers and set up “Kingdom schools” to continue their children’s education.
The national leadership subsequently decided to make an issue of the forced pledges and asked people to stand up for their right to religious freedom.[6]
Facts of the case[edit]
Walter Gobitas[7] was a recent convert to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Gobitas was inspired by stories of other Jehovah's Witnesses who challenged the system and suffered for it, and decided to make a stand himself and instructed his children not to pledge allegiance when at school.
Minersville, Pennsylvania was predominantly Roman Catholic and there was significant animosity towards the Jehovah's Witnesses. Tensions were already high before this case arose and many viewed this as one way to get back at the Witnesses. As a result, his children were subjected to teasing, taunting, and attacks from the other kids. For Lillian, this meant giving up her status as class president and losing most of her friends. "When I'd come to school," she said, "they would throw a hail of pebbles and yell things like, 'Here comes Jehovah!' Billy's fifth grade teacher attempted to physically force his arm out of his pocket to make the requisite salute[8]
A local Catholic church started a boycott of the family store and its business dropped off. Because of their eventual expulsion, their father had to pay for them to enroll in a private school, resulting in even more economic hardship[citation needed].
At first the school board was in a quandary because the law did not provide penalties for those who refused to pledge. Finally, though, the school board got permission to punish the Gobitas children and expelled them, without appeal[citation needed].
Trial[edit]
The case was argued in Philadelphia on 15 February 1938. During the trial, school superintendent Roudabush displayed contempt for the beliefs of the children, stating that he felt they had been "indoctrinated" and that the existence of even a few dissenters would be "demoralizing," leading to widespread disregard for the flag and American values. Four months later District Judge Albert B. Maris found that the board's requirement that the children salute the flag was an unconstitutional violation of their free exercise of religious beliefs.[9]
Third Circuit[edit]
Within two weeks, the school board unanimously agreed to appeal the decision. Oral arguments in the appeal were made before the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals on 9 November 1938. One year later, the three-judge court unanimously affirmed the district court decision.[10]
Despite its two defeats in the lower courts, the school board decided to take its case to the Supreme Court, authorizing its attorney to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the Court granted on 4 March 1940.[11]
Oral argument[edit]
The Court heard oral arguments on 25 April. Joseph Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Society, and himself a lawyer, took over the defense, assisted by the new head of the religious group's Legal Department, Hayden Covington.[12] The ACLU and the Committee on the Bill of Rights of the American Bar Association filed amicus curiae briefs.[12]
Opinion of the court[edit]
The Court's decision was nearly unanimous; only Justice Harlan F. Stone dissented. In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the mandatory flag salute, declining to make itself "the school board for the country."
Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote the majority decision; in doing so, he relied primarily on the "secular regulation" rule, which weighs the secular purpose of a nonreligious government regulation against the religious practice it makes illegal or otherwise burdens the exercise of religion. He identified the Pennsylvania flag-salute requirement as an intrinsically secular policy enacted to encourage patriotism among school children.
Frankfurter wrote that the school district's interest in creating national unity was enough to allow them to require students to salute the flag. According to Frankfurter, the nation needed loyalty and the unity of all the people. Since saluting the flag was a primary means of achieving this legitimate goal, an issue of national importance was at stake.
The Court held that the state's interest in "national cohesion" was "inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values".

National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.
Weighing the circumstances in this case, he argued that the social need for conformity with the requirement was greater than the individual liberty claims of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He emphasized that

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs
Frankfurter further wrote that the recitation of a pledge advanced the cause of patriotism in the United States. He said the country's foundation as a free society depends upon building sentimental ties.
The flag, the Court found, was an important symbol of national unity and could be a part of legislative initiatives designed "to promote in the minds of children who attend the common schools an attachment to the institutions of their country."[13]



Dissenting opinion[edit]
Harlan Stone, the lone dissenter from the majority's decision wrote:

