Harrison v. NAACP

Last updated
Harrison v. NAACP
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued March 23–24, 1959
Decided June 8, 1959
Full case nameHarrison, Attorney General of Virginia, et al. v. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, et al.
Citations360 U.S. 167 ( more )
79 S. Ct. 1025; 3 L. Ed. 2d 1152; 1959 U.S. LEXIS 1760
Case history
Prior159 F. Supp. 503 (E.D. Va. 1958); probable jurisdiction noted, 358 U.S. 807(1958).
SubsequentNAACP v. Harrison, 202 Va. 142; 116 S.E.2d 55 (1960); cert. granted, 365 U.S. 842(1961); reversed, NAACP v. Button , 371 U.S. 415 (1963).
Holding
District court erred in deciding the constitutionality of state law before state courts had a reasonable opportunity to construe them.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Earl Warren
Associate Justices
Hugo Black  · Felix Frankfurter
William O. Douglas  · Tom C. Clark
John M. Harlan II  · William J. Brennan Jr.
Charles E. Whittaker  · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
MajorityHarlan, joined by Black, Frankfurter, Clark, Whittaker, Stewart
DissentDouglas, joined by Warren, Brennan

Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167 (1959), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia should have abstained from deciding the constitutionality of three barratry, champerty, and maintenance laws in the state of Virginia until state courts had had a reasonable chance to construe them. [1]

Contents

Background

On September 10, 1956, as part of the Massive Resistance movement, 16 bills were introduced in a special session of the Virginia General Assembly aimed at curbing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Virginia. [2] Five of the bills expanded the state's definitions of barratry, champerty, and maintenance. Barratry is the "stirring up" of litigation by inducing individuals or organizations to sue when they otherwise would not. [3] Champerty occurs when a third party (not the plaintiff nor their legal counsel) assumes the risks and financial costs of a lawsuit in return for a portion of the monetary award. [3] Maintenance occurs when a third party supports or promotes a litigant's suit in such a way as to prolong litigation when the parties would otherwise have brought an end to litigation or settled the suit. [3] The eleven other bills collectively required the following groups to file a financial report and membership list annually with state: any group which promotes or opposes state legislation aimed at any race; any organization attempting to influence public opinion on behalf of any race; or any group raising funds to employ legal counsel in connection with racial litigation. [2] By the end of the special session, these had been collapsed into six "legal business" bills. [4] [5] They were significantly amended in committee to meet the constitutional concerns of a number of legislators. [5] The bills were merged so that only five were reported from the committee and passed by the Assembly. [3]

Governor Thomas B. Stanley signed these legal business bills into law on September 29, 1956. [4] They went into effect immediately. [4]

The Virginia NAACP filed suit in federal court in 1956 against the Attorney General of Virginia to have the five barratry, champerty, and maintenance laws thrown out as an unconstitutional infringement of the 1st Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. [6] In 1957, Virginians elected Albertis S. Harrison, Jr. Attorney General, so he was the named defendant when the three judge panel of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia issued its decision in NAACP v. Harrison, [7] the panel agreed that three of the laws were unconstitutional, but reserved judgment on the other two laws pending interpretation by state courts (which had not yet ruled on the laws' legality). [6]

The state appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari. Thurgood Marshall argued for the NAACP; David J. Mays and J. Segar Gravatt argued for the state (attorney general Harrison having delegated the responsibility of defending the statute to private attorney Mays).

Opinion of the Court

Majority

Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote the majority opinion, joined by Associate Justices Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark, Charles Evans Whittaker, and Potter Stewart.

The Supreme Court had, 18 years earlier, confronted the issue of how to avoid constitutional rulings where a resolution in state court might make such decisions unnecessary. This rule had been laid down in Railroad Comm'n of Tex. v. Pullman Co. , 312 U. S. 496 (1941).

Under this rule, Harlan concluded that the issue was not yet ripe for federal action. Federal courts, he wrote, should not address the constitutionality of state laws, especially those laws which were new or open to reasonable interpretation, until state courts had a reasonable period of time to interpret them. [8] To meet this test, the Supreme Court had to determine whether the laws in question could be reasonably interpreted in more than one way. Harlan said that there was reasonable room for alternative legal construction by state courts. [9] State courts, he said, needed to generate a complete record (which included the possibility of limiting interpretation) so that federal courts could more accurately rule on the issues raised. [10]

The judgment was vacated and the case remanded back of the district court, with instructions that the federal court should retain jurisdiction over the cases until such time as Virginia courts had construed them. [11]

Dissent

Associate Justice William O. Douglas dissented, joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren and Associate Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.

Douglas did not dispute that Railroad Comm'n was an appropriate precedent. However, he argued that in certain cases, the precedent could be used as a tactic to delay justice. [12] The case at hand presented unique, pressing issues regarding fundamental civil rights, he said, [13] "It seems plain to me that it was the District Court's duty to provide this remedy," he concluded. [14] "Where state laws made such an assault as these do on our decisions and a State has spoken defiantly against the constitutional rights of the citizens, reasons for showing deference to local institutions vanish." [15]

Douglas would have upheld the lower court's ruling against the three laws, and also thought that the majority erred by remanding the other two laws back to state courts for interpretation (rather than holding them unconstitutional). [16]

Related Research Articles

Barratry is a legal term with several meanings. In common law, barratry is the offense committed by people who are "overly officious in instigating or encouraging prosecution of groundless litigation" or who bring "repeated or persistent acts of litigation" for the purposes of profit or harassment.

Champerty and maintenance are doctrines in common law jurisdictions that aim to preclude frivolous litigation:

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimated the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877).

