page_title: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders
section_title: Start of the trial
hierarchical_section_title: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders / 1949 trial / Start of the trial
caption_attribution_description: This photo is of Wikipedia Takes Manhattan location code 173, Foley Square. Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse at 40 Centre Street.
context_page_description: The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in New York City from 1949 to 1958 were the result of US federal government prosecutions in the postwar period and during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Leaders of the Communist Party of the United States were accused of violating the Smith Act, a statute that prohibited advocating violent overthrow of the government. The defendants argued that they advocated a peaceful transition to socialism, and that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and of association protected their membership in a political party. Appeals from these trials reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled on issues in Dennis v. United States and Yates v. United States.
  The first trial of eleven communist leaders was held in New York in 1949; it was one of the lengthiest trials in United States history. Numerous supporters of the defendants protested outside the courthouse on a daily basis. The trial was featured twice on the cover of Time magazine. The defense frequently antagonized the judge and prosecution; five defendants were jailed for contempt of court because they disrupted the proceedings.
context_section_description: The 1949 trial was held in New York City at the Foley Square federal courthouse of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Harold Medina, a former Columbia University professor who had been on the bench for 18 months when the hearing began, presided. Before becoming a judge, Medina successfully argued the case of Cramer v. United States before the Supreme Court, defending a German-American charged with treason.
  The trial opened on November 1, 1948, and preliminary proceedings and jury selection lasted until January 17, 1949; the defendants first appeared in court on March 7, and the case concluded on October 14, 1949. Although later trials surpassed it, in 1949 it was the longest federal trial in US history. The trial was one of the country's most contentious legal proceedings and sometimes had a "circus-like atmosphere". Four hundred police officers were assigned to the site on the opening day of the trial. Magazines, newspapers, and radio reported on the case heavily; Time magazine featured the trial on its cover twice with stories titled "Communists: The Presence of Evil" and "Communists: The Little Commissar" (referring to Eugene Dennis).
caption: The 1949 trial was held in the Foley Square federal courthouse in Manhattan.
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