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...
Effects of the decision[edit]
On June 9, a mob of 2,500 burned the Kingdom Hall in Kennebunkport, Maine.[14] On June 16, Litchfield, Illinois police jailed all of that town's sixty Witnesses, ostensibly protecting them from their neighbors. On June 18, townspeople in Rawlins, Wyoming brutally beat five Witnesses; on June 22, the people of Parco, Wyoming tarred and feathered another.
American Legion posts harassed Witnesses nationwide. For example, on June 27, members of the American Legion forced Witnesses from a trailer camp in Jackson, Mississippi and escorted them across state lines to Louisiana, where they were "...passed from county to county, finally winding up in the vicinity of Dallas, Texas."[citation needed] A Nebraska Witness was castrated[citation needed]. Little Rock Witnesses were beaten with pipes and screwdrivers[citation needed]. West Virginia Witnesses were forced to drink castor oil and then tied together with police department rope[citation needed]. Witnesses were jailed for sedition, jailed for distributing literature, jailed for holding a parade, jailed for canvassing without a license[citation needed].
The American Civil Liberties Union reported to the Justice Department that nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically attacked in more than 300 communities nationwide. One Southern sheriff told a reporter why Witnesses were being run out of town: "They're traitors; the Supreme Court says so. Ain't you heard?"[citation needed]
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed publicly for calm, while newspaper editorials and the American legal community condemned the Gobitis decision as a blow to liberty. On June 8, 1942, Supreme Court Justices Black, Douglas and Murphy stated in their opinion on Jones v. City Of Opelika that although they concurred with the majority in the Gobitis case, they now believed that case had been wrongly decided.[15]
Subsequent history[edit]
Partly because of the violent reaction to its decision, including the lynching of Jehovah Witnesses according to Shawn Francis Peters in his book Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution And the Dawn of the Rights Revolution, the Supreme Court reversed itself a few years later. On 14 June 1943 (Flag Day), the court handed down West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Justice Robert Jackson echoed Justice Stone's dissent when he wrote, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion".[16]
Justice Frank Murphy considered the reversal to be an important personal landmark.[17]
The elevation of Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice, and the appointment of two new members to the Supreme Court, were also factors in the Court's reversal of policy.[18]
The active persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses abated somewhat, although thousands were arrested during World War II for seeking religious exemption from military service. They were accused of being unpatriotic, even being Nazi sympathizers.[19]
See also[edit]
Knocking, a documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses that features Lillian and William Gobitis
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 310
Letter, Billy Gobitas to Minersville, Pennsylvania, school directors, explaining why the young Jehovah's Witness refused to salute the American flag, 5 November 1935. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/016))
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1975 Watch Tower, page 168
2.Jump up ^ The Gobitas family seems to have made such a personal conscientious decision in the weeks between the convention and the beginning of the new school year (typically about September 1 in the United States). According to her later written account, then-eleven-year-old Lillian Gobitas and her ten-year-old brother were impressed by Rutherford's answer, and they "talked about it with our parents and looked up Exodus 20:4-6, 1 John 5:21, and Matthew 22:21. Mom and Dad never pressured us or made us feel guilty. When school opened in September, we were very much aware of what we ought to do." - See Lillian Gobitas memoir "The Courage to Put God First", Awake!, July 22, 1993, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 13
