## Facts

- A New York statute prohibited distribution of anonymous literature “directly pertaining to election campaigns,” including anonymous handbills about candidates for public office.
- Zwickler distributed anonymous handbills criticizing a Congressman during the 1964 congressional election and was convicted under the statute.
- The conviction was reversed on state-law grounds, and the state courts did not reach the statute’s constitutionality.
- Zwickler filed a federal action seeking a declaratory judgment that the statute was unconstitutional, alleging he intended to distribute the same and similar anonymous handbills in the 1966 election and future elections.
- During the federal litigation, the Congressman left the U.S. House of Representatives to become a judge on the New York Supreme Court.
- On remand after a prior Supreme Court decision rejecting abstention, the district court declared the statute unconstitutional without holding an evidentiary hearing on whether an actual, ongoing controversy existed.

## Issues

1. Whether, at the time of adjudication on remand, there was an “actual controversy” with sufficient immediacy and reality to support a declaratory judgment on the statute’s constitutionality.
2. Whether a First Amendment chilling effect allegation can sustain declaratory relief when the likelihood of future enforcement against the plaintiff is conjectural due to changed circumstances.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the district court’s declaratory judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss.
- The Court held that no Article III “actual controversy” existed at the time of the remand hearing.
- The Court concluded that any future prosecution of Zwickler under the statute, based on the conduct described in the complaint, was “wholly conjectural” after the Congressman ceased being a congressional candidate.

## Legal Principles

- The Declaratory Judgment Act does not expand federal jurisdiction beyond Article III; federal courts may decide constitutional questions only in actual cases presenting concrete disputes.
- An “actual controversy” for declaratory relief requires a dispute of “sufficient immediacy and reality,” not a hypothetical or abstract disagreement.
- Justiciability is assessed based on the circumstances at the time the court is asked to grant relief; material changes can eliminate the required controversy.
- Allegations of deterrence or chilling effect do not justify adjudication where the challenged statute’s application to the plaintiff in the future is speculative.

## Conclusion

Because the only asserted future application of the statute depended on criticism of a specific Congressman who was no longer a candidate for Congress, the Court held that the dispute lacked the immediacy and reality required for declaratory relief and ordered dismissal for want of an Article III controversy.


Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103 (1969)