Whitney v. California
Whitney v. California is a significant Supreme Court case that addressed the limits of free speech and the state's power to regulate speech that may incite violence. The case involved Charlotte Whitney, a member of the International Workers of the World and the Communist Labor Party, who was convicted under California's criminal syndicalism statute for her political associations and participation in meetings advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court upheld her conviction, emphasizing the state's interest in preventing potential violence stemming from political actions.
While the ruling was unanimous, Justices Holmes and Brandeis provided a dissenting viewpoint that highlighted the importance of the "clear and present danger" doctrine, arguing that a conviction should require evidence of imminent harm. They contended that Whitney's defense could have been strengthened by this argument, which insists that speech must pose an immediate threat before it can be restricted. Ultimately, the principles established in Whitney v. California were later refined and overturned in the landmark case Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1968, marking a pivotal shift in the judicial approach to free speech protections.
Whitney v. California
Date: May 26, 1927
Citation: 274 U. S. 357
Issue: Freedom of association
Significance: The Supreme Court refined the clear and present danger concept to clearly require an imminence test.
Charlotte Whitney was a member of the International Workers of the World (IWW) and briefly a member of the Communist Labor Party, which advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government. There was no indication that Whitney did more than attend meetings, but the jury convicted her on criminal syndicalism charges. The Supreme Court unanimously sustained her conviction and the California state criminal syndicalism statute under which she was convicted. Justice Edward T. Sanford, in his opinion for the Court, cited the state’s power to protect the public from violence resulting from political action.
Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis concurred, with some very significant differences from the majority. They argued that Whitney’s lawyers failed her and therefore the conviction needed to stand, but they believed her lawyers might have succeeded had they used the argument that clear and present danger needed to be imminently present for her to be convicted. The justices insisted that imminence was a crucial requirement before the government could restrain speech. Only with the concept of imminence did the clear and present danger doctrine offer much hope of protecting free speech. Eventually Whitney was overturned by the Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1968).