3.Jump up ^ Nichols name was misspelled in some reports, and in the early case Carlton B. Nicholls v. Mayor and School Committee of Lynn (Massachusetts), wherein Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that no allowance need be made for religious belief by mandatory school flag salutes. See "‘Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News’", Jehovah's Witnesses – Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 684-685
4.Jump up ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, ©1975 Watch Tower, page 168, "[In addition to Nichols, at least one other Witness student,] Barbara Meredith, took the same stand at her school in Sudbury, Massachusetts, the same day.” But her situation did not reach the press, as she had a teacher who was tolerant and did not make an issue out of it."
5.Jump up ^ Anecdotally, Rutherford's radio address further solidified the resolution of Witnesses and their children to pointedly refuse to salute the flag. Lillian Gobitas writes that for the first few weeks of school in September 1935 she had silently mouthed, but not actually uttered, the pledge; she changed her view, she writes, when on...
 "October 6, Brother Rutherford made a coast-to-coast radio broadcast entitled “Saluting a Flag.” He explained that we respect the flag but that going through rituals before an image or emblem was actually idolatry. Our relationship with Jehovah would strictly forbid this.
 "On October 22, Bill [Gobitas, her brother], just ten years old, came home from school all smiles. “I stopped saluting the flag!” he said triumphantly. “The teacher tried to put up my arm, but I held on to my pocket.”
"The next morning, heart pounding, I went to my teacher before class so that I wouldn’t weaken. “Miss Shofstal,” I stammered, “I can’t salute the flag anymore. The Bible says at Exodus chapter 20 that we can’t have any other gods before Jehovah God.” To my surprise she just hugged me and said what a dear girl I was. Well, when the flag ceremony time came, I did not join in the salute."
 -"The Courage to Put God First", Awake!, July 22, 1993, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 13
6.Jump up ^ Those who heeded this call and challenged the practice of pledging the flag were accused of working with or being duped by German sympathizers. Ironically, Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany under Hitler rule were sentenced to concentration camps for the same reason, namely the denial to salute national symbols. A further irony lay in the fact that, at the time, many flag pledges were performed not with the right hand over the heart as they are today, but instead with an outstretched right hand, a gesture which has now become associated with the "Sieg Heil" salute of the Nazis.
7.Jump up ^ The name was misspelled "Gobitis" in the Court's decision, but was in fact "Gobitas."
8.Jump up ^ Panchyk, Richard (2007). "sidebar:Interview with Lillian Gobitas Klouse". Our Supreme Court: A History with 14 Activities. Chicago Review Press, Inc. p. 77.
9.Jump up ^ Gobitis v, Minersville School District, 24 F.Supp. 271 (E.D. Pa. 1938)
10.Jump up ^ Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 108 F.2d 685 (3d Cir. 1939)
11.Jump up ^ Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 309 U.S. 645 (1940)
12.^ Jump up to: a b Manwaring, Render Unto Caesar
13.Jump up ^ "Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586". The Oyez Project (U.S. Supreme Court media). 1940. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
14.Jump up ^ "The Courage to Put God First". Awake!: p. 15. 1993-07-22.
15.Jump up ^ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=316&page=584
16.Jump up ^ Konkoly, Toni. Law, Power & Personality, The Supreme Court, Famous Dissents: Minersville School District v. Gobitis. Public Broadcasting Service.
17.Jump up ^ University of Michigan Law Quadrangle Notes on Frank Murphy.
18.Jump up ^ Leming, Robert S. ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN. Teaching about Landmark Dissents in United States Supreme Court Cases. ERIC Digest.
19.Jump up ^ Sittser, Gerald Lawson (1 June 1997). A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches & the Second World War. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-8078-2333-0. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
Further reading[edit]
Tushnet, Mark, ed. (2008) I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases, Malaysia: Beacon Press, pp. 256, ISBN 978-0-8070-0036-6.
External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Minersville School District v. Gobitis

