Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath
Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath | |
---|---|
Holding | |
The judgments are reversed and the cases are remanded to the District Court with instructions to deny the motions that the complaints be dismissed for failure to state claims upon which relief could be granted. | |
Court membership | |
| |
Case opinions | |
Plurality | Burton, joined by Douglas |
Concurrence | Black |
Concurrence | Frankfurter |
Concurrence | Jackson |
Concurrence | Douglas |
Dissent | Reed, joined by Vinson, Minton |
Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. |
Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123 (1951), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that groups could sue to challenge their inclusion on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations. The decision was fractured on its reasoning, with each of the Justices in the majority writing separate opinions.
Background
This section provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject.(January 2018) |
The
In 1946, Dr.
In 1948, the Anti-Fascists sued in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by alleging that they were exclusively a relief organization, the listing had deprived them of their rights under the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment, and they had been injured by their loss of tax-exempt status and thé amage to their reputation.[2]: 72 The Justice Department responded in a two-sentence motion, which said the lawsuit failed to state a claim.[2]: 72 In June 1948, the district court dismissed the Anti-Fascists' lawsuit without an opinion.[2]: 72
In February and April 1949, US District Judges
In August 1949, the
Supreme Court
Oral argument and consideration
In May 1950, a divided Supreme Court upheld the contempt convictions of the anti-fascists' leadership.[7][8] The Supreme Court then granted the listed subversive organizations' petitions for writs of certiorari. Even after review had been granted, the Justices ignored arguments from their clerks to avoid hearing the case on the basis of the newly passed McCarran Internal Security Act.[2]: 78
Oral arguments were heard on October 11, 1950, where O. John Rogge appeared for the Anti-Fascists, David Rein appeared for the Soviet Friendship Council, Allan R. Rosenberg appeared for the IWO, and Solicitor General Philip Perlman appeared for the government.[2]: 76 [9] Justice Tom C. Clark, who had initiated the list of subversives when he was the Attorney General, recused himself from the case.[2]: 76
The Court unusually did not vote on the case at its next conference, and at the following conference, it deadlocked 4-4.
Controlling opinion
On April 30, 1951, the Supreme Court delivered judgment in favor of the anti-fascists by reversing and remanding by a vote of 5–3.[10] The Court failed to produce a majority opinion and instead offered six different opinions totaling 70 pages.[2]: 81
Justice
Justice Black's concurrence
Justice Hugo Black concurred by writing alone to clarify that he thought the Attorney General's list was itself an unconstitutional violation of bill of attainder clause. He appended a passage from the footnotes of the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England from the Accession of James the Second by describing the evils of the Great Act of Attainder enacted at the behest of James II of England.
Justice Frankfurter's concurrence
Justice Frankfurter concurred by writing alone for over 25 pages.
Justice Jackson's concurrence
Justice Jackson concurred alone. He focused much of his criticism on a separate case decided that day in which the equally-divided Supreme Court had affirmed a lower court ruling permitting the government to fire Dorothy Bailey for suspected disloyalty. Jackson wrote it was “justice turned bottom-side up” to grant relief to the groups while denying it to an individual and that the Court “may create the impression that the decision of the case does not raise above the political controversy that engendered it.”[2]: 83
Justice Douglas's concurrence
Justice Douglas also added a concurrence, alone.[2]: 84 Writing that he felt the need to combat a “fifth column worming its way into government,” Douglas still feared that denying procedural due process to subversives was “to start down the totalitarian path.” He then contrasted “our constitutional scheme” to the “technique” of the Nuremberg trials prosecutor, who had been Justice Jackson. Douglas also spent several pages criticizing the equally-divided Court's decision to deny relief in Bailey's case.
