Facts and briefs on this case
Feiner, who is the is the defendant in this case is convicted of a misdemeanor, a disorderly conduct under the laws of the State of New York, which is the plaintiff in this case. His arrest follows making remarks the court considers derogatory while addressing both Caucasian and black Americans. The court translates this to imply incitement of the audience to rise against the whites and fight for their rights. Police offers deployed to the scene unsuccessfully stops him from making such speech.
Feiner Irving holds a sidewalk gathering speech briefing to invite the audience to attend a meeting at the corner of South McBridge and Harrisson Streets in the city of Syracuse. However, in his speech, he makes derogatory statements about some political officials. This makes his audience to riot and cause disruption to traffic in the city. The police receive information about this meeting at around 6.30 p.m. and two police officers get dispatched to the scene to conduct investigations. The first officer arrives on the scene immediately while the second officer arrives on the scene after twelve minutes. On arrival to the scene, the police officers confirms the information they had received from the neighbor to be true. They find out that the crowd gathering here comprise of both blacks and whites. They find petitioner addressing the crowd from a wooden box on the sidewalk with the use of a loudspeaker, which he has attached to an automobile. Although the main intention of the meeting was to make the crowd be aware of a meeting that scheduled at Syracuse Hotel that evening, he loses his intention and makes the derogatory statement that incites the audience. The remarks were derogatory in that it mentioned President Truman, American Legion, the mayor of Syracuse and local officials. Irving Feiner gets arrested for disorderly conduct on the evening of March 8 1949.
The law considers the remarks he makes about President Truman, the Legion of America and about the mayor of Syracuse as incitive. The police find this to be against the stated entities. Despite the intervention of the police, who asks him several times to stop his speech, Feiner ignores this request and continues with his incitive speech. This upsets the police who decide to arrest him. He gets charged with a breach of peace. He makes an appeal arguing that the every person is entitled to the right of speech (Dudley 2005). Feiner bases his argument on first amendment where everyone is free to make a speech (Baker 1977-78). The Supreme Court of America argues that the police did not arrest Feiner because of the words that he said but because of the reaction of the crowd that gathered to listen to Feiner. This is what is considered offensive in the case. In the case, the Supreme Court argues that Feiner has a constitutional right to make speech but this right is not right if it causes a riot (Herz & Molnar 2012). The speech is unwanted and faces silencing if it goes beyond the law and causes civil disturbance. It is true that the speech was causing tension and the Supreme Court did the right thing as the crowd could cause unruly behavior (Oyez 2013). The reason for his arrest was that the police did not want the whole event to explode and breach the peace of all those around.
The petitioner urges the Negroes should rise up and fight the whites so that they can get equal rights. He tells them that it is time to argue and stand for their rights as Negroes. Many people in the streets had feelings for or against the speaker and started being restless. They blocked the sidewalk and others went over to the other streets in excitement because of the words that the petitioner had said. As it is clear, Feiner was the cause of this restlessness. This is not free speech because the crowd reacts to the speech, which the police translate as intended to cause tension. There are many claims of violence, which were about to be started. The police observe the actions of Feiner for some time, and attempt to stop him from making any further speech. This was in their quest to prevent any form of fight from taking place. Feiner fails to obey the request of the police and instead goes ahead to make the remarks. The police, on the other hand, arrest him after three refusals (Oyez 2013).
The ruling
After his arrest, Feiner faces charges for going against &722 of the penal code of New York. This law does not allow anyone to incite people in a way that will breach the peace that is prevailing. According to the court, the petitioner’s arrest should not translate to making the speech, neither does it relate to the content in the speech also; he was arrested for the reaction of the crowd that had already gathered. In this ruling, the court identifies that the speech had some effect on the people and the police do not intend to stop the audience from getting the intended message of the speaker (Perez, Berg & Myers 2002). In effect, if the speech goes beyond the boundary and incite the crowd to riot, then the police have the power to act and prevent this from taking place. In my opinion, the speaker has a misconception of the right and freedom of free speech. He misunderstands that freedom to speech does not provide for the speaker to cause his audience to riot when reacting to his speech, or cause commotion of any form resulting from listening to the speech (Nelson 2001).
The Chief Justice dismissed the notion that the arrest amounted to the suppression of free communication.
"It is one thing to say that the police cannot be used as an instrument for the suppression of unpopular views, and another to say that, when as here the speaker passes the bounds of argument or persuasion and undertakes incitement to riot, they are powerless to prevent a breach of the peace." (Feiner vs. New York)
Cleary they feel that in this specific case, Feiner crosses the line and even if he does not mean to breach the peace in the surrounding, it is bound to happen. Even so the law states that ignorance to the law does not count as defense.
Opinion of the court
Feiner is found guilty of misconduct, as it is not in order to breach of peace in the public. The Supreme Court rules a 6-3 decision, which is ruled by Chief Justice Fred Vinson. Feiner serves 30 days in the penitentiary of the county. The Onondaga County Courts and the New York Court of Appeals (Martin 2009) makes the affirmation of the ruling.