Full text of decision at findlaw.com
Billy Gobitas' letter to Minersville, Pennsylvania, school directors, explaining why the young Jehovah's Witness refused to salute the American flag, 5 November 1935. (image)
Lillian Gobitas Klose, Schoolgirl at Center of Historic 1940 Supreme Court Case, Dies at 90


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
United States First Amendment case law




[show] 
Establishment Clause

























































[show] 
Free Exercise Clause























[hide] 
Freedom of speech (portal)




Sedition and
 imminent danger
Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) ·
 Schenck v. United States (1919) ·
 Abrams v. United States (1919) ·
 Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten (S.D.N.Y. 1917) ·
 Gitlow v. New York (1925) ·
 Whitney v. California (1927) ·
 Dennis v. United States (1951) ·
 Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1955, 1961) ·
 Yates v. United States (1957) ·
 Bond v. Floyd (1966) ·
 Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)
 

False speech
United States v. Alvarez (2012)
 

Fighting words and
 the heckler's veto
Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) ·
 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) ·
 Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) ·
 Feiner v. New York (1951) ·
 Gregory v. Chicago (1969) ·
 National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977) ·
 R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) ·
 Snyder v. Phelps (2011)
 

Freedom of assembly
 and public forums
Hague v. CIO (1939) ·
 Schneider v. New Jersey (1939) ·
 Martin v. Struthers (1943) ·
 Niemotko v. Maryland (1951) ·
 Edwards v. South Carolina (1963) ·
 Cox v. Louisiana (1965) ·
 Brown v. Louisiana (1966) ·
 Adderley v. Florida (1966) ·
 Carroll v. Princess Anne (1968) ·
 Coates v. Cincinnati (1971) ·
 Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) ·
 Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner (1972) ·
 Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980) ·
 Hill v. Colorado (2000) ·
 McCullen v. Coakley (2014)
 

Symbolic speech
Stromberg v. California (1931) ·
 United States v. O'Brien (1968) ·
 Cohen v. California (1971) ·
 Smith v. Goguen (1974) ·
 Texas v. Johnson (1989) ·
 United States v. Eichman (1990) ·
 Virginia v. Black (2003)
 

Compelled speech
Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) ·
 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) ·
 Wooley v. Maynard (1977) ·
 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth (2000) ·
 Davenport v. Washington Education Association (2007) ·
 Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (2012) ·
 Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. (2013)
 

Loyalty oaths
American Communications Association v. Douds (1950) ·
 Garner v. Board of Public Works (1951) ·
 Speiser v. Randall (1958) ·
 Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1965) ·
 Communist Party of Indiana v. Whitcomb (1974)
 

School speech
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) ·
 Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) ·
 Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986) ·
 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988) ·
 Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995) ·
 Morse v. Frederick (2007)
 

Obscenity
Rosen v. United States (1896) ·
 United States v. One Book Called Ulysses (S.D.N.Y. 1933) ·
 Roth v. United States (1957) ·
 One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958) ·
 Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) ·
 MANual Enterprises v. Day (1962) ·
 Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) ·
 Quantity of Books v. Kansas (1964) ·
 Freedman v. Maryland (1965) ·
 Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) ·
 Redrup v. New York (1967) ·
 Ginsberg v. New York (1968) ·
 Stanley v. Georgia (1969) ·
 Cohen v. California (1971) ·
 United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) ·
 Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) ·
 Miller v. California (1973) ·
 Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) ·
 United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) ·
 Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) ·
 Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975) ·
 Young v. American Mini Theatres (1976) ·
 New York v. Ferber (1982) ·
 American Booksellers v. Hudnut (7th Cir., 1985) ·
 Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) ·
 Osborne v. Ohio (1990) ·
 United States v. X-Citement Video (1994) ·
 Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997) ·
 United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000) ·
 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) ·
 Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002) ·
 Nitke v. Gonzales (S.D.N.Y., 2005) ·
 United States v. Williams (2008) ·
 FCC v. Fox Televisions Stations - 2 cases (2009 and 2012) ·
 American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Strickland (6th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Kilbride (9th Cir., 2009) ·
 United States v. Stevens (2010) ·
 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011)
 

Public employees
Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) ·
 Perry v. Sindermann (1972) ·
 Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972) ·
 Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle (1977) ·
 Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District (1979) ·
 Connick v. Myers (1983) ·
 Rankin v. McPherson (1987) ·
 Waters v. Churchill (1994) ·
 Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) ·
 Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri (2011)
 

Hatch Act
 and similar laws
Ex parte Curtis (1882) ·
 United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947) ·
 United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers (1973) ·
 Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)
 

Licensing and
 restriction of speech
Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915) ·
 Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) ·
 Freedman v. Maryland (1965) ·
 Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976) ·
 Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982)
 

