Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Supreme Court
Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian denomination that emerged in the early 20th century, is known for its distinct beliefs and practices, including refusing military service and saluting the flag. Their unconventional evangelism led to significant legal confrontations in the United States, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s, as they faced widespread arrests and public violence for their beliefs. Throughout this period, the sect's legal department undertook a vigorous campaign to defend their rights, resulting in numerous court cases that would shape First Amendment jurisprudence.
The Supreme Court played a crucial role in adjudicating cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses, contributing to landmark rulings that affirmed individual liberties. Notable decisions included *Cantwell v. Connecticut* (1940), which established that free exercise rights applied at the state level, and *West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette* (1943), which reversed an earlier ruling allowing schools to compel students to salute the flag. These cases not only protected the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses but also set important precedents reinforcing freedom of speech and religion in the United States. The journey through the legal system highlights the evolving interpretation of constitutional rights in relation to minority religious practices.
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Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Supreme Court
Founded: 1931
Description: Evangelical religious sect that engages in vigorous missionary work and holds unconventional Christian beliefs.
Significance: Jehovah’s Witnesses were a party in more than thirty precedent-setting Supreme Court decisions. The sect’s litigation contributed to Court rulings expanding protection for free exercise of religion and of freedom of press, speech, and assembly.
In 1931 an Adventist sect known as Bible Students adopted the name Jehovah’s Witnesses. Over the next two decades, their style of aggressive, unconventional evangelism resulted in numerous confrontations across the United States. This conflict resulted from their refusal to salute the U.S. flag and from their unrelenting attack on organized religions. Between 1933 and 1951 there were 18,866 arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses and about 1,500 cases of mob violence against them. The Jehovah’s Witnesses national legal department sustained a determined campaign of litigation to assert the right to exercise freely the sect’s beliefs. By 1950 it had won 150 suits in state supreme courts and more than thirty Supreme Court decisions.
Legal briefs filed by Jehovah’s Witnesses, usually written by their chief counsel Hayden Covington, were a strange mixture of Bible proof texts and constitutional arguments. They were, nonetheless, quite effective. In 1938 the first Jehovah’s Witnesses case to reach the Court, Lovell v. City of Griffin, raised a free press question. The Court ruled that requiring a permit from the government to distribute literature violated the prior restraint provision of the First Amendment. The Court’s 1940 landmark decision, Cantwell v. Connecticut, held that the Fourteenth Amendment made the free exercise clause binding on the states, that public officials did not have authority to determine what causes were religious, and that breach-of-the-peace laws must be narrowly drawn. Free speech cases brought by the Jehovah’s Witnesses set important precedents. The Court ruled that it is constitutional to regulate the time, place, and manner of expression but not its content in Cox v. New Hampshire (1941) and that “fighting words” are not protected speech in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942).
Perhaps the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ biggest setback was the 1940 ruling in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that schools could expel students who refused to salute the flag. Over the next few years, however, decisions in cases involving the sect were a bellwether indicating the Court’s move to stronger support for individual liberties. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Court reversed its flag salute decision. A few months earlier in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, the Court had reversed its ruling that towns could tax religious literature sold door-to-door. In a series of cases that year, the court stuck down ordinances that prohibited or limited the sect’s door-to-door solicitations and distribution of handbills on the street. In 1944 the Court did uphold statutes that limited the time children could spend each day selling religious literature in Prince v. Massachusetts.
The principle of law developed in the Jehovah’s Witnesses cases was expressed by Justice Robert H. Jackson’s opinion in Barnette, “If there is any star in the constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.”
Bibliography
Newton, Merlin Owen. Armed with the Constitution: Jehovah’s Witnesses in Alabama and the U.S. Supreme Court, 1939-1946. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Stevens, Leonard A. Salute! The Case of the Bible vs. the Flag. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1973.