Analysis of the ruling
This case brings the first Amendment into focus. It entails the rights of individuals; also, it is important to find out if the right of speech of Feiner is violated. It is important that people are not denied their right to express their speech. This amendment was needed to be analyzed. The trial judge, who heard the case without any jury, gave an oral decision at the end of the case so that the facts, which he intends to deliver to the audience, are clearly stated. The ruling shows that the trial judge believes the witnesses of the state. While stating the facts, the other two courts that took the case used the summation of the testimony of the trial judge. The appraisal of the facts is based on the uncontroverted facts. Initially, the police did not interfere with the speeches. They did not stop the petitioner from making the speech, as all this is within his rights. They started taking action when the crowd started reacting to the remarks that were made by the petitioner. This is what the police were concerned. Their main concern was that it was disrupting the peace and they ended it once they thought it was going out of hand.
The ruling of the judge is right because it is important that the content and the reaction of the crowd were analyzed. The crowd should be as peaceful as possible. Even if Feiner were discussing non-sensitive issues, arresting him would not be avoided if the speech would be seen to be causing unrest. In any crowd, the convener of the crowd should be responsible and should ensure that the crowd should maintain peace. It is important for the conveyor to control the crowds they are addressing. The police officers were concerned about the effect that the speech of the petitioner had on the pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The police officers were making their observations from the opposite side of the street. They observed that there were some pedestrians who were forced to walk in the streets so that they could avoid the crowd. Since there was moving traffic, the officers tried to get the people who were listening to the speaker to get to the sidewalk. There was a lot of pushing and shoving around. This cannot be said to be free speech (Moss. & Eisenstadt 2005). From any perspective, it is clear that the speaker was causing all these disturbances. The speaker was the one causing the crowd to move round. They were restless. It is clear that the crowd were not being controlled. This is one thing that should be looked into when one s handling crowds. In the ruling, the judges were seen to be looking into this issue. From the case, it is clear that the officers did not intend to arrest the speaker. This is clear from the way they mingled with the crowd. It is as if they wanted to get the feeling on the ground and know what the shoving was intended to address. This is a clear example of the officers trying to allow Feiner as much freedom of speech as possible.
When police intermingled with the crowd, the petitioner was addressing the crowd in a loud and high-pitched voice. The petitioner gave the impression that he wanted to set the Negro people to rise against the White. This is shown in the fact that he told them to rise up in arms and fight for equal rights for the Negro people so that they could have the same footing with the people. The problem that is evident here is that there was mixed race and the comments would stir mixed reactions. There are those who feel they are offended, and at the same time, there are those who support the speaker. Feiner chooses to touch up upon very sensitive issues, which clearly causes a lot of commotion in the street. It is right to judge the petitioner of exciting as it is clear that the intention was to make the Negroes to rise and fight the White in the quest to get their rights. This is supported by the fact that there are those onlookers who told the police that they were not able to handle the crowd. They threatened the police that if there were no action taken, then there would be violence. The judge was right to make a conviction against the petitioner because it is clear that they would be riots if the police did not act the way they acted. There is no other way that the police could have acted other than by arresting the speaker. The petitioner was allowed to exercise his right by being allowed time to say what he had. He was only arrested when the content of the speech stirred the crowd. The police could not have told the crowd to be calm. The person who is required to make sure that the crowd is calm is the speaker. They are required to control the crowd.
The judge is also seen to be right in that the police are said to have approached the speaker not to arrest him but to implore him to stop speaking so that the crowd would not be agitated anymore. They told him to get down off the box, which Feiner saw as a threat to his free speech thus he continued addressing the crowd. The police officer told him to stop speaking two times. The crowds were coming closer and closer to the police officer and the petitioner. When the police officer saw that the situation would soon get out of hand, he told the petitioner that he was under arrest. From this, it is clear that the petitioner was given enough time to express what he wanted. The problem is that the content of his speech is seen to have been derogatory. On the other hand, it is clear that the police were very careful in what they were doing; the only problem was that Feiner was not communicating.
Conclusion
However, while holding the assumption that the petitioner causes breach of peace through his incitive speech. The court assumes that the breach of peace goes against the interest of the society. This is a wrong assertion since the audience who appeared displeased with the oppression of the whites was also members of the society. By arresting the person who acts as their mouthpiece implies infringing their rights that the speaker addresses. Therefore, arresting Feiner in front of his audience would even lead to more rebellion from the crowd, who believes his statements. Instead of arresting him, the police ought to have advised him to stop talking ill of the political officials. Additionally, while the police reacted to the message from the neighbor, it is evident that the Negros are discriminated against and the police would act in infringing them the right to picket and hold demonstrations, which is also their constitutional right.
Freedom of speech is a very sensitive issue in the United States and one must be very careful to distinguish the fine line between freedom and speech and disturbing the peace in an area. Clearly, the police felt that this was turning into a riot and that was when they said it was enough. Many may argue that the ruling of this case was actually wrong and Feiner was not given the freedom of speech he deserves. Feiner was clearly very angry and his anger was starting to cause unrest as he was addressing very sensitive issues that stirred up commotion between the crowds. If this were to happen today the same procedures would have taken place and if the officers actually thought that it was disturbing the peace they would have reacted in the same way.
Reference:
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