Douglas v. City of Jeannette

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Douglas v. City of Jeannette

Argued Mar. 10, 1943
Decided May 3, 1943

Full case name:

Citations:	319 U.S. 157

Holding

Free Exercise Clause upheld; the ordinance as applied is held to be an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech, press and religion.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone
Associate Justices: Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley Blount Rutledge

Case opinions

Majority by: Harlan Stone

Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157 (1943),^[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held it does not restrain criminal prosecutions made in good faith unless there would be some "irreparable injury."

1 Facts of the case
2 Prior history
3 Decision of the Court
- 3.1 Dissenting opinions
4 Effects of the decision
5 Critical response
6 Subsequent history
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Facts of the case

Robert L. Douglas was a Jehovah's Witness who filed suit on behalf of himself and other Jehovah's Witnesses, both in Pennsylvania and in adjoining states to restrain the town of Jeannette from threatening criminal prosecution against them for selling merchandise without first obtaining a license from the city authorities and paying a license tax.

In 1939, a 'Watch Tower Campaign' was instituted by Jehovah's Witnesses in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, an industrial city of some 16,000 inhabitants. 1 Each home was visited, a bell was rung or the door knocked upon, and the householder advised that the Witness had important information. If the householder would listen, a record was played on the phonograph. Its subject was 'Snare and Racket.' The following words are representative of its contents: 'Religion is wrong and a snare because it deceives the people, but that does not mean that all who follow religion are willingly bad. Religion is a racket because it has long been used and is still used to extract money from the people upon the theory and promise that the paying over of money to a priest will serve to relieve the party paying from punishment after death and further insure his salvation.' This line of attack is taken by the Witnesses generally upon all denominations, especially the Roman Catholic. The householder was asked to buy a variety of literature for a price or contribution. The [319 U.S. 157, 168] price would be twenty-five cents for the books and smaller sums for the pamphlets. Often, if he was unwilling to purchase, the book or pamphlet was given to him anyway.

When this campaign began, many complaints from offended householders were received, and three or four of the Witnesses were arrested. Thereafter, the 'zone servant' in charge of the campaign conferred with the Mayor. He told the Mayor it was their right to carry on the campaign and showed him a decision of the United States Supreme Court, said to have that effect, as proof of it. The Mayor told him that they were at liberty to distribute their literature in the streets of the city and that he would have no objection if they distributed the literature free of charge at the houses, but that the people objected to their attempt to force these sales, and particularly on Sunday. The Mayor asked whether it would not be possible to come on some other day and to distribute the literature without selling it. The zone servant replied that that was contrary to their method of 'doing business' and refused. He also told the Mayor that he would bring enough Witnesses into the City of Jeannette to get the job done whether the Mayor liked it or not. The Mayor urged them to await the outcome of an appeal which was then pending in the other cases and let the matter take its course through the courts. This, too, was refused, and the threat to bring more people than the Mayor's police force could cope with was repeated.

On Palm Sunday of 1939, the threat was made good. Over 100 of the Witnesses appeared. They were strangers to the city and arrived in upwards of twenty-five automobiles. The automobiles were parked outside the city limits, and headquarters were set up in a gasoline station with telephone facilities through which the director of the campaign could be notified when trouble occurred. He furnished bonds for the Witnesses as they were arrested. [319 U.S. 157, 169] As they began their work, around 9:00 o'clock in the morning, telephone calls began to come in to the Police Headquarters, and complaints in large volume were made all during the day. They exceeded the number that the police could handle, and the Fire Department was called out to assist. The Witnesses called at homes singly and in groups, and some of the homes complained that they were called upon several times. Twenty-one Witnesses were arrested. Only those were arrested where definite proof was obtainable that the literature had been offered for sale or a sale had been made for a price. Three were later discharged for inadequacies in this proof, and eighteen were convicted. The zone servant furnished appeal bonds.