''Thornhill v. Alabama'', 310 U.S. 88 (1940), is a

US labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "org ...

case of a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. It reversed the conviction of the president of a local union for violating an

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

statute that prohibited only labor picketing. Thornhill was peaceably picketing his employer during an authorized strike when he was arrested and charged. In reaching its decision, Associate Justice

Frank Murphy William Francis Murphy (April 13, 1890July 19, 1949) was an American politician, lawyer and jurist from Michigan. He was a Democrat who was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving ...

wrote for the Supreme Court that the

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...

clause protects speech about the facts and circumstances of a labor dispute. The statute in the case prohibited all labor picketing, but ''Thornhill'' added peaceful labor picketing to the area protected by free speech.

Facts

Byron Thornhill was convicted of "

loitering Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose. While the laws regarding loitering have been challenged and changed over time, loitering is still illegal in various j ...

picketing Picketing is a form of protest in which people (called pickets or picketers) congregate outside a place of work or location where an event is taking place. Often, this is done in an attempt to dissuade others from going in (" crossing the pick ...

" near a place of business, pursuant to § 3448 of the 1923

Code of Alabama In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

. Thornhill had been charged with loitering near the Brown Wood Preserving Company with the "intent or purpose of influencing others" to interfere with lawful business during a strike by a local union affiliated with the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...

. After his conviction in the

Inferior Court A lower court or inferior court is a court from which an Appeal (law), appeal may be taken, usually referring to courts other than supreme court. In relation to an appeal from one court to another, the lower court is the court whose decision is ...

Tuscaloosa County Tuscaloosa County is a county in the northwest-central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama and is the center of commerce, education, industry, health care, and entertainment for the region. The county's population was 227,036 as of the 2020 c ...

, he appealed to the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County. He was originally fined "$100 and costs," but was sentenced to prison for 59 days after not paying. After he failed his appeal, the circuit court increased the prison time to 73 days. Furthermore, the

court of appeals A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

affirmed the rulings of the two lower courts. The

Alabama Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is house ...

denied Thornhill's petition for

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

, but the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently granted the petition.

Charges

# The State of Alabama, by its Solicitor, complains of Byron Thornhill that, within twelve months before the commencement of this prosecution he did without just cause or legal excuse therefor, go near to or loiter about the premises or place of business of another person, firm, corporation, or association of people, to-wit: the Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation, engaged in a lawful business, for the purpose or with the intent of influencing or inducing other persons not to trade with, buy from, sell to, have business dealings with, or be employed by the said Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation, for the purpose of hindering, delaying, or interfering with or injuring the lawful business or enterprise of the said Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation. # The State of Alabama, by its Solicitor, complains of Byron Thornhill that, within twelve months before the commencement of this prosecution he did without just cause or legal excuse therefor, go near to or loiter about the premises or place of business of another person, firm, corporation, or association of people, to-wit: the Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation, engaged in a lawful business, for the purpose or with the intent of influencing or inducing other persons not to trade with, buy from, sell to, have business dealings with, or be employed by the said Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation. # The State of Alabama, by its Solicitor, complains of Byron Thornhill that, within twelve months before the commencement of this prosecution he did picket the works or place of business of another person, firm, corporation, or association of people, to-wit, the Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation, for the purpose of hindering, delaying, or interfering with or injuring the lawful business or enterprise of the said Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., a corporation.

Judgment

The majority opinion reversed the lower courts' rulings by citing the freedoms of

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

and the

press Press may refer to: Media * Print media or news media, commonly called "the press" * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers * Press TV, an Iranian television network People * Press (surname), a fam ...

granted in the

first amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

, and secured by the fourteenth. The court also found the Alabama statute to be invalid on its face.

Significance

Implicit in ''Thornhill'' was the idea that picketing could be curtailed if the picketers marched with signs that went beyond the issues in the particular labor dispute; this would come up in later cases.Ball, Howard. Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior. Oxford University Press. 2006. . Page 202.

Notes

References

* St. Antoine, Theodore J.
''Justice Frank Murphy and American labor law''

Michigan Law Review The ''Michigan Law Review'' is an American law review and the flagship law journal of the University of Michigan Law School. History The ''Michigan Law Review'' was established in 1902, after Gustavus Ohlinger, a student in the Law Department ...

(100 MLR 1900, June 1, 2002).

External links

* *
Code of Alabama 1975
{{US1stAmendment, speech, state=expanded 1940 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Free Speech Clause case law United States labor case law 1940 in Alabama Legal history of Alabama Tuscaloosa County, Alabama American Federation of Labor United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court