Commercial speech
Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942) ·
 Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept. (1970) ·
 Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations (1973) ·
 Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1974) ·
 Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977) ·
 Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro (1977) ·
 Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980) ·
 Consol. Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n (1980) ·
 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California (1986) ·
 Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico (1986) ·
 San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee (1987) ·
 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)
 

Campaign finance and
 political speech
Buckley v. Valeo (1976) ·
 First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) ·
 Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley (1981) ·
 California Medical Association v. FEC (1981) ·
 Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee (1982) ·
 Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington (1983) ·
 FEC v. National Conservative Political Action Committee (1985) ·
 FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (1986) ·
 Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) ·
 McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) ·
 Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC (1996) ·
 Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) ·
 FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001) ·
 Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002) ·
 McConnell v. FEC (2003) ·
 FEC v. Beaumont (2003) ·
 Randall v. Sorrell (2006) ·
 FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) ·
 Davis v. FEC (2008) ·
 Citizens United v. FEC (2010) ·
 McComish v. Bennett (2011) ·
 American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock (2012) ·
 McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014)
 





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Murdock v. Pennsylvania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Murdock v. Pennsylvania
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 10–11, 1943
 Decided May 3, 1943

Full case name
'
Citations
319 U.S. 105 (more)
319 U.S. 105

Holding
Free Exercise claim upheld; A Pennsylvania ordinance imposing a license tax for those selling merchandise when such material is religious in nature violates the Free Exercise clause.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Douglas, joined by Stone, Black, Murphy, Rutledge
Dissent
Frankfurter, joined by Jackson,
Dissent
Reed, joined by Roberts, Frankfurter, Jackson
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an ordinance requiring solicitors to purchase a license was an unconstitutional tax on the Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freely exercise their religion.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Minority opinions
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Facts of the case[edit]
The borough of Jeannette, Pennsylvania had an ordinance that required solicitors to purchase a license from the borough. Murdock was one of Jehovah's Witness who asked for contributions in exchange for books and pamphlets. The city claimed that this meant that they were being sold and a license was required. At question was whether the licensing requirement constituted a tax on Murdock's religious exercise.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Justice William O. Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. The court held that the ordinance was an unconstitutional tax on the Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freely exercise their religion.
The petitioners used the distribution of pamphlets and brochures as a form of missionary activity with an evangelical purpose. Not all behavior could be allowed by claiming that it was a religious activity. The only hold that spreading one's religious beliefs or preaching the Gospel through distribution of religious literature and through personal visitations is an age-old type of evangelism with as high a claim to constitutional protection as the more orthodox types. If the activity were done in order to raise money, it would be commercial and could be taxed. However, in this case, although donations were sought, the activity served a religious function. Religions are not entirely free from facing financial burdens from the government. It is one thing to impose a tax on the income or property of a preacher. It is quite another thing to exact a tax from him for the privilege of delivering a sermon. If the exercise can be taxed then the government is capable of making it prohibitively expensive and could only be done by the wealthy. The state claimed that this argument was unimportant because the tax was not expensive in practice. It is a license tax-a flat tax imposed on the exercise of a privilege granted by the Bill of Rights. A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution. The fact that the ordinance was imposed indiscriminately does not save it from being unconstitutional.
This case also established the preferred position doctrine, which states that "[f]reedom of press, freedom of speech, [and] freedom of religion are in a preferred position," indicating that certain fundamental human rights have prerogative.
Minority opinions[edit]
Effects of the decision[edit]
Page [319 U.S. 105, 113] reads... The privilege in question exists apart from state authority. It is guaranteed the people by the federal constitution. viz., The state cannot and does not have the power to license, nor tax, a Right guaranteed to the people.
Although it is not technically correct to say that this decision reversed Jones v. Opelika (1942), because the Court vacated Jones in a per curiam decision handed down the same day; in fact, that was the effect of this decision.
Murdock is a landmark decision which had the effect of allowing Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups who sold literature door-to-door to avoid paying licensing taxes to distribute their literature. The neutral imposition of the tax on solicitation performed by a religious group did not make it constitutionally acceptable. In addition, the Court drew a distinction between commercial activity and religious activity that involves the selling of religious literature.
Subsequent history[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (June 2008)
Subsequent cases such as Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989) have emphasized that Murdock stands for the proposition that a license or occupation tax designed for commercial salesmen cannot be constitutionally imposed on religious missionaries whose principal work is preaching but sell religious items for small sums where the tax is far from a negligible burden and the activity is central the practice of religious faith. However, Murdock does not extend to stand for the broad proposition that a tax can never be imposed upon a missionary such that it necessarily restrains the free exercise of religion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 319
References[edit]



