Garner v. Louisiana (1961)
- Docket
- 26
- Decided
- 1961-01-01
- Category
- General
Summary
Question: Could the state criminally prosecute non-violent protestors staging a sit-in to express opposition to segregation by race? Conclusion: Under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, a state cannot apply its criminal statutes on disturbing the peace to non-violent protestors staging a sit-in to express opposition to segregation by race. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court held that the convictions violated defendants' rights to due process of law guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court found no evidence that defendants' quiet, peaceable sitting at the counter that would have supported a finding that their conduct would have foreseeably disturbed the public. The Court acknowledged that the state courts might have construed the statute more broadly to permit a finding of imminent public commotion caused by peaceful and orderly conduct. Nonetheless, the Court found no evidence to support a finding of disturbing the peace. Justice William O. Douglas concurred on the ground that restaurants operating under a public license, though private enterprises, were public facilities in which a state may not constitutionally enforce a policy of racial segregation. Justice Felix Frankfurter concurred in the judgment on the ground that the records in the present cases contained no evidence of disturbance or alarm in the behavior of the public. Justice John M. Harlan concurred in the judgment on the grounds that the defendants' conduct, insofar as it occurred with the implied consent of the management, was a form of expression within the range of protections afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment which could in no event be punished by the state under a general breach of the peace statute; and that, in any event, the Louisiana statute, as applied, was unconstitutionally vague and uncertain.