Edwards Vs South Carolina Case Study

Ashley Bejarano
Mr. Asper
American Government Honors
21 October 2011
Edward V. South Carolina: Facts of Cause
1.Facts of case
Edwards v. South Carolina (1963) was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution forbade state government officials to force a crowd to disperse when they are otherwise legally marching in front of a state house. The 187 petitioners consisted of African-American high school and college students who peacefully assembled at the Zion Baptist Church in Columbia South Carolina on March 2, 1961. The students marched in separate groups of roughly 15 to South Carolina State House grounds to peacefully express their grievances regarding civil
rights of African-Americans.
The crowd of petitioners did not engage in any violent conduct and did not threaten violence in any manner, nor did crowds gathering to witness the demonstration engage in any such behavior. Petitioners were told by police officials that they must disperse within 15 minutes or face arrest. The petitioners failed to disperse, opting to sing religious and patriotic songs instead. Petitioners were convicted of the common law crime of breach of the peace. Their purpose was "to submit a protest to the citizens of South Carolina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South Carolina, our feelings and our dissatisfaction with the present condition of discriminatory actions against Negroes, in general, and to let them know that we were dissatisfied and that we would like for the laws which prohibited Negro privileges in this State to be removed."
2.Issues
As stated before, approximately two hundred African‐American high school and college students walked in groups of fifteen from a church in Columbia, South Carolina, to the grounds of the state capitol, an area normally open to the public. Their purpose in visiting this traditional public forum was to protest discrimination against blacks and to seek
repeal of the laws that produced unequal treatment. Three dozen law enforcement officers were on the capitol grounds when the demonstrators arrived. They informed the students of their right to be peacefully present there. For the better part of an hour, the demonstrators walked through the grounds in an orderly fashion carrying placards expressing their pride in being black and their opposition to segregation. During this time, a crowd of two hundred to three hundred curious, but no hostile, onlookers gathered at the periphery of the capitol grounds. Police protection at all times was adequate to meet any foreseeable possibility of disorder. Nonetheless, the police informed the students that they would be arrested if they did not disperse within fifteen minutes. The students commenced to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” and other patriotic and religious songs. When fifteen minutes expired, the students were arrested and their conviction for common law breach of the peace was upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court. The arrests and convictions of the marchers violate their freedom of speech, assembly, and petition for redress of their grievances as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Some constitutional issues were also, if the Columbia police were abusing their power when they ordered the demonstration to disperse? Had South Carolina taken a very narrow view of exactly what constituted a “breach of the peace”? Were the convictions for “breach of the peace” unconstitutional? Was there any evidence to convict the marchers for “breach of the peace”? And had any breach of the peace been, in fact, committed?
3. Ruling- Majority The Supreme Court held that in arresting, convicting and punishing the petitioners, South Carolina infringed on the petitioners’ rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom to petition for a redress of grievances. The Court stated that these rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by the States. The Supreme Court argued the arrests and convictions of 187 marchers were an attempt by South Carolina to “make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views” where the marchers’ actions were an exercise of First Amendment rights “in their most pristine and classic form.” The Court described the common law crime of breach of the peace as “not susceptible of exact definition.” The Court held that the arrests and convictions violated the rights of the marchers. They were convicted of an offense which the South Carolina Supreme Court, in upholding the convictions, described as "not susceptible of exact definition." The evidence used to prosecute the marchers did not even remotely prove that their actions were violent. Hence, Justice Stewart found clear constitutional violations in this case. Stewart called the marchers' actions an exercise of First Amendment rights "in their most pristine and classic form" and emphasized that a state cannot "make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views" as South Carolina attempted to do here.
4.Ruling- Minority The protestors believed their First Amendment rights had been violated. The First Amendment protects the “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” South Carolina argued that the law against breach of the peace applied to the protest, and that officers only arrested them when they feared violence was imminent (about to happen). The case eventually went to the Supreme Court. In Edwards, Justice Clark dissented, arguing that the City Manager’s action may have averted a major catastrophe because of the “almost spontaneous combustion in some Southern communities in such a situation.” The Supreme Court declared that the students' convictions violated their rights of free speech, free assembly, and the freedom to petition government for redress of grievances.
All of these rights, the Court said, were assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which makes fundamental guarantees of the Bill of Rights binding upon the states. The arbitrariness and egregiousness of South Carolina's violation of the petitioners' rights was manifest in the fact that they were not convicted of having violated any proper statute, only an ill-defined rule: “We do not review in this case criminal convictions resulting from the evenhanded application of a precise and narrowly drawn regulatory statute evincing a legislative judgment that certain specific conduct be limited or proscribed. If, for example, the petitioners had been convicted upon evidence that they had violated a law regulating traffic, or had disobeyed a law reasonably limiting the periods during which the State House grounds were open to the public, this would be a different
case.”
5.Reasoning for the decision For Edwards: Local officials failed in their duty to the protestors. Their event was a peaceful assembly, protected by the 1st Amendment. No local police official should be able to decide what public speeches should be allowed. If such power were permitted, the 1st Amendment would protect only speech of which local officials approved, and no protest at all would take place. The convictions should be overturned and the South Carolina law made more specific. For South Carolina: Every State has a clear right to regulate in order to protect public safety. The assembly was becoming disorderly, and the surrounding crowd had become excited and angry. If the police had not acted, violence would have erupted. The leaders of the march were guilty of a breach of the peace when they failed to heed the lawful orders of local police to end the rally and disperse the marchers. The convictions should be upheld. The right to assemble allows people to gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. Implicit within this right is the right to association and belief. The Supreme Court has expressly recognized that a right to freedom of association and belief is implicit in the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. This implicit right is limited to the right to associate for First Amendment purposes. It does not include a right of social association. The government may prohibit people from knowingly associating in groups that engage and promote illegal activities. The right to associate also prohibits the government from requiring a group to register or disclose its members or from denying government benefits on the basis of an individual's current or past membership in a particular group. There are exceptions to this rule where the Court finds that governmental interests in disclosure/registration outweigh interference with first amendment rights. The government may also, generally, not compel individuals to express themselves, hold certain beliefs, or belong to particular associations or groups.
In an 8-1 decision, the Court upheld the right of the citizens to demonstrate on public property, and overturned the convictions of the protestors. Writing for the majority, Justice Potter Stewart declared that “The Fourteenth Amendment does not permit a State to make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views. . .” While he noted that “Speech is often provocative and challenging, [such speech] may strike at prejudices and preconceptions . . . [that indeed may] have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of a view.” But, as Steward noted, that was the whole purpose of the 1st Amendment: “[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute.”