External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Murdock v. Pennsylvania

Full text opinion from Findlaw.com
  


Categories: 1943 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1943 in Pennsylvania
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1943 in religion





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Murdock v. Pennsylvania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Murdock v. Pennsylvania
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 10–11, 1943
 Decided May 3, 1943

Full case name
'
Citations
319 U.S. 105 (more)
319 U.S. 105

Holding
Free Exercise claim upheld; A Pennsylvania ordinance imposing a license tax for those selling merchandise when such material is religious in nature violates the Free Exercise clause.
Court membership


Chief Justice
Harlan F. Stone


Associate Justices
Owen J. Roberts · Hugo Black
Stanley F. Reed · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas · Frank Murphy
Robert H. Jackson · Wiley B. Rutledge


Case opinions

Majority
Douglas, joined by Stone, Black, Murphy, Rutledge
Dissent
Frankfurter, joined by Jackson,
Dissent
Reed, joined by Roberts, Frankfurter, Jackson
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an ordinance requiring solicitors to purchase a license was an unconstitutional tax on the Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freely exercise their religion.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Minority opinions
3 Effects of the decision
4 Subsequent history
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Facts of the case[edit]
The borough of Jeannette, Pennsylvania had an ordinance that required solicitors to purchase a license from the borough. Murdock was one of Jehovah's Witness who asked for contributions in exchange for books and pamphlets. The city claimed that this meant that they were being sold and a license was required. At question was whether the licensing requirement constituted a tax on Murdock's religious exercise.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Justice William O. Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. The court held that the ordinance was an unconstitutional tax on the Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freely exercise their religion.
The petitioners used the distribution of pamphlets and brochures as a form of missionary activity with an evangelical purpose. Not all behavior could be allowed by claiming that it was a religious activity. The only hold that spreading one's religious beliefs or preaching the Gospel through distribution of religious literature and through personal visitations is an age-old type of evangelism with as high a claim to constitutional protection as the more orthodox types. If the activity were done in order to raise money, it would be commercial and could be taxed. However, in this case, although donations were sought, the activity served a religious function. Religions are not entirely free from facing financial burdens from the government. It is one thing to impose a tax on the income or property of a preacher. It is quite another thing to exact a tax from him for the privilege of delivering a sermon. If the exercise can be taxed then the government is capable of making it prohibitively expensive and could only be done by the wealthy. The state claimed that this argument was unimportant because the tax was not expensive in practice. It is a license tax-a flat tax imposed on the exercise of a privilege granted by the Bill of Rights. A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution. The fact that the ordinance was imposed indiscriminately does not save it from being unconstitutional.
This case also established the preferred position doctrine, which states that "[f]reedom of press, freedom of speech, [and] freedom of religion are in a preferred position," indicating that certain fundamental human rights have prerogative.
Minority opinions[edit]
Effects of the decision[edit]
Page [319 U.S. 105, 113] reads... The privilege in question exists apart from state authority. It is guaranteed the people by the federal constitution. viz., The state cannot and does not have the power to license, nor tax, a Right guaranteed to the people.
Although it is not technically correct to say that this decision reversed Jones v. Opelika (1942), because the Court vacated Jones in a per curiam decision handed down the same day; in fact, that was the effect of this decision.
Murdock is a landmark decision which had the effect of allowing Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups who sold literature door-to-door to avoid paying licensing taxes to distribute their literature. The neutral imposition of the tax on solicitation performed by a religious group did not make it constitutionally acceptable. In addition, the Court drew a distinction between commercial activity and religious activity that involves the selling of religious literature.
Subsequent history[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (June 2008)
Subsequent cases such as Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989) have emphasized that Murdock stands for the proposition that a license or occupation tax designed for commercial salesmen cannot be constitutionally imposed on religious missionaries whose principal work is preaching but sell religious items for small sums where the tax is far from a negligible burden and the activity is central the practice of religious faith. However, Murdock does not extend to stand for the broad proposition that a tax can never be imposed upon a missionary such that it necessarily restrains the free exercise of religion.
See also[edit]
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 319
References[edit]