In United States constitutional law, substantive due process is a principle allowing courts to protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are not specifically mentioned elsewhere in the US Constitution. Courts have identified the basis for such protection from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Substantive due process demarcates the line between the acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and the acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.

John Marshall Harlan II Former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

John Marshall Harlan was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. Harlan is usually called John Marshall Harlan II to distinguish him from his grandfather John Marshall Harlan, who served on the Supreme Court from 1877 to 1911.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.

Judicial review in the United States Ability of a court in the US to examine laws to determine if it contradicts current laws

In the United States, judicial review is the legal power of a court to determine if a statute, treaty or administrative regulation contradicts or violates the provisions of existing law, a State Constitution, or ultimately the United States Constitution. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define the power of judicial review, the authority for judicial review in the United States has been inferred from the structure, provisions, and history of the Constitution.

Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal laws which that state has deemed unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts.

Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the right to travel and passport restrictions as they relate to Fifth Amendment due process rights and First Amendment free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association rights. It is the first case in which the US Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of personal restrictions on the right to travel abroad.

Common law offences are crimes under English criminal law and the related criminal law of other Commonwealth countries. They are offences under the common law, developed entirely by the law courts, and therefore have no specific basis in statute.

NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ruling, and also overturned certain laws enacted by the state of Virginia in 1956 as part of the Stanley Plan and massive resistance, as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The statutes here stricken down by the Supreme Court had expanded the definitions of the traditional common law crimes of champerty and maintenance, as well as barratry, and had been targeted at the NAACP and its civil rights litigation.

The Stanley Plan was a package of 13 statutes adopted in September 1956 by the U.S. state of Virginia. The statutes were designed to ensure racial segregation would continue in that state's public schools despite the unanimous ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that school segregation was unconstitutional. The legislative program was named for Governor Thomas B. Stanley, a Democrat, who proposed the program and successfully pushed for its enactment. The Stanley plan was a critical element in the policy of "massive resistance" to the Brown ruling advocated by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. The plan also included measures designed to curb the Virginia state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which many Virginia segregationists believed was responsible for "stirring up" litigation to integrate the public schools.

United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Ideal Cement Co., 369 U.S. 134 (1962), is a United States Supreme Court case which vacated a lower appellate court decision, holding that federal courts should abstain from ruling on the constitutionality of a state tax issue that state courts should determine.

John Baker Boatwright was Virginia lawyer and member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Buckingham, Appomattox and Cumberland Counties for 38 years beginning in 1922. A member of the Byrd Organization, Boatwright became a leader of its Massive Resistance to racial integration.

William Francis Stone was Virginia lawyer and member of the Virginia General Assembly representing Martinsville as well as Patrick and Henry Counties between 1954 and 1957, first as a delegate and then elected to a partial senate term in a special 1957 election upon the death of Frank P. Burton. A member of the Byrd Organization, Stone was a member of the Boatwright Committee which investigated the NAACP as part of the Massive Resistance to racial integration vowed by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.

Earl Abbath Fitzpatrick was a Virginia lawyer and member of the Virginia General Assembly representing Roanoke between 1940 and 1959, first as a delegate and then as a state Senator. A lieutenant in the Byrd Organization, Fitzpatrick was active in the Massive Resistance to racial integration vowed by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education. He introduced much of the segregationist legislation and was vice-chairman of the Boatwright Committee which investigated the NAACP for litigating on behalf of civil rights, before being defeated in the 1959 Democratic primary.

Edward Almer Ames Jr. was a Virginia lawyer and member of the Virginia General Assembly representing Virginia's Eastern shore between 1956 and 1968. A member of the Byrd Organization, Ames was also a member of the new legislative Boatwright Committee which investigated the NAACP as part of the Massive Resistance to racial integration vowed by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.

J. J. Williams Jr. American lawyer, banker, and politician

Joseph Judson Williams Jr. was a Virginia lawyer and banker, who served part-time for more than two decades representing Henrico County, Virginia in the Virginia House of Delegates. A member of the Byrd Organization, Williams participated in its Massive Resistance to racial integration, but left that political crisis to serve as a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board for the three years before his death.

John Segar Gravatt was a Virginia lawyer and trial judge. He is often known as J. Segar Gravatt, although this is also the appellation of his youngest daughter, Jacqueline Segar Gravatt, who was the first woman ordained as an Episcopal minister in Virginia.

<i>Persona Digital Telephony Ltd v. Minister for Public Enterprise, Ireland</i> Irish Supreme Court case

Persona Digital Telephony Ltd v. Minister for Public Enterprise, Ireland, [2017] IESC 27; was an Irish Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that third party funding to support a plaintiff's legal costs and disbursements is unlawful.

References

  1. ↑ Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167 (1959).
  2. 1 2 "Bills Aimed at NAACP Stir Va. Assembly Fight." Washington Post. September 11, 1956.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Dickson, p. 314.
  4. 1 2 3 "School, NAACP Bills Signed by Gov. Stanley." Washington Post. September 30, 1956.
  5. 1 2 Baker, Robert E. "School Bills Go to Stanley." Washington Post. September 23, 1956.
  6. 1 2 Dickson, p. 315.
  7. ↑ NAACP v. Harrison, 159F. Supp.503 (E.D. Va.1958).
  8. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 176–177.
  9. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 177–178.
  10. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 178.
  11. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 179.
  12. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 179–180 (Douglas, J., dissenting).
  13. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 180.
  14. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 181.
  15. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 182.
  16. ↑ Harrison, 360 U.S. at 184.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.