Background
The Congressional act’s real name was the Alien Registration Act of 1940, but was referred to as the Smith Act because the anti-sedition section – the one Nelson claimed he should have been tried under – was authored by Rep. Howard W. Smith of Virginia. The section on sedition read: The State of Pennsylvania tried and convicted Steve Nelson, an acknowledged member of the Communist Party, under the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, sentencing him to twenty years in prison and a $10,000 fine as well as $13,000 for prosecution costs. The Smith Act was written after the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, but both were created during the Cold War, during the age of Joseph McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities Committee; this was the time of the "Opinion of the Court
Petitioner Steve Nelson was convicted under the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, but claimed that the national statute, the Smith Act, preempted his conviction, and the court ruled 6-3 in his favor. The Smith Act of 1940 criminalized sedition against the United States and since the Pennsylvania Sedition Act did essentially the same thing, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the opinion of the court that federal law is preeminent, giving three conditions for Federal preemption: # The scheme of federal regulation is "so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that congress left no room for the states to supplement itMason, Alpheus T., Stephenson, Donald G., "American Constitutional Law" Pearson Prentice Hall Publishing, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2009. p. 140"; # The national interest is so dominant on a subject that the federal system must "be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject"; # There is a danger of conflict between state and federal enforcement efforts. The presence of these three conditions meant that congress had chosen to "occupy the field" and thus the states could not regulate within it. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that, because of this preemptive power, the Smith Act trumped the Pennsylvania statute and therefore the Pennsylvania Sedition Act was unenforceable. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion of the court. The first thing that he stipulates is that, "... the decision in this case does not affect the right of States to enforce their sedition laws at times when the Federal Government has not occupied the field and is not protecting the entire country from seditious conduct. ... Nor does it limit the jurisdiction of the States where the Constitution and Congress have specifically given them concurrent jurisdiction ... Neither does it limit the right of the State to protect itself at any time against sabotage or attempted violence of all kinds. Nor does it prevent the State from prosecuting where the same act constitutes both a federal offense and a state offense under the police power, as was done in ''Fox v. Ohio''." Warren lays out the state’s power here. In summary: When the federal government has not regulated, the states can act; When the states are granted jurisdiction by congress, the states can act; and finally a state can also act in its defense. Warren enumerates the powers of the Federal Government next with the aforementioned three-part test. The test was derived from ''Hines v. Davidowitz'', 312 U.S. 52, 67. And Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218. The first caveat, whether "the scheme of federal regulation sso pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it", is answered by Warren by noting that Congress, besides the Smith act, had issued The Internal Security Act of 1950. Warren said, " ... the conclusion is inescapable that Congress has intended to occupy the field of sedition."''Nelson'', 350 U.S. at 504. The Second caveat states that Federal Statutes must "touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal systemDissent
Justice Stanley Reed wrote the dissenting opinion. Justices Harold Burton and Sherman Minton signed onto the opinion. "The 'occupation of the field' argument has been developed by this Court for the Commerce Clause and legislation thereunder to prevent partitioning of this country by locally erected trade barriers", wrote Reed, "In those cases, this Court has ruled that state legislation is superseded when it conflicts with the comprehensive regulatory scheme and purpose of a federal plan. …" Reed says that in order for federal law to nullify a state law, "the conflict should be clear and direct before this Court reads a congressional intent to void state legislation into the federal sedition acts." Reed argues that Congress has not occupied the field with the Smith Act, and that it doesn’t need to, and by doing so is undermining state power. Reed finishes with an emphatic declaration:The Smith Act appears in Title 18 of the United States Code, which Title codifies the federal criminal laws. Section 3231 of that Title provides: Nothing in this title shall be held to take away or impair the jurisdiction of the courts of the several States under the laws thereof. That declaration springs from the federal character of our Nation. It recognizes the fact that maintenance of order and fairness rests primarily with the States. … This Court has interpreted the section to mean that States may provide concurrent legislation in the absence of explicit congressional intent to the contrary. Sexton v. California, 189 U.S. 319, 324-325. The majority's position in this case cannot be reconciled with that clear authorization of Congress. The law stands against any advocacy of violence to change established governments. Freedom of speech allows full play to the processes of reason. The state and national legislative bodies have legislated within constitutional limits so as to allow the widest participation by the law enforcement officers of the respective governments. The individual States were not told that they are powerless to punish local acts of sedition, nominally directed against the United States. Courts should not interfere. We would reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
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* {{caselaw source , case = ''Pennsylvania v. Nelson'', {{ussc, 350, 497, 1956, el=no , cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/350/497 , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/350/497/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep350/usrep350497/usrep350497.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1955/10 United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court 1956 in United States case law