| De Jonge v. Oregon | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued December 9, 1936 Decided January 4, 1937 |
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| Full case name | Dirk De Jonge v. State of Oregon | |||||
| Prior history | Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon. | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The Oregon statute as applied to the particular charge as defined by the state court is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The judgment of conviction is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Hughes, joined by unanimous | |||||
| Stone took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | ||||||
De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause applies to freedom of assembly. The Court found that Dirk De Jonge had the right to organize a Communist Party and to speak at its meetings, even though the party advocated industrial or political change in revolution. However, in the 1950s with the fear of communism on the rise the Court ruled in Dennis v. United States (1951) that Eugene Dennis, who was the leader of the Communist Party, violated the Smith Act by advocating the forcible overthrow of the United States government.