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Stromberg v. California - Significance, Court Overturns Conviction Under "red Flag Law", Anarchistic Legislation: Red Flag Laws

york appellant communism decision

Appellant

Yetta Stromberg

Appellee

State of California

Appellant's Claim

That the California Red Flag Law prohibits symbolic speech and therefore violates the First Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant

John Beardsley

Chief Lawyer for Appellee

John D. Richer

Justices for the Court

Louis D. Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Evans Hughes (writing for the Court), Willis Van Devanter, James Clark McReynolds, Owen Josephus Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone, George Sutherland

Justices Dissenting

Pierce Butler

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

18 May 1931

Decision

The Supreme Court overturned Stromberg's conviction.

Related Cases

  • State v. Tuscano, 520 So.2d 1311 (1988).
  • State v. Grissom, 840 P.2d 1142 (1992).
  • Griggs v. State of Kansas, 814 F.Supp. 60 (1993).

Sources

Murray, Robert K. Red Scare: A Study of National Hysteria, 1919-1920. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964.

Further Readings

  • Haiman, Franklyn Saul. "Speech Acts" and the First Amendment. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
  • Klehr, Harvey. The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984.
  • Lewy, Guenter. The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Additional Topics

Stromberg v. California - Significance

Although the Court did not specifically address the free speech issues raised by Stromberg, the case is important in the development of First Amendment law. It marked the first time that the Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment to stop a state effort to interfere with a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. In the summer of 1929, 19-year-old Yetta Stromberg, a member of the Young Communi…

Stromberg v. California - Court Overturns Conviction Under "red Flag Law"

In the Supreme Court, Stromberg's lawyers argued that the flag was a symbol of a legitimate political party which had received 50,000 votes in the last election. In prohibiting display of the flag, California was unconstitutionally preventing Stromberg and others from exercising their right to freedom of expression under the First Amendment. Displaying the flag was, her lawyers claimed, a form of …

Stromberg v. California - Anarchistic Legislation: Red Flag Laws

Following the end of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in November of 1917, which closely coincided with the end of World War I, the United States began to worry about Communist activities within its borders. In 1919 on the first day of May, the communist labor day called May Day, American radicals in several Northeast cities staged rallies and conducted Red flag parades. The term red was synonym…

Sweet Trials: 1925-26 - Menacing Crowd Gathers, Darrow For The Defense [next] [back] State of Missouri v. Holland - Bird Protection And Treaty-making, The Ownership Of Nature, The Migratory Bird Treaty, Further Readings

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