Facts
- Byron Thornhill, a union local president, participated in an authorized strike against his employer, Brown Wood Preserving Company.
- Thornhill peacefully picketed near the company’s premises and carried a sign publicizing the labor dispute.
- Alabama prosecuted Thornhill under Alabama Code § 3448 (1923), which criminalized going near, loitering about, or picketing a business to influence others not to trade or work there or to hinder a lawful business.
- Thornhill was convicted of “loitering and picketing as charged,” fined $100, and sentenced to jail upon nonpayment.
- Alabama appellate courts affirmed after construing § 3448 broadly to forbid publicizing labor-dispute facts near the business, regardless of the peaceful nature of the conduct.
Issues
- Whether Alabama Code § 3448, as construed and applied to peaceful labor picketing, violated freedom of speech and of the press under the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the statute was facially invalid because it broadly criminalized protected expression rather than targeting specific, regulable harms.
Decision
- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Thornhill’s conviction.
- The Court held § 3448 facially unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The statute did not target only conduct within the state’s legitimate regulatory authority; it swept in ordinary, peaceful methods of communicating information about labor disputes.
- Alabama did not show that the peaceful picketing at issue created a clear and present danger of violence, property destruction, or breach of the peace.
Legal Principles
- Freedom of speech and of the press are protected from state abridgment through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Speech concerning labor conditions and labor disputes is a matter of public concern and lies within First Amendment protection.
- A penal statute may be held facially invalid when its breadth creates a pervasive restraint on protected discussion and it criminalizes a substantial range of protected expression.
- States may regulate coercive, violent, or obstructive conduct, but broad prohibitions on peaceful informational picketing are unconstitutional absent a showing of imminent, serious harm.
Conclusion
The Court set aside Thornhill’s conviction and invalidated Alabama’s sweeping anti-picketing statute because it broadly criminalized peaceful communication about labor disputes without being confined to preventing imminent violence or other specific, regulable misconduct.