Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/337/1/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:09:58+00:00

Document:
1. As construed by the trial court and applied to petitioner, the ordinance violates the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 337 U. S. 4-5.
since the verdict was a general one, and it cannot be said that petitioner's conviction was not based upon the instruction quoted above. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359. Pp. 337 U. S. 5-6.
Petitioner was convicted in a state court of violating a city ordinance forbidding any breach of the peace. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed. 332 Ill.App. 17, 74 N.E.2d 45. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed. 400 Ill. 23, 79 N.E.2d 39. This Court granted certiorari. 335 U.S. 890. Reversed, p. 337 U. S. 6.
The argument here has been focused on the issue of whether the content of petitioner's speech was composed of derisive, fighting words, which carried it outside the scope of the constitutional guarantees. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310 U. S. 310. We do not reach that question, for there is a preliminary question that is dispositive of the case.
As we have noted, the statutory words "breach of the peace" were defined in instructions to the jury to include speech which "stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance. . . ." That construction of the ordinance is a ruling on a question of state law that is as binding on us as though the precise words had been written into the ordinance. See Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U. S. 312, 272 U. S. 317; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 333 U. S. 514.
The vitality of civil and political institutions in our society depends on free discussion. As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 299 U. S. 365, it is only through free debate and free exchange of ideas that government remains responsive to the will of the people and peaceful change is effected. The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.
The fact that petitioner took no exception to the instruction is immaterial. No exception to the instructions was taken in Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359. But a judgment of conviction based on a general verdict under a state statute was set aside in that case because one part of the statute was unconstitutional. The statute had been challenged as unconstitutional, and the instruction was framed in its language. The Court held that the attack on the statute as a whole was equally an attack on each of its individual parts. Since the verdict was a general one, and did not specify the ground upon which it rested, it could not be sustained. For one part of the statute was unconstitutional, and it could not be determined that the defendant was not convicted under that part.
The Court, as I understand it, does not reach the issue which the parties argued here -- whether a properly instructed jury could constitutionally have found from the conflicting evidence in the record that, under the circumstances, the words in the petitioner's speech were "fighting words" to those inside the hall who heard them. Certainly the Court does not decide whether the violent opposition of those outside the hall, who did not hear the speech, could constitutionally warrant the conviction of the petitioner in order to keep the streets from becoming ideological battlegrounds. Since neither of these constitutional issues is decided by the Court, I think that it is not within my province to indicate any opinion concerning them. See Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 331 U. S. 568 (1947).
departure from the restrictions that bind this Court in reviewing judgments of State courts. Especially odd is it to bestow such favor not for the sake of life or liberty, but to save a small amount of property -- $100, the amount of the fine imposed upon the petitioner in a proceeding which is civil, not criminal, under the laws of Illinois, and thus subject only to limited review. City of Chicago v. Terminiello, 400 Ill. 23, 29, 79 N.E.2d 39, 43. This Court has recognized that fines of this nature are not within provisions of the Constitution governing federal criminal prosecutions. See Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103.
"Our power of review in this case is limited not only to the question whether a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution was denied, Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291, 204 U. S. 301; but to the particular claims duly made below, and denied. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Duvall, 225 U. S. 477, 225 U. S. 485-488. We lack here the power occasionally exercised on review of judgments of lower federal courts to correct in criminal cases vital errors, although the objection was not taken in the trial court. Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S. 632, 163 U. S. 658-660; Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207, 197 U. S. 221-222. This is a writ of error to a state court. Because we may not enquire into the errors now alleged, I concur in affirming the judgment of the state court."
Concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis, joined by Mr. Justice Holmes, in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 274 U. S. 380.
". . . I am not going to talk to you about the menace of Communism, which is already accomplished, in Russia, where from eight to fifteen million people were murdered in cold blood by their own countrymen, and millions more through Eastern Europe at the close of the war are being murdered by these murderous Russians, hurt, being raped and sent into slavery. That is what they want for you, that howling mob outside."
"Now, Russia promised us we would ga [sic] back to the official newspaper of Russia. Primarily, it was back about 1929. They quoted the words of George E. Dimitroff, who at that time was the Executive Secretary of the Communist International. I only quote you this one passage. I could quote thousands of paragraphs for you. Let me quote you: 'The worldwide nature of our program is not mere talk, but an all embracing blood-soaked reality.' That is what they want for us, a blood-soaked reality, but it was promised to us by the crystal gazers in Washington, and you know what I mean by the 'crystal gazers,' I presume."
