Stanley Forman Reed

“ This Nation has never suffered from an enforced conformity of expression or a limitation of criticism. But neither are we compelled to endure espionage and sedition. Wide as are the freedoms of the First Amendment, this Court has never hesitated to deny the individual's right to use the privileges for the overturn of law and order. Reasonable restraints for the fair protection of the Government against incitement to sedition cannot properly be said to be 'undemocratic' or contrary to the guarantees of free speech. ”

“ The power to punish for contempt of court is a safeguard not for judges as persons but for the function which they exercise. It is a condition of that function-indispensable for a free society-that in a particular controversy pending before a court and awaiting judgment, human beings, however strong, should not be torn from their moorings of impartiality by the undertow of extraneous influence. In securing freedom of speech, the Constitution hardly meant to create the right to influence judges or juries. ”

“ What standard of definiteness does the Court furnish the New York legislature in finding indefiniteness in the present law? Should the New York legislature enumerate by name the publications which in its judgment are 'inciting violent and depraved crimes'? Should the New York legislature spell out in detail the ingredients of stories or pictures which accomplish such 'inciting'? What is there in the condemned law that leaves men in the dark as to what is meant by publications that exploit 'criminal deeds of bloodshed or lust' thereby 'inciting violent and depraved crimes'? ”

“ I cannot agree that a state can lawfully bar from a semi-public position, a well-qualified man of good character solely because he entertains a religious belief which might prompt him at some time in the future to violate a law which has not yet been and may never be enacted. Under our Constitution men are punished for what they do or fail to do and not for what they think and believe. ”

“ Such words as employer, agent, independent contractor are not decisive. No single phrase can be said to determine the employer. One must look at the venture as a whole. Whose orders controlled the master and the crew? Whose money paid their wages? Who hired the crew? Whose initiative and judgment chose the route and the ports? It is in the light of these basic considerations that one must read the contract. No evidence has come to our attention that indicates the general agent ever undertook to give orders or directions as to the route or management of the ship while on voyage. ”

“ Legislation may leave with the jury the duty of finding an accused guilty of murder in the first degree but give them the right of remission of the death sentence, provided there is unanimous agreement on such remission. Any juror, of course, has it in his power to deadlock a jury out of sheer wilfulness or unreasonable obstinacy. But under such a statute the duty laid upon his conscience is to find guilt if there is guilt. The jury can save an accused from death only if they can reach a unanimous agreement to relieve from the doom. ”

“ In view of the fallibilities of human judgment regarding the same body of evidence it is inevitable that one may be doubtful, and even more than doubtful, whether in a particular case a plea of insanity was properly rejected. It is not for this Court to find a want of due process in a conviction for murder sustained by the highest court of the State merely because a finding that the defendant is sane may raise the gravest doubts. But it is our duty under the Fourteenth Amendment to scrutinize the procedure by which the plea of insanity failed and defendant's life became forfeit. ”

“ It seems obvious that the action of the School Board in permitting religious education in certain grades of the schools by all faiths did not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Even assuming that certain children who did not elect to take instruction are embarrassed to remain outside of the classes, one can hardly speak of that embarrassment as a prohibition against the free exercise of religion. As no issue of prohibition upon the free exercise of religion is before us, we need only examine the School Board's action to see if it constitutes an establishment of religion. ”

“ New York is not the only state with an interest in these questions. New York is merely the sole state whose argument we have heard. The mobility of our population and the complexity of our life create many confusions in which the states may properly look to us for some standard by which they may know what and whom to claim for their own. It seems to me that we should not unnecessarily confound what at best is confusion, by removing the landmarks of state jurisdiction erected by years of trial and error. ”

“ Courts to determine the rights of parties are an integral part of our system of government. It is just as important that there should be a place to end as that there should be a place to begin litigation. After a party has his day in court, with opportunity to present his evidence and his view of the law, a collateral attack upon the decision as to jurisdiction there rendered merely retries the issue previously determined. There is no reason to expect that the second decision will be more satisfactory than the first. ”

“ Liberty of conscience is too full of meaning for the individuals in this nation to permit taxation to prohibit or substantially impair the spread of religious ideas, even though they are controversial and run counter to the established notions of a community. If this Court is to err in evaluating claims that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion have been invaded, far better that it err in being overprotective of these precious rights. ”

“ Criticism therefore must not feel cramped, even criticism of the administration of criminal justice. Weak characters ought not to be judges, and the scope allowed to the press for society's sake may assume that they are not. No judge fit to be one is likely to be influenced consciously except by what he sees and hears in court and by what is judicially appropriate for his deliberations. However, judges are also human, and we know better than did our forbears how powerful is the pull of the unconscious and how treacherous the rational process. ”

“ While I appreciate the necessity of watchfulness to avoid abridgments of our freedom of expression, it is impossible for me to discover in this trivial town police regulation a violation of the First Amendment. No ideas are being suppressed. No censorship is involved. The freedom to teach or preach by word or book is unabridged, save only the right to call a householder to the door of his house to receive the summoner's message. ”

