| Cantwell v. Connecticut | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued March 29, 1940 Decided May 20, 1940 |
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| Full case name | Cantwell et al. v. State of Connecticut | |||||
| Citations | 310 U.S. 296 (more) 60 S. Ct. 900; 84 L. Ed. 1213; 1940 U.S. LEXIS 591; 128 A.L.R. 1352 |
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| Prior history | 126 Conn. 1, 8 A.2d 533; Appeal from and certiorari from the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut | |||||
| Subsequent history | None | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment is incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Roberts, joined by a unanimous Court | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| U.S. Const., amends. I and XIV | ||||||
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940)[1], was a United States Supreme Court decision that incorporated (applied to the states) the First Amendment's protection of religious free exercise.
Contents |
A Connecticut statute required licenses for those soliciting for religious or charitable purposes. The statute was an early type of consumer protection law: it required the Secretary, before issuing a certificate permitting solicitation, to determine whether the cause was
"a religious one or is a bona fide object of charity or philanthropy" and whether the solicitation "conforms to reasonable standards of efficiency and integrity."
Upon determination of the cause's legitimacy, a solicitation certificate would be issued.
Newton Cantwell (a Jehovah's Witness) and his two sons, Jesse and Russel, were proselytizing in a heavily Roman Catholic neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. The Cantwells were going door to door, with books and pamphlets and a portable phonograph with sets of records. Each record contained a description of one of the books. One such book was "Enemies", which was an attack on organized religion in general and especially the Roman Catholic Church. Jesse Cantwell stopped two men on the street and requested permission to play a phonograph. They gave permission, and after hearing the recording, the two citizens were incensed; though they wanted physically to assault the Cantwells, they restrained themselves.
Cantwell and his two sons were arrested and charged with: (1) violation of a Connecticut statute requiring solicitors to obtain a certificate from the secretary of the public welfare council ("Secretary") before soliciting funds from the public, and (2) inciting a common-law breach of the peace.
The Cantwells stated they did not get a license because they did not believe the government had the right to determine whether the Witnesses were a religion. They argued that the statute denied the trio their due process rights under the 14th Amendment, and it also denied them their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religious expression.
The Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed with the Cantwells, finding that the statute was an effort by the state of Connecticut to protect the public against fraud, and as such, the statute was constitutional. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the conviction of all three on the statutory charge and affirmed one son's conviction of inciting a breach of the peace, but remanded the inciting a breach of peace charge against the other two for a new trial.
The issue presented before the court was whether the state's action in convicting the Cantwells with inciting a breach of the peace and violating the solicitation statute violated their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
The Court found that Cantwell's action was protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Justice Owen Roberts wrote in a unanimous opinion that "to condition the solicitation of aid for the perpetuation of religious views or systems upon a license, the grant of which rests in the exercise of a determination by state authority as to what is a religious cause, is to lay a forbidden burden upon the exercise of liberty protected by the Constitution."
Before the Cantwell decision, it was not legally clear that the First Amendment protected religious practitioners against restrictions at the state and local levels as well as federal. But the Supreme Court in Cantwell said it did, thereby ushering in an era of greatly strengthened religious freedom.
This case incorporated the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, thereby applying it to the states and protecting free exercise of religion from intrusive state action. The Establishment Clause was incorporated seven years later in Everson v. Board of Education (1947).