''Adderley v. Florida'', 385 U.S. 39 (1966), was a
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
case regarding whether arrests for protesting in front of a jail were constitutional.
Background information
In 1966, a group of students from
Florida A&M University
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. ...
demonstrated against
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...
, and were subsequently arrested. The day after, around 200 FAMU students gathered in front of the
Leon County jail to protest their arrest.
Petitioners, 32 students, were members of a group of about 200 who on a nonpublic jail driveway, which they blocked, and on adjacent county jail premises had, by singing, clapping, and dancing, demonstrated against their schoolmates' arrest and perhaps against segregation in the jail and elsewhere. The sheriff, the jail's custodian, advised them that they were trespassing on county property and would have to leave or be arrested. The 107 demonstrators refusing to depart were thereafter arrested and convicted under a Florida trespass statute for "trespass with a malicious and mischievous intent." Petitioners contend that their convictions, affirmed by the Florida Circuit Court and the District Court of Appeal, deprived them of their "rights of free speech, assembly, petition, due process of law and equal protection of the laws" under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Decision
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the trespassing conviction in a 5–4 decision. The majority opinion, authored by
Justice Black, argued that county jails were not public places and so it did not infringe on their right to assembly. The decision argued that states may protect their property and withhold its use from demonstrators for nondiscriminatory reasons such as protection from damage.
Dissenting opinion
Justice Douglas authored a
dissenting opinion
A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an Legal opinion, opinion in a legal case in certain legal systems written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment.
Dissenting opi ...
in which
Chief Justice Warren and Justices
Brennan and
Fortas concurred. Douglas argued that the protesters did not engage in or threaten violence or block the entrance of the jail. Public officials should not, according to this vision of the First Amendment, be given discretion to decide which public places can be used for the expression of ideas.
[385 U.S. at 49–57]
See also
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 385
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Warren Court
*
Free speech zone
**''
Brown v. Louisiana''
**''
Cox v. Louisiana''
**''
Edwards v. South Carolina''
References
External links
*
* Case brief
Quimbee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adderley V. Florida
1966 in United States case law
Civil rights movement case law
Freedom of assembly
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court
Void for vagueness case law
November 1966 in the United States