Adderley v. Florida

Infobox SCOTUS case
Litigants=Adderley v. Florida
ArgueDate=October 18
ArgueYear=1966
DecideDate=November 14
DecideYear=1966
FullName=Adderley, et al. v. Florida
USVol=385
USPage=39
Citation=
Prior=
Subsequent=
Holding=
SCOTUS=1965-1967
Majority=Black
JoinMajority=Clark, Harlan, Stewart, White
Dissent=Douglas
JoinDissent=Warren, Brennan, Fortas
LawsApplied=

"Adderley v. Florida", 385 U.S. 39 (1966), [ [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=385&page=39 385 U.S. 39] Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.] was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Background

In 1966, a group of students from Florida A&M University demonstrated against racial segregation, and were subsequently arrested. The day after, around 200 FAMU students gathered in front of the Leon County jail to protest their arrest. [cite web|url=http://law.jrank.org/pages/12548/Adderley-v-Florida.html|title=Adderley v. Florida - Further Readings|accessdate=2008-05-14]

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 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. [Cite book | author=Raymond, Walter John | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1dtn0olA8PcC&pg=PA672&dq=%22Adderley+v.+Florida%22&as_brr=3&sig=9ZOjxAl1jlyvLEVHxy8UAF9o_B8 | title=Dictionary of politics: selected American and foreign political and legal terms | date=1992 | publisher=Brunswick Pub. Corp. | location=Lawrenceville, Va. | isbn=1-55618-008-X | pages=pg. 672 ] [cite book |author=Graham, Barbara Luck; Davis, Abraham L. |title=The Supreme Court, race, and civil rights |publisher=Sage Publications |location=Thousand Oaks |year=1995 |pages=pg. 147-148 |isbn=0-8039-7220-2 |oclc= |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1nwaBlns-5QC&pg=PA147&dq=%22Adderley+v.+Florida%22&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&sig=WvOaNq1tXLjO2tNcGOqH3pjuJsU#PPA147,M1 |accessdate=] [ [http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1966/1966_19/ Adderley v. Florida] "Oyez"]

References

ee also

*Free speech zone
**"Brown v. Louisiana
**"Cox v. Louisiana"
**"Edwards v. South Carolina"