Adderley v. Florida
385 U.S. 39 (1966)
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Rule of Law:
The First Amendment does not prohibit a state from enforcing its content-neutral trespass laws against individuals protesting on state-owned property that is not a traditional public forum, such as the grounds of a county jail dedicated to security purposes.
Facts:
- Following the arrest of fellow students for protesting segregation, Harriett Louise Adderley and approximately 200 other Florida A. & M. University students marched to the Leon County jail.
- The students gathered on the jail grounds, specifically on a driveway used for transporting prisoners and servicing the jail, which was not typically open to the public.
- The protestors sang, clapped, and danced to protest the previous day's arrests and general segregation policies.
- The county sheriff, the legal custodian of the jail, informed the demonstrators that they were trespassing on county property.
- The sheriff gave the group 10 minutes to leave the jail premises.
- After the time expired, some demonstrators left, but Adderley and 106 others remained on the jail grounds and refused to depart.
- The sheriff arrested the remaining demonstrators for trespassing.
Procedural Posture:
- Harriett Adderley and 31 others were charged with 'trespass with a malicious and mischievous intent' in violation of Florida law.
- Petitioners were convicted by a jury in a joint trial in the County Judge’s Court of Leon County, Florida, the court of first instance.
- On appeal, the convictions were affirmed by the Florida Circuit Court, an intermediate appellate court.
- Petitioners then appealed to the Florida District Court of Appeal, which also affirmed the convictions.
- As this was the highest state court available for their appeal, petitioners sought and were granted a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Issue:
Does the conviction of peaceful civil rights demonstrators under a state's general trespass statute for refusing to leave the non-public grounds of a county jail violate their First Amendment rights to free speech, assembly, and petition?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Black
No. The conviction of the demonstrators under a general trespass statute does not violate their First Amendment rights because the state has the power to control the use of its property for lawful, nondiscriminatory purposes. The court reasoned that a jail, built for security, is not a traditional public forum like state capitol grounds, which are open to the public. Unlike the vague breach-of-the-peace statutes struck down in prior cases like Edwards v. South Carolina, the Florida trespass law was precise and aimed at conduct, not expression. The sheriff's order to vacate the premises was based on the demonstrators' location on a part of the jail grounds reserved for official use, not on the content of their protest. The Constitution does not grant an unlimited right to protest whenever, however, and wherever one pleases, and the state, like a private property owner, can preserve its property for its intended function.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Douglas
Yes. The conviction for trespass unconstitutionally abridges the demonstrators' First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The dissent argued that a jailhouse is a seat of government and an obvious and appropriate center for protest against unjust imprisonment and segregation policies. The protest was entirely peaceful, did not disrupt jail operations, and the demonstrators complied with requests to move. Using a general trespass statute to criminalize a peaceful protest on public property, which was not marked as off-limits, gives excessive discretion to officials to suppress disfavored speech. The dissent contends that the court should protect such peaceful petitions, not allow them to be 'bludgeoned' by a trespass law.
Analysis:
This decision is foundational to the development of the public forum doctrine, which categorizes government property for First Amendment purposes. Adderley establishes that not all public property is a public forum where expressive rights receive maximum protection. By distinguishing the jail grounds from the state capitol grounds in Edwards, the Court created a category of non-public forum property where the government can impose reasonable, content-neutral restrictions on speech to preserve the property's intended function. This ruling empowers the government to maintain order and security on properties dedicated to specific, non-expressive uses, limiting the locations where citizens can exercise their protest rights.
