Marsh v. Alabama - Significance, The Special Case Of A Company Town, The Rights Of Property Owners, The Consequences Of Marsh V. Alabama

court appellant totowa littlefield

Appellant

Grace Marsh

Appellee

State of Alabama

Appellant's Claim

That she had the freedom to distribute religious literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses on a "public" street in the company-owned town of Chickasaw, Alabama, despite the privately owned town's refusal to issue her a permit and the Alabama state law supporting property owners' right to ask individuals to leave their property.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant

Hayden C. Covington

Chief Lawyers for Appellee

William M. McQueen, Attorney General of Alabama, and John O. Harris, Assistant Attorney General of Alabama

Justices for the Court

Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Frank Murphy, Owen Josephus Roberts, Wiley Blount Rutledge

Justices Dissenting

Harold Burton, Stanley Forman Reed, Harlan Fiske Stone (Robert H. Jackson did not participate)

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

7 January 1946

Decision

The First and the Fourteenth Amendments prohibit states from imposing punishment on people who distribute religious literature, even in a company town; therefore, Marsh's conviction was overturned.

Related Cases

Tucker v. Texas, 326 U.S. 517 (1946).
Breard v. City of Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951).
Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972).

Marsh v. Alabama - Significance

The Marsh v. Alabama decision was a landmark First Amendment case, further establishing the "preferred position" of freedom of religion, as opposed to the rights of property owners. Grace Marsh was a Jehovah's Witness who wanted to distribute religious literature in downtown Chickasaw, Alabama. Chickasaw was a suburb of the city of Mobile--a suburb wholly owned by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation…

Marsh v. Alabama - The Special Case Of A Company Town

When Marsh's case finally made it to the Supreme Court, the Court faced an unusual situation. Certainly no government agency had the right to prohibit the distribution of religious literature in a public street. But Chickasaw was wholly owned by a private company. The Court needed to answer the question of what rights such a company had to regulate the activities that took place on its property. T…

Marsh v. Alabama - The Consequences Of Marsh V. Alabama

Despite the strong language of the majority decision in Marsh, its influence is rather difficult to determine. Certainly, in the 1946 case of Tucker v. Texas, the Marsh decision was directly applied. In Tucker, a town owned by the Federal Public Housing Authority tried to ban the distribution of religious literature. Because of Marsh, the Federal PHA was told that such a ban was unconstitutional. …

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