Cox v. Louisiana

Supreme Court of United States
379 U.S. 536 (1965)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A state may not convict a peaceful demonstrator for breach of the peace based on a hostile audience's reaction, nor for obstructing a public passage under a statute that is enforced by granting officials unfettered discretion to permit or prohibit public assemblies, as both violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Facts:

On December 14, 1961, twenty-three students from Southern University were arrested in Baton Rouge for picketing stores with segregated lunch counters.
The following day, Reverend B. Elton Cox, a leader with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), led a protest of approximately 2,000 students.
The students marched peacefully to a location across the street from the courthouse where the arrested students were jailed.
Police Chief Wingate White instructed Cox to confine the demonstration to the west sidewalk, 101 feet from the courthouse steps, and Cox complied.
The students gathered on the designated sidewalk, sang patriotic songs and hymns, prayed, and held signs protesting segregation.
During his speech, Cox encouraged the students to continue their protest by seeking service at segregated lunch counters.
A crowd of 100 to 300 white onlookers gathered and began 'muttering' and 'grumbling' in reaction to the demonstration, but the protesters themselves remained peaceful.
The Sheriff ordered the demonstrators to disperse, calling Cox's speech 'inflammatory,' and police then used tear gas to break up the assembly. Cox was arrested the next day.

Procedural Posture:

Reverend B. Elton Cox was charged with disturbing the peace, obstructing public passages, and two other offenses in Louisiana.
In a bench trial at the state court of first instance, Cox was convicted of disturbing the peace, obstructing public passages, and picketing before a courthouse.
Cox appealed his convictions to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the state's highest court.
The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed all three convictions.
Cox appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which granted review of the convictions for disturbing the peace and obstructing public passages in this case.

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Issue:

Do convictions under Louisiana's 'disturbing the peace' and 'obstructing public passages' statutes violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free speech and assembly when applied to a peaceful, orderly protest against segregation, where the 'peace' was only threatened by a hostile audience and the obstruction statute was enforced with unfettered official discretion?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Goldberg

Yes. The convictions for disturbing the peace and obstructing public passages violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. For the disturbing the peace conviction, the demonstration was peaceful and orderly, and the record shows no conduct that the State had a right to prohibit. Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly may not be denied simply because of hostility to their exercise by an audience. Furthermore, the Louisiana statute, as interpreted by the state's supreme court to define a 'breach of the peace' as anything that 'agitates' or 'disquiets,' is unconstitutionally overbroad because it sweeps within its scope constitutionally protected speech. For the obstructing public passages conviction, while states can regulate the use of public streets, the statute as applied in Baton Rouge is unconstitutional. Local officials exercised unfettered and standardless discretion in deciding which groups could hold parades or meetings. This practice is the equivalent of a prior restraint on speech, allowing officials to act as censors and engage in invidious discrimination based on the content of the expression, which is a clear violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Analysis:

This landmark decision significantly strengthened protections for civil rights demonstrations by reinforcing the 'hostile audience' doctrine, placing the duty on law enforcement to protect speakers from hostile listeners rather than silencing the speakers. It established that peaceful protest, even if it stirs anger or unrest, is at the core of First Amendment protection. The case is also critical in public forum doctrine, striking down not the statute itself but its application, clarifying that facially neutral laws regulating public space cannot be used to grant officials standardless, discretionary power that can be wielded to suppress unpopular viewpoints.

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