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On this day, March 3, 1919, the decision in Schenck v. United States was handed down.
It is best remembered for one thing.
GetAlongWithDPRKHat Retweeted
Schenck v. United States was decided 100 years ago today, and gifted/cursed us with the oft-misused Holmes dictum about falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. In honor of that, this classic @Popehat takedown.
Link to tweet
Schenck v. United States
Argued: January 8–10, 1919
Decided: March 3, 1919
Full case name: Charles T. Schenck v. United States, Elizabeth Baer v. United States
Holding: Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it was intended to result in a crime and created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting service of the U.S. armed forces during a state of war.
Majority: Holmes, joined by unanimous
Laws applied: U.S. Const. amend. I; 50 U.S.C. § 33
Overruled by: Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that Charles Schenck and other defendants, who distributed flyers to draft-age men urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not protect Schenck from prosecution, even though, "in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done." In this case, Holmes said, "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." Therefore, Schenck could be punished.
The Court followed this reasoning to uphold a series of convictions arising out of prosecutions during wartime, but Holmes began to dissent in the case of Abrams v. United States, insisting that the Court had departed from the standard he had crafted for them and had begun to allow punishment for ideas. In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of speech that the government may ban to that directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot).[1]
{snip}
The Court's decision
The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The statute only applied to successful obstructions of the draft, but common-law precedents allowed prosecution for attempts that were dangerously close to success. Attempts made by speech or writing could be punished like other attempted crimes; the First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging men to resist induction, because, "when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right." In other words, the court held, the circumstances of wartime allow greater restrictions on free speech than would be allowed during peacetime, if only because new and greater dangers are present.
The opinion's most famous and most often quoted passage was this:
The phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has since become a popular metaphor for dangers or limitations of free speech.
Argued: January 8–10, 1919
Decided: March 3, 1919
Full case name: Charles T. Schenck v. United States, Elizabeth Baer v. United States
Holding: Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it was intended to result in a crime and created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting service of the U.S. armed forces during a state of war.
Majority: Holmes, joined by unanimous
Laws applied: U.S. Const. amend. I; 50 U.S.C. § 33
Overruled by: Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that Charles Schenck and other defendants, who distributed flyers to draft-age men urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not protect Schenck from prosecution, even though, "in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done." In this case, Holmes said, "the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." Therefore, Schenck could be punished.
The Court followed this reasoning to uphold a series of convictions arising out of prosecutions during wartime, but Holmes began to dissent in the case of Abrams v. United States, insisting that the Court had departed from the standard he had crafted for them and had begun to allow punishment for ideas. In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of speech that the government may ban to that directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot).[1]
{snip}
The Court's decision
The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The statute only applied to successful obstructions of the draft, but common-law precedents allowed prosecution for attempts that were dangerously close to success. Attempts made by speech or writing could be punished like other attempted crimes; the First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging men to resist induction, because, "when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right." In other words, the court held, the circumstances of wartime allow greater restrictions on free speech than would be allowed during peacetime, if only because new and greater dangers are present.
The opinion's most famous and most often quoted passage was this:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.
The phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has since become a popular metaphor for dangers or limitations of free speech.
Mon Mar 4, 2019: Happy 100th anniversary (March 3), Schenck v. United States.
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