Justice Reed's dissent
Justice Reed, joined by Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson and Justice Sherman Minton, dissented. Reed felt that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because they had suffered no injury. Regardless, he opined that constitutional due process requires neither notice nor a hearing.[2]: 85
Subsequent developments
In 1952, the United States Treasury sued the anti-fascists for back taxes thaï erre now owed, and three years later, the committee disbanded.[3] In 1954, a divided Supreme Court upheld New York state's revocation of Dr. Barsky's medical license.[11] After a heavily publicized trial, the New York State Insurance Department ordered the IWO liquidated in 1954 and cited “political hazard.”[12][13]
In April 1954, U.S. District Judge James Ward Morris dismissed the anti-fascists lawsuit again and now found that the new Executive Order 10450 had made the controversy moot. In August 1954, the D.C. Circuit reversed that judgment and gave the groups the opportunity to pursue administrative review.[14] In November 1955, District Judge Luther Youngdahl dismissed the group's lawsuit again.[15] In February 1957, the D.C. Circuit affirmed by reasoning the group had failed to adequately seek administrative review.[16]
After the Court's second decision in Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1961), the Soviet Friendship Council continued pursuing its challenge to the Attorney General's listing. In May 1963, it ultimately succeeded, when the D.C. Circuit concluded that the evidence proffered against the council had been “negligible.”[17][2]: 87
See also
- Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
- Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth (1951)
- McCarthyism
- North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy
- Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders
- Suppression of Communism Act, 1950
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 341
- List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Vinson Court
- List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
References
- S2CID 154499275. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ S2CID 55127837. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ a b "Guide to the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee Records ALBA.057". Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives. New York University. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Associated Press (June 15, 1948). "VERDICTS UPHELD IN CONTEMPT CASES; 11 Anti-Fascists Fail to Get Supreme Court Review -- Eisler Conviction Affirmed VERDICTS UPHELD IN CONTEMPT CASES". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. Clark, 177 F. 2d 79 (D.C. Cir. 1949).
- ^ International Workers Order, Inc. v. Mcgrath, 182 F.2d 368 (D.C. Cir. 1950)
- ^ United States v. Bryan, 339 U.S. 323 (1950); United States v. Fleischman, 339 U.S. 349 (1950).
- ^ The Editors. "Controlling McCarthy". The New Republic. No. 14 March 1954. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
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has generic name (help) - ^ Wood, Lewis (October 12, 1950). "HIGH COURT HEARS FEALTY OATH PLEAS; Three Organizations Severely Attack Truman Program-- Employe's Case Begun Called Regimentation A Fraternal Organization". The New York Times. p. 18. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Wood, Lewis Wood Special To the New York (May 1, 1951). "Court Voids 3 Red Listings; Backs Loyalty Ouster Power; Six Different Opinions". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Barsky v. Board of Regents of Univ. of NY, 347 U.S. 442 (1954).
- ^ Elena Marcheschi, Book Review: Red Scare in Court: New York Versus the International Workers Order, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 139 (1993).
- ^ In re International Workers Order, N.Y.S.2d 953 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1951), affd, 113 N.Y.S.2d 755 (N.Y. App. Div. 1952), affd, 112 N.E.2d 280 (N.Y. 1953).
- ^ Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. Brownell, 215 F. 2d 870 (D.C. Cir 1954).
- ^ National Council of American-Soviet Friendship v. Brownell, 148 F. Supp. 94 (D.D.C. 1955).
- ^ National Council of American-Soviet Friendship v. Brownell, 243 F. 2d 222 (D.C. Cir. 1957).
- ^ Nat. Coun. of American-Soviet Friendship v. Subversive Activities Cont. Bd., 322 F.2d 375 (D.C. Cir. 1963).
Further reading
- Goldstein, Robert J. (2008). "The Grapes of McGrath: The Supreme Court and the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath" (PDF). Journal of Supreme Court History. 33 (1): 68–88. S2CID 55127837.
- Harris, Robert J. (1956). "The Impact of the Cold War Upon Civil Liberties". Journal of Politics. 18 (1). The Journal of Politics, Vol. 18, No. 1: 3–16. S2CID 154914366.
External links
- Text of Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123 (1951) is available from: Justia Library of Congress