ADDERLEY ET AL. v. FLORIDA
No. 19
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 18, 1966. Decided November 14, 1966.
385 U.S. 39
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners, Harriett Louise Adderley and 31 other persons, were convicted by a jury in a joint trial in the County Judge‘s Court of Leon County, Florida, on a charge of “trespass with a malicious and mischievous intent” upon the premises of the county jail contrary to
I.
Petitioners have insisted from the beginning of this case that it is controlled by and must be reversed because of our prior cases of Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, and Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 559. We cannot agree.
The Edwards case, like this one, did come up when a number of persons demonstrated on public property against their State‘s segregation policies. They also sang hymns and danced, as did the demonstrators in this case. But here the analogies to this case end. In Edwards, the demonstrators went to the South Carolina State Capitol grounds to protest. In this case they went to the jail. Traditionally, state capitol grounds are open to the public. Jails, built for security purposes, are not. The demonstrators at the South Carolina Capitol went in through a public driveway and as they entered they were told by state officials there that they had a right as citizens to go through the State House grounds as long as they were peaceful. Here the demonstrators entered the jail grounds through a driveway used only for jail purposes and without warning to or permission from the sheriff. More importantly, South Carolina sought to prosecute its State Capitol demonstrators by charging them with the common-law crime of breach of the peace.
The Florida trespass statute under which these petitioners were charged cannot be challenged on this ground. It is aimed at conduct of one limited kind, that is, for one person or persons to trespass upon the property of another with a malicious and mischievous intent. There is no lack of notice in this law, nothing to entrap or fool the unwary.
Petitioners seem to argue that the Florida trespass law is void for vagueness because it requires a trespass to be “with a malicious and mischievous intent . . . .” But these words do not broaden the scope of trespass so as to make it cover a multitude of types of conduct as does the common-law breach-of-the-peace charge. On the contrary, these words narrow the scope of the offense.
II.
Petitioners in this Court invoke the doctrine of abatement announced by this Court in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U. S. 306. But that holding was that the
III.
Petitioners next argue that “petty criminal statutes may not be used to violate minorities’ constitutional rights.” This of course is true but this abstract proposition gets us nowhere in deciding this case.
IV.
Petitioners here contend that “Petitioners’ convictions are based on a total lack of relevant evidence.” If true, this would be a denial of due process under Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157, and Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199. Both in the petition for certiorari and in the brief on the merits petitioners state that their summary of the evidence “does not conflict with the facts contained in the Circuit Court‘s opinion” which was in effect affirmed by the District Court of Appeal. 175 So. 2d 249. That statement is correct and petitioners’ summary of facts, as well as that of the Circuit Court, shows an abundance of facts to support the jury‘s verdict of guilty in this case.
In summary both these statements show testimony ample to prove this: Disturbed and upset by the arrest of their schoolmates the day before, a large number of Florida A. & M. students assembled on the school grounds and decided to march down to the county jail. Some apparently wanted to be put in jail too, along with the students already there.3 A group of around 200 marched
Under the foregoing testimony the jury was authorized to find that the State had proven every essential element of the crime, as it was defined by the state court. That interpretation is, of course, binding on us, leaving only the question of whether conviction of the state offense, thus defined, unconstitutionally deprives petitioners of their rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly or petition. We hold it does not. The sheriff, as jail custodian,
These judgments are Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, and MR. JUSTICE FORTAS concur, dissenting.
The First Amendment, applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth (Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 235), provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These rights, along with religion, speech, and press, are preferred rights of the Constitution, made so by reason of that explicit guarantee and
The jailhouse, like an executive mansion, a legislative chamber, a courthouse, or the statehouse itself (Edwards v. South Carolina, supra) is one of the seats of government, whether it be the Tower of London, the Bastille, or a small county jail. And when it houses political prisoners or those who many think are unjustly held, it is an obvious center for protest. The right to petition for the redress of grievances has an ancient history2 and
There is no question that petitioners had as their purpose a protest against the arrest of Florida A. & M. students for trying to integrate public theatres. The sheriff‘s testimony indicates that he well understood the purpose of the rally. The petitioners who testified unequivocally stated that the group was protesting the arrests, and state and local policies of segregation, including segregation of the jail. This testimony was not contradicted or even questioned. The fact that no one gave a formal speech, that no elaborate handbills were distributed, and that the group was not laden with signs would seem to be immaterial. Such methods are not the sine qua non of petitioning for the redress of grievances. The group did sing “freedom” songs. And history shows that a song can be a powerful tool of protest. See Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 546-548. There was no violence; no threat of violence; no attempted jail break; no storming of a prison; no plan or plot to do anything but protest. The evidence is uncontradicted that the petitioners’ conduct did not upset the jailhouse routine; things went on as they normally would. None of the group entered the jail. Indeed, they moved back from the entrance as they were instructed. There was no shoving, no pushing, no disorder or threat of riot. It is said that some of the group blocked part of the driveway leading to the jail entrance. The chief jailer, to be sure, testified that vehicles would not have been able to use the driveway. Never did the students locate themselves so as to cause interference with persons or vehicles going to or coming from the jail. Indeed, it is undisputed that the sheriff and deputy sheriff, in
We do violence to the First Amendment when we permit this “petition for redress of grievances” to be turned into a trespass action. It does not help to analogize this problem to the problem of picketing. Picketing is a form of protest usually directed against private interests. I do not see how rules governing picketing in general are relevant to this express constitutional right to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. In the first place the jailhouse grounds were not marked with “NO TRESPASSING!” signs, nor does respondent claim that the public was generally excluded from the grounds. Only the sheriff‘s fiat transformed lawful conduct into an unlawful trespass. To say that a private owner could have done the same if the rally had taken place on private property is to speak of a different case, as an assembly and a petition for redress of grievances run to government, not to private proprietors.
“. . . Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views on national questions may be regulated in the interest of all; it is not absolute, but relative, and must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience, and in consonance with peace and good order; but it must not, in the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied.”
Such was the case of Edwards v. South Carolina, where aggrieved people “peaceably assembled at the site of the State Government” to express their grievances to the citizens of the State as well as to the legislature. Supra, at 235. Edwards was in the tradition of Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, where the public streets were said to be “immemorially associated” with “the right of assembly and the opportunities for the communication of thought and the discussion of public questions.” Id., at 574. When we allow Florida to construe her “malicious trespass” statute to bar a person from going on property knowing it is not his own and to apply that prohibition to public property, we discard Cox and Edwards. Would the case be any different if, as is common, the demonstration took place outside a building which housed both the jail and the legislative body? I think not.
That tragic consequence happens today when a trespass law is used to bludgeon those who peacefully exercise a First Amendment right to protest to government against one of the most grievous of all modern oppressions which some of our States are inflicting on our citizens.
What we do today disregards the admonition in De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364-365:
“These [First Amendment] rights may be abused by using speech or press or assembly in order to incite to violence and crime. The people through their legislatures may protect themselves against that abuse. But the legislative intervention can find constitutional justification only by dealing with the abuse. The rights themselves must not be curtailed. The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.”
Notes
“‘Mischievous,’ which is also required, means that the alleged trespass shall be inclined to cause petty and trivial trouble, annoyance and vexation to others in order for you to find that the alleged trespass was committed with mischievous intent.” R. 74.
The historical antecedents of the right to petition for the redress of grievances run deep, and strike to the heart of the democratic philosophy. C. 61 of the Magna Carta provided:“[T]hat if we or our justiciar, or our bailiffs, or any of our servants shall have done wrong in any way toward any one, or shall have transgressed any of the articles of peace or security; and the wrong shall have been shown to four barons of the aforesaid twenty-five barons, let those four barons come to us or to our justiciar, if we
are out of the kingdom, laying before us the transgression, and let them ask that we cause that transgression to be corrected without delay.” Sources of Our Liberties 21 (Perry ed. 1959).The representatives of the people vigorously exercised the right in order to gain the initiative in legislation and a voice in their government. See Pollard, The Evolution of Parliament 329-331 (1964). By 1669 the House of Commons had resolved that “it is an inherent right of every commoner of England to prepare and present Petitions to the house of commons in case of grievance,” and “That no court whatsoever hath power to judge or censure any Petition presented . . . .” 4 Parl. Hist. Eng. 432-433 (1669). The Bill of Rights of 1689 provided “That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.” Adams & Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History 464. The right to petition for a redress of grievances was early asserted in the Colonies. The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 declared “That it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies, to petition the king or either house of parliament.” Sources of Our Liberties 271 (Perry ed. 1959). The Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, adopted October 14, 1774, declared that Americans “have a right peaceably to assemble, consider their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal.” Id., at 288. The Declaration of Independence assigned as one of the reasons for the break from England the fact that “Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” The constitutions of four of the original States specifically guaranteed the right. Mass. Const., Art. 19 (1780); Pa. Const., Art. IX, § 20 (1790); N. H. Const., Art. 32 (1784); N. C. Const., Art. 18 (1776).
“The conduct which is the subject of this statute—picketing and parading—is subject to regulation even though intertwined with expression and association. The examples are many of the application by this Court of the principle that certain forms of conduct mixed with speech may be regulated or prohibited.” Id., at 563.