“ A basis for liability which has entered into the warp and woof of our law, as is true of the responsibility of collective bodies for the acts of their agents, should not be deemed to have been uprooted by an enactment which merely emphasizes that basis and rules out its distortions. 1932 was too late in the day for Congress not to have known that unions, like other organizations, act only through officers, and that unions do not, any more than do other organizations, explicitly instruct their officers to violate the Sherman Law. ”

“ It is a reward for the invention or discovery of something new, something before unknown, something added to the sum total of human knowledge, utility, well-being; something which the inventor or discoverer, despising the lure of money or fame, might have withheld from his fellow men. By the monopoly that goes with a patent, then, the Government recompenses and, for a limited time, protects the inventor or discoverer who gives to the world the use and benefit of his invention or discovery. ”

“ A coerced confession is offensive to basic standards of justice, not because the victim has a legal grievance against the police, but because declarations procured by torture are not premises from which a civilized forum will infer guilt. The Fourteenth Amendment does not provide review of mere error in jury verdicts, even though the error concerns the voluntary character of a confession. We cannot say that an inference of guilt based in part upon Lyons' McAlester confession is so illogical and unreasonable as to deny the petitioner a fair trial. ”

“ The valid requirements of license are for the good of the applicants and the public. It would be unreal to say that such official failures to act in accordance with state law, redressable by state judicial procedures, are state acts violative of the Federal Constitution. Delay is unfortunate but the expense and annoyance of litigation is a price citizens must pay for life in an orderly society where the rights of the First Amendment have a real and abiding meaning. Nor can we say that a state's requirement that redress must be sought through appropriate judicial procedure violates due process. ”

“ The right to picket peacefully in industrial disputes is a recognized means for the marshaling of public opinion on the side of the worker. There is no finding that violence was planned or encouraged by the union. To deny this right of peaceful picketing to thousands because of the violence of a few means the cutting off of one of the constitutionally protected ways in which orderly adjustments of economic disputes are brought about. I cannot see that the constitutional problem is 'totally different' because raised by a court decree rather than a statute. ”

“ Nothing has come to my attention that indicates to me a congressional purpose to grant to one more rights as to continuity of employment than to the other. The legislation as to both depended upon the same constitutional authority-the War Power. I can see no reason to attribute to Congress an intention to guarantee public employment to a returning veteran regardless of the needs of the public service or to discriminate between equally deserving veterans. ”

“ If a State may ask for the posting of a $1,000 bond, may she not require a $10,000 bond? If a State should urge that its experience shows that any regulatory system is ineffective because illicit diversion is too resourceful for control by mere regulation and requires prohibition, who is to say, in view of the history embedded in the Twenty-first Amendment, that a State may not fairly act on such a judgment? ”

“ For a State to require policies to be issued under its authority or to require extra-state policies to be interpreted by its laws burdens maritime operations unduly. Shipmasters must know how to handle their vessels to preserve their insurance. Insurers must know the risks they are assuming when they fix their premiums. What law is to govern-that of the State where the insurance contract was issued, the State of the accident, or the State of the forum? It seems an unreasonable interference with maritime activity to allow the many States to declare the substantive law of marine insurance. ”

“ There is equal unanimity that opportunists, for private gain, cannot be permitted to arm themselves with an acceptable principle, such as that of a right to work, a privilege to engage in interstate commerce, or a free press, and proceed to use it as an iron standard to smooth their path by crushing the living rights of others to privacy and repose. ”

“ We are unable, however, to follow the Social Security Board in such a limited circumscription of the word 'service.' The very words 'any service * * * performed * * * for his employer,' with the purpose of the Social Security Act in mind import breadth of coverage. They admonish us against holding that 'service' can be only productive activity. We think that 'service' as used by Congress in this definitive phrase means not only work actually done but the entire employer-employee relationship for which compensation is paid to the employee by the employer. ”

“ Courts-martial are deeply rooted in history. War is a grim business, requiring sacrifice of ease, opportunity, freedom from restraint, and liberty of action. Experience has demonstrated that the law of the military must be capable of prompt punishment to maintain discipline. The power to regulate the armed forces must have been granted to Congress so that it would have the authority over its armed forces that other nations have long exercised, subject only to limitations of the Constitution. ”

“ How to escape, on the one hand, having a law rendered futile because no standard is afforded by which conduct is to be judged, and, on the other, a law so particularized as to defeat itself through the opportunities it affords for evasion, involves an exercise of judgment which is at the heart of the legislative process. It calls for the accommodation of delicate factors. But this accommodation is for the legislature to make and for us to respect, when it concerns a subject so clearly within the scope of the police power as the control of crime. ”

“ Tolerant as we are of all political efforts by argument or persuasion to change the basis of our social, economic or political life, the line if drawn sharply and clearly at any act or incitement to act in violation of our constitutional processes. Surely the Government need not await an employee's conviction of a crime involving disloyalty before separating him from public service. Governments cannot be indifferent to manifestations of subversion. ”

