Source: https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/decision/sugarman-v-united-states/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 18:49:49+00:00

Document:
Petition denied or appeal dismissed. Petitioning party did not receive a favorable disposition.
ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA.*183 Mr. Seymour Stedman and Mr. T.E. Lattimer, for plaintiff in error, submitted.
Mr. John Lord O’Brian, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, with whom Mr. Alfred Bettman, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, was on the brief, for the United States.
The Espionage Act (June 15, 1917, c. 30, Title I, § 3, 40 Stat. 217, 219) provides that: “Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States . . . shall be punished.” Sugarman was charged with having violated this section on July 24, 1917, by words spoken in an address made at a Socialist meeting which was attended by many registrants under the Selective Service Act, sustained in Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366. He was tried in the District Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota, found guilty by the jury, and sentenced. See 245 Fed. Rep. 604. Thirty-one exceptions were taken to rulings of the trial judge. Instead of seeking review by the Circuit Court of Appeals under § 128 of the Judicial Code, the case is brought here under § 238.
Review by this court on direct writ of error is invoked on the ground that the construction or application of the Federal Constitution was drawn in question. Thirty of the rulings excepted to below are assigned as errors here. If any one of them involves a constitutional question which is substantial, or was such when the defendant sued out his writ of error, we have jurisdiction to review all the questions raised and it is our duty to determine *184 them, so far as necessary to afford redress, even if we should conclude that the constitutional question was correctly decided below. Williamson v. United States, 207 U.S. 425, 432, 434; Goldman v. United States, 245 U.S. 474, 476. But mere reference to a provision of the Federal Constitution, or the mere assertion of a claim under it, does not authorize this court to review a criminal proceeding; and it is our duty to decline jurisdiction unless the writ of error presents a constitutional question substantial in character and properly raised below. Equitable Life Assurance Society v. Brown, 187 U.S. 308, 311; Goodrich v. Ferris, 214 U.S. 71, 79; Hendricks v. United States, 223 U.S. 178, 184; Manhattan Life Ins. Co. v. Cohen, 234 U.S. 123; Brolan v. United States, 236 U.S. 216, 218; United Surety Co. v. American Fruit Co., 238 U.S. 140, 142.
This passage in the charge clearly embodied the substance of the two requests made by the defendant. The judge was not obliged to adopt the exact language of the instructions requested, Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 253; nor was he obliged to repeat the instructions already given in substance. Compare Bennett v. United States, 227 U.S. 333, 339. As no substantial constitutional question was presented by the defendant, this court is without jurisdiction to review the other errors assigned.

References: § 3
 § 128
 § 238
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