"Then we have Henry Adolph Wallace, the sixty million job magician. You know we only need fifty-four million jobs in America, and everybody would be working. He wants sixty million jobs, because some of the bureaucrats want two jobs apiece. Here he is, what he says about revolution: 'We are in for a profound revolution. Those of us who realize the inevitableness of the revolution, and are anxious that it be gradual and bloodless instead of somewhat bloody. Of course, if necessary, we will have it more bloody.' "
"Now, my friends, they are planning another ruse, and if it ever happens to this cou-try [sic], God help America. They are going to try to put into Mr. Edgar Hoover's position a man by the name of George Swarzwald. I think even those who were uneducated on so-called sedition charges, that the majority of the individuals in this department, that Christ-like men and women who realize today what is going on in this country, men who are in this audience today, who want to know the names of those people, before they are outside, they want to know the names if any. Did you hear any tonight that you recognize? Most of them probably are imported. They are imported from Russia, certainly. If you know the names, please send them to me immediately. . . ."
they could get away with it, so, that they could never carry a gun. Imagine men of that caliber, sworn to serve this beautiful country of ours, why should we tolerate them?"
"Now, we are going to get the threats of the people of Argentine, the people of Spain. We have now declared, according to our officials, to have declared Franco to have taken the place of Hitler. Franco was the savior of what was left of Europe."
"You know I have always made a study of the psychology, sociology of mob reaction. It is exemplified out there. Remember there has to be a leader to that mob. He is not out there. He is probably across the street, looking out the window. There must be certain things, money, other things, in order to have successful mob action; there must be rhythm. There must be some to beat a cadence. Those mobs are chanting; that is the caveman's chant. They were trained to do it. They were trained this afternoon. They are being led; there will be violence."
(Emphasis supplied.) 1 Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (GPO, 1946) 204, 2 id. 140, Docs. 2760-PS, 404-PS, from "Mein Kampf." First laughed at as an extravagant figure of speech, the battle for the streets became a tragic reality when an organized Sturmabteilung began to give practical effect to its slogan that "possession of the streets is the key to power in the state." Ibid. also Doc. 2168-PS.
(Emphasis supplied.) Mr. Justice Holmes, in Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 249 U. S. 52. No one ventures to contend that the State, on the basis of this test, for whatever it may be worth, was not justified in punishing Terminiello. In this case, the evidence proves beyond dispute that danger of rioting and violence in response to the speech was clear, present and immediate. If this Court has not silently abandoned this longstanding test and substituted for the purposes of this case an unexpressed but more stringent test, the action of the State would have to be sustained.
"Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310 U. S. 309-310."
310 U.S. 296, 310 U. S. 308.
United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 330 U. S. 95.
Before giving the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution this effect, we should recall that our application of the First Amendment to Illinois rests entirely on authority which this Court has voted to itself. The relevant parts of the First Amendment, with emphasis supplied, reads: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." This restrains no authority except Congress. Read as literally as some would do, it restrains Congress in terms so absolute that no legislation would be valid if it touched free speech, no matter how obscene, treasonable, defamatory, inciting or provoking. If it seems strange that no express qualifications were inserted in the Amendment, the answer may be that limitations were thought to be implicit in the definition of "freedom of speech/" as then understood. Or it may have been thought unnecessary to delegate to Congress any power over abuses of free speech. The Federal Government was then a new and experimental authority, remote from the people, and it was supposed to deal with a limited class of national problems. Inasmuch as any breaches of peace from abuse of free speech traditionally were punishable by state governments, it was needless to reserve that power in a provision drafted to exclude only Congress from such a field of lawmaking.
peace and order as we have here. Nor was it hinted by this Court for over half a century that the Amendment might have any such effect. In 1922, with concurrence of the most liberty-alert Justices of all times -- Holmes and Brandeis -- this Court declared flatly that the Constitution does not limit the power of the state over free speech. Prudential Insurance Co. v. Cheek, 259 U. S. 530, 259 U. S. 543. In later years, the Court shifted its dogma, and decreed that the Constitution does this very thing, and that state power is bound by the same limitation as Congress. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652. I have no quarrel with this history. See Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624. I recite the method by which the right to limit the state has been derived only from this Court's own assumption of the power, with never a submission of legislation or amendment into which the people could write any qualification to prevent abuse of this liberty, as bearing upon the restraint I consider as becoming in exercise of self-given and unappealable power.
It is significant that provisions adopted by the people with awareness that they applied to their own states have universally contained qualifying terms. The Constitution of Illinois is representative of the provisions put in nearly all state constitutions, and reads (Art. II, § 4): "Every person may freely speak, write and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty." (Emphasis added.) That is what I think is meant by the cryptic phrase "freedom of speech," as used in the Federal Compact, and that is the rule I think we should apply to the states.

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