Beauharnais v. Illinois (343 U.S. 250)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 28, 1952 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 343 U.S. 250 · 72 S. Ct. 725
- Docket
- No. 118
- Argued
- November 28, 1951
- Decided
- April 28, 1952
- Term
- October Term 1951
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Frankfurter
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Minton, Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice Frankfurter (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote), Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Reed (wrote), Justice Black (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Frankfurter delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner was convicted upon information in the Municipal Court of Chicago of violating § 224a of the Illinois Criminal Code, Ill. Rev. Stat,, 1949, c. 38, Div. 1, § 471. He was fined $200. The section provides: “It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to manufacture, sell, or offer for sale, advertise or publish, present or exhibit in any public place in this state any lithograph, moving picture, play, drama or sketch, which publication or exhibition portrays depravity, criminality, unchastity, or lack of virtue of a class of citizens, of any race, color, creed or religion which said publication or exhibition exposes the citizens of any race, color, creed or religion to contempt, derision, or obloquy or which is productive of breach of the peace or riots. . . Beauharnais challenged the statute as violating the liberty of speech and of the press guaranteed as against the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and as too vague, under the restrictions implicit in the same Clause, to support conviction for crime. The Illinois courts rejected these contentions and sustained defendant’s conviction. 408 Ill. 512, 97 N. E. 2d 343. We granted certiorari in view of the serious questions raised concerning the limitations imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment on the power of a State to…
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