Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1937

De Jonge v. Oregon

299 U.S. 353 | 57 S. Ct. 255 | 81 L. Ed. 278 | 1937 U.S. LEXIS 1135

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that a State cannot make peaceful participation in a lawful political meeting a crime merely because the meeting is sponsored by an organization associated with unlawful advocacy.

Background

Dirk De Jonge was convicted under Oregon’s Criminal Syndicalism Law and sentenced to seven years in prison. The charge arose from his role as a speaker and participant at a public meeting in Portland held under the auspices of the Communist Party. The meeting protested police raids on workers’ halls and the police shooting of striking longshoremen. It was open to the public, orderly, and interrupted by a police raid.

Oregon alleged that the Communist Party advocated criminal syndicalism elsewhere. But De Jonge was not charged with advocating violence, sabotage, or unlawful action at this meeting or at any other time. Nor did the distributed literature at the meeting advocate criminal syndicalism. The state supreme court construed the indictment to make De Jonge’s participation in a Communist Party meeting alone sufficient for conviction, regardless of the meeting’s peaceful and lawful character. It affirmed his conviction, and De Jonge appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Oregon could constitutionally punish De Jonge for assisting in a public, peaceable meeting merely because it was held under the auspices of an organization that advocated criminal syndicalism.

Holding

No. As applied to De Jonge, Oregon’s Criminal Syndicalism Law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it criminalized participation in a peaceable assembly for lawful discussion.

Reasoning

The Court accepted the Oregon Supreme Court’s construction of the indictment. Under that construction, De Jonge was convicted not for advocating criminal syndicalism, distributing unlawful literature, joining or organizing the Communist Party, or participating in a meeting that urged unlawful conduct. His sole offense was assisting with a meeting called by the Communist Party.

That construction made the statute extraordinarily broad in application. Any person who helped conduct a Communist Party meeting could be convicted as a felon even if the meeting concerned only lawful subjects, such as taxation, elections, foreign policy, or protests against government action. Liability therefore turned on the meeting’s sponsor, rather than on its purpose or on what speakers actually said.

Freedom of speech and press are fundamental liberties protected against state abridgment by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that the closely related right of peaceable assembly is equally fundamental: republican government presupposes that citizens may meet to discuss public affairs and petition for redress of grievances.

A State may protect itself against actual incitement to violence, criminal conduct, or conspiracies against public order. But constitutional justification for regulation must address that abuse itself. The State cannot instead suppress the underlying rights of speech and assembly by making peaceful participation in lawful political discussion criminal.

The Communist Party’s alleged unlawful objectives did not eliminate De Jonge’s personal constitutional rights. Unless the meeting itself was used to advocate violence, crime, or other unlawful action, De Jonge retained the right to speak on public issues and to seek redress of grievances at a peaceable gathering, even one sponsored by that party.