External links[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Murdock v. Pennsylvania

Full text opinion from Findlaw.com
  


Categories: 1943 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States free exercise of religion case law
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
1943 in Pennsylvania
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania
United States Supreme Court cases of the Stone Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century
1943 in religion





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Niemotko v. Maryland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Niemotko v. Maryland
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 17, 1950
 Decided January 15, 1951

Full case name
Niemotko v. Maryland
Citations
340 U.S. 268 (more)
Court membership


Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Robert H. Jackson · Harold H. Burton
Tom C. Clark · Sherman Minton


Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268 (1951),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the city of Havre de Grace, Maryland had violated the free exercise of Niemotko's religion by not issuing a permit for him and his religious group (the Jehovah's Witnesses) to meet in a public park when other religious and civic groups had been given permits for holding their meetings there.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Justice Frankfurter's concurrence
3 References

Facts of the case[edit]
No town ordinance prohibited or regulated the use of a public park in Havre de Grace, though it had been the town's custom over the years to issue permits to civic groups that wanted to use it for various purposes. The Jehovah's Witnesses requested permission from the city's Park Commissioner to use it, but were told that another group had signed up for that particular Sunday. Undeterred, they requested other Sundays but were turned down after a hearing by the City Council. At the hearing, the Council members asked them questions about their views of Roman Catholics, their refusal to salute the American flag and other subjects not related to the use of a permit. After the hearing, their request was turned down. Nevertheless, the Witnesses went ahead and held their public meetings in the park, with Niemetko, their preacher, being arrested in 1949. He was arrested under a disorderly conduct statute, though there was no evidence, at the time of arrest, that disorder, threats of riot or other violence impended.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Vinson cast this issue in the context of their previous cases examining the licensing system by which local bodies regulated the use of parks and public places. He stated the law:
"In those cases this Court condemned statutes and ordinances which required that permits be obtained from local officials as a prerequisite to the use of public places, on the grounds that a license requirement constituted a prior restraint on freedom of speech, press and religion, and, in the absence of narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards for the officials to follow, must be invalid."
Unlike some of the other decisions, this case was a "slam dunk" for the Court. "Indeed, rarely has any case been before this Court which shows so clearly an unwarranted discrimination in a refusal to issue such a license."
Justice Frankfurter's concurrence[edit]
Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote a concurring opinion. He recognized not only the importance and difficulty of the issue of "adjustment of the inevitable conflict between free speech and other interests," but he realized that the Court had only a limited ability to "set limits and point the way." He proceeded to develop a sort of template for the various First Amendment issues faced by the Court.
Most significant in the "speech in public park" cases was the principle that if the licensing power had been made an "instrument of arbitrary suppression of free expression of views" it would violate the First Amendment. While the Court recognizes the centrality of free speech, free speech itself is not a touchstone. Public order must be balanced with the freedom of speech. But, in the case at hand, "neither danger to the public peace, nor consideration of time and convenience to the public, appears to have entered into the denial of the permit." He concluded, "To allow expression of religious views by some and deny the same privilege to others merely because they or their views are unpopular, even deeply so, is a denial of equal protection of the law forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment."
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 340 U.S. 268 (Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com)


