Feiner v. New York
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Feiner v. New York | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued October 17, 1950 Decided January 15, 1951 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The conviction is sustained against a claim that it violated petitioner's right of free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Hitz Burton, Tom C. Clark, Sherman Minton |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Vinson Joined by: Reed, Jackson, Burton, Clark Concurrence by: Frankfurter Dissent by: Black Dissent by: Douglas Joined by: Minton |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amends I, XIV | ||||||||||||
Feiner v. New York, 340 US 315 (1951) was a United States Supreme Court case involving Irving Feiner's arrest for a violation of section 722 of the New York Penal Code, "inciting a breach of the peace," as he addressed a crowd on a street.
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[edit] Background
On March 8, 1949, Irving Feiner, a WWII veteran attending Syracuse University because of the GI Bill, and his fellow Progressive Party members were trying to call attention to a meeting they were holding at a nearby hotel. The meeting was a protest/discussion about the "Scottsboro Trial of the North." In order to call attention to the meeting, Feiner and the Progressives used a loudspeaker system set up on the roof of a car at South McBride and Harrison Street in a predominantly minority neighborhood. Eventually a crowd stopped and listened to what they were saying. The police were called and upon arrival found about 75-80 people covering the sidewalk and spilling out into the street.
During his address, Feiner was quoted as saying:
- "Mayor Costello (of Syracuse) is a champagne-sipping bum; he does not speak for the Negro people."
- "The 15th Ward is run by corrupt politicians, and there are horse rooms (gambling houses) operating there."
- "President Truman is a bum."
- "Mayor O'Dwyer is a bum."
- "The American Legion is a Nazi Gestapo."
- And most importantly for the case, "The Negroes don't have equal rights; they should rise up in arms and fight for their rights."
The police were at the scene while Feiner spoke, when a white man approached an officer and said, "If you don't get that son of a bitch down, then I will." On three occasions, the police asked Feiner to get down and stop speaking. Finally, after he had been speaking for about thirty minutes, they arrested him for "inciting a breach of the peace."
The question posed to the Court was, "When is it constitutional for the police to silence a public speaker?"
[edit] The decision
The 6-3 decision upheld Feiner's arrest.
Focusing on the "rise up in arms and fight for their rights" part of Feiner's speech, the Court found that Feiner's First Amendment rights were not violated, because his arrest came when the police thought that a riot might occur. The Court found that the police did not attempt to suppress Feiner's message based on its content, but rather on the reaction of the crowd. The court reaffirmed the fact that a speaker cannot be arrested for the content of his speech. The court also reaffirmed the fact that the police must not be used as an instrument to silence unpopular views, but must be used to silence a speaker who is trying to incite a riot.
[edit] The dissent
Justice Black wrote a foresighted dissent, in part pointing out that the police, instead of arresting Feiner, should have probably protected him from hostile members of the crowd.
Justice Douglas, jointed by Justice Minton, additionally did not believe the situation constituted a disturbance of the peace, and questioned the fairness of the trial Feiner received.
[edit] Feiner's lecture at Rutgers University
At the invitation of renowned Professor M. Heumann, on February 14, 2006, Irving Feiner came and gave a guest lecture to students of a Civil Liberties class at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Feiner explained his side of the case, pointing out distortions in the Supreme Court's facts. For example, the only witnesses that the prosecution called were the two arresting officers. The infamous "S.O.B." man was not called. Feiner also explained that shortly after V-E day he was in Paris where he saw a V-E parade in which marchers marched with locked arms. Feiner claims that in his speech the night he was arrested he said "the Negroes of this town should march with locked arms down to the mayor's office and demand their rights." As a result of this case, the University of Iowa Law school rescinded his offer of admission.
Since most facts are established in lower courts, the Supreme Court makes its decisions based on lower courts' findings. If there are distortions in the case file, the file is still passed up to the Supreme Court which must sort out what is reliable and what isn't.