“ When evidence is before a jury that threatens conviction, it does not seem unfair to require him to choose between leaving the adverse evidence unexplained and subjecting himself to impeachment through disclosure of former crimes. Indeed, this is a dilemma with which any defendant may be faced. If facts adverse to the defendant are proven by the prosecution, there may be no way to explain them favorably to the accused except by a witness who may be vulnerable to impeachment on cross-examination. ”

“ The utmost devotion to one's profession and the fullest recognition of the great role of lawyers in the evolution of a free society cannot lead one to erect as a constitutional principle that no administrative inquiry can be had in camera unless a lawyer be allowed to attend.
The assumption that as a normal matter such an inquiry carries with it deprivation of some rights of a citizen assumes inevitable misuse of authority. ”

“ The freedom of the press in itself presupposes an independent judiciary through which that freedom may, if necessary, be vindicated. And one of the potent means for assuring judges their independence is a free press.
A free press is vital to a democratic society because its freedom gives it power. Power in a democracy implies responsibility in its exercise. No institution in a democracy, either governmental or private, can have absolute power. ”

“ In our view, it cannot properly be said that the constitutional power of the United States over its waters is limited to control for navigation. By navigation respondent means no more than operation of boats and improvement of the waterway itself. In truth the authority of the United States is the regulation of commerce on its waters. Navigability, in the sense just stated, is but a part of this whole. Flood protection, watershed development, recovery of the cost of improvements through utilization of power are likewise parts of commerce control. ”

“ No one could doubt that taxation which may be freely laid upon activities not within the protection of the Bill of Rights could-when applied to the dissemination of ideas-be made the ready instrument for destruction of that right. Few would deny that a license tax laid specifically on the privilege of disseminating ideas would infringe the right of free speech. For one reason among others, if the state may tax the privilege it may fix the rate of tax and, through the tax, control or suppress the activity which it taxes. ”

“ As we have pointed out, a patentee may license others to make and vend his invention and collect a royalty therefor. Thus we have a statutory monoply by the patent and by the Sherman Act a prohibition, not only of monopoly or attempt to monopolize, but of every agreement in restraint of trade. Public policy has condemned monopolies for centuries. ”

“ And it is obvious that the same disqualification would exist as to every conscientious objector to the use of force, even though the Congress of the United States should continue its practice of absolving them from military service. The conclusion seems to me inescapable that if Illinois can bar this petitioner from the practice of law it can bar every person from every public occupation solely because he believes in non-resistance rather than in force. For a lawyer is no more subject to call for military duty than a plumber, a highway worker, a Secretary of State, or a prison chaplain. ”

“ Society has no interest in maintaining an unconstitutional conviction and every interest in preserving the writ of habeas corpus to nullify them when they occur. But the Constitution does not prevent the state courts from determining the facts in criminal cases. It does not make it unconstitutional for them to have a different opinion than a federal judge about the weight to be given to evidence. My votes in the cases under review and on other petitions and reviews will be guided as nearly as I can by the principles set forth herein. ”

“ It is my position that a State law prohibiting monopolistic price fixing in restraint of trade is not 'novel' and 'unique' and raises no 'grave constitutional questions.' The constitutional right of the States to pass laws against monopolies should now be beyond possibility of controversy. ”

“ The fact that the patentee has the power to refuse a license does not enable him to enlarge the monopoly of the patent by the expedient of attaching conditions to its use. * * * The patent is a privilege. But is it a privilege which is conditioned by a public purpose. It results from invention and is limited to the invention which it defines. When the patentee ties something else to his invention, he acts only by virtue of his right as the owner of property to make contracts concerning it and not otherwise. ”

“ When a statute is challenged as impinging on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of worship, those historic privileges which are so essential to our political welfare and spiritual progress, it is the duty of this Court to subject such legislation to examination, in the light of the evidence adduced, to determine whether it is so drawn as not to impair the substance of those cherished freedoms in reaching its objective. ”

“ To say that he who is free to withhold at will the privilege of publication exercises a power of censorship prohibited by the Constitution, but that he who has unrestricted power to withdraw the privilege does not, would be to ignore history and deny the teachings of experience, as well as to perpetuate the evils at which the First Amendment was aimed. ”

“ We have here a price fixing combination that actually wields the power of life and death over every business in Florida, and elsewhere, dependent upon copyrighted musical compositions for existence. Such a monopolistic combination's power to fix prices is the power to destroy. Should a Court of Equity grant this combination the privilege of violating a State anti-monopoly law? ”

“ In the noble words, penned by John Adams, of the First Constitution of Massachusetts: 'It is essential to the preservation of the rights of every individual, his life, liberty, property, and character, that there be an impartial interpretation of the laws, and administration of justice. It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit.' [16] A free press is not to be preferred to an independent judiciary, nor an independent judiciary to a free press. Neither has primacy over the other ”