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Reynolds v. United States (1879) ·
 Davis v. Beason (1890) ·
 Braunfeld v. Brown (1961) ·
 Torcaso v. Watkins (1961) ·
 Sherbert v. Verner (1963) ·
 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) ·
 Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division (1981) ·
 United States v. Lee (1982) ·
 Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) ·
 Goldman v. Weinberger (1986) ·
 Employment Division v. Smith (1990) ·
 Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993) ·
 City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) ·
 Watchtower Society v. Village of Stratton (2002) ·
 Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005) ·
 Gonzales v. UDV (2006)
 




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Categories: 1951 in United States case law
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United States Supreme Court cases
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niemotko_v._Maryland








Niemotko v. Maryland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Niemotko v. Maryland
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 17, 1950
 Decided January 15, 1951

Full case name
Niemotko v. Maryland
Citations
340 U.S. 268 (more)
Court membership


Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson


Associate Justices
Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Robert H. Jackson · Harold H. Burton
Tom C. Clark · Sherman Minton


Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268 (1951),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the city of Havre de Grace, Maryland had violated the free exercise of Niemotko's religion by not issuing a permit for him and his religious group (the Jehovah's Witnesses) to meet in a public park when other religious and civic groups had been given permits for holding their meetings there.


Contents  [hide]
1 Facts of the case
2 Decision of the Court 2.1 Justice Frankfurter's concurrence
3 References

Facts of the case[edit]
No town ordinance prohibited or regulated the use of a public park in Havre de Grace, though it had been the town's custom over the years to issue permits to civic groups that wanted to use it for various purposes. The Jehovah's Witnesses requested permission from the city's Park Commissioner to use it, but were told that another group had signed up for that particular Sunday. Undeterred, they requested other Sundays but were turned down after a hearing by the City Council. At the hearing, the Council members asked them questions about their views of Roman Catholics, their refusal to salute the American flag and other subjects not related to the use of a permit. After the hearing, their request was turned down. Nevertheless, the Witnesses went ahead and held their public meetings in the park, with Niemetko, their preacher, being arrested in 1949. He was arrested under a disorderly conduct statute, though there was no evidence, at the time of arrest, that disorder, threats of riot or other violence impended.
Decision of the Court[edit]
Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Vinson cast this issue in the context of their previous cases examining the licensing system by which local bodies regulated the use of parks and public places. He stated the law:
"In those cases this Court condemned statutes and ordinances which required that permits be obtained from local officials as a prerequisite to the use of public places, on the grounds that a license requirement constituted a prior restraint on freedom of speech, press and religion, and, in the absence of narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards for the officials to follow, must be invalid."
Unlike some of the other decisions, this case was a "slam dunk" for the Court. "Indeed, rarely has any case been before this Court which shows so clearly an unwarranted discrimination in a refusal to issue such a license."
Justice Frankfurter's concurrence[edit]
Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote a concurring opinion. He recognized not only the importance and difficulty of the issue of "adjustment of the inevitable conflict between free speech and other interests," but he realized that the Court had only a limited ability to "set limits and point the way." He proceeded to develop a sort of template for the various First Amendment issues faced by the Court.
Most significant in the "speech in public park" cases was the principle that if the licensing power had been made an "instrument of arbitrary suppression of free expression of views" it would violate the First Amendment. While the Court recognizes the centrality of free speech, free speech itself is not a touchstone. Public order must be balanced with the freedom of speech. But, in the case at hand, "neither danger to the public peace, nor consideration of time and convenience to the public, appears to have entered into the denial of the permit." He concluded, "To allow expression of religious views by some and deny the same privilege to others merely because they or their views are unpopular, even deeply so, is a denial of equal protection of the law forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment."
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ 340 U.S. 268 (Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com)


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Categories: 1951 in United States case law
Christianity in Maryland
Havre de Grace, Maryland
United States Supreme Court cases
Jehovah's Witnesses litigation in the United States
United States free exercise of religion case law
1951 in Maryland
1951 in religion
United States Supreme Court cases of the Vinson Court
Christianity and law in the 20th century


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