Bouie v. City of Columbia
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| Bouie v. City of Columbia | ||||||||||||
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| Argued October 14 – October 15, 1963 Decided June 22, 1964 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The State Supreme Court, in giving retroactive application to its new construction of the statute, deprived petitioners of their right to fair warning of a criminal prohibition, and thus violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Earl Warren Associate Justices: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Arthur Goldberg |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Brennan Joined by: Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, Stewart, Goldberg Concurrence by: Goldberg Joined by: Warren Concurrence by: Douglas Dissent by: Black Joined by: Harlan, White |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | ||||||||||||
Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that due process prohibits retroactive application of any judicial construction of a criminal statute that is unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which has been expressed prior to the conduct in issue. This holding is based on the Fourteenth Amendment prohibition by the Due Process Clause against ex post facto laws.
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[edit] Background
On March 14, 1960, two African American college students conducted a sit-in demonstraton by sitting down at a booth in the restaurant at an Eckerd's drug store in Columbia, South Carolina. Policy at the store was to allow African Americans to shop anywhere in the store and to use any facilities with the exception of being served at the restaurant. After they sat down, an employee put up a "no trespassing sign," and the two students were asked to leave. The students were arrested on charges of breach of the peace and criminal trespass, but convicted only for trespass in violation of the state code. The trespass convictions were upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court.
[edit] Court's Decision
The majority opinion by Justice Brennan noted that the South Carolina trespass statute criminalized entry upon the lands of another after notice from an owner or tenant phobiting such entry. The South Carolina Supreme Court, in upholding the convictions, had construed the statute as also covering the act of remaining on the premises of another after receiving notice to leave, a construction adopted in another case in 1961 and applied here. The Court stated that a judicial construction that has the effect of broadening the activities that constitute a crime and is applied retroactively operates precisely like an ex post facto law. As ex posto facto application of criminal statutes violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court reversed the convictions.
The concurring opinions of Justice Goldberg and Justice Douglas simply stated that they would reverse based upon their opinions in Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 226 (1964), another case involving a sit-in demonstration by African American students that was announced the same day as the Bouie decision. The dissenting opinion by Justice Black argued that the conduct of remaining after being told to leave was understood to violate the South Carolina trespass statute, and the opinion in the Bell case that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require an owner of a restaurant to serve customers the owner did not want to serve.
[edit] Critical response
Bouie v. City of Columbia was one of five cases involving segregation protests decided on June 22, 1964. The other four cases were Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130 (1964), Barr v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 146 (1964), Robinson v. Florida, 378 U.S. 153 (1964), and Bell v. Maryland. In none of these cases did the Supreme Court reach the merits of any arguement addressing whether private actions of segregation which are enforced by state courts constituted a state action which violated the the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[2] These decisions were announced two days after the Senate ended a filibuster and passed the bill which would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[2] which outlawed segregation in public accommodations. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court refrained from reaching the merits in these cases in consideration of the Act, had it done so it would have eliminated the basis for passage of the legislation.[2]
