## Facts

- Federal prosecutors indicted William J. Cruikshank and others under § 6 of the Enforcement Act of 1870 for conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate Black citizens in Louisiana.
- The indictment contained 32 counts alleging a private conspiracy to interfere with asserted rights, including:
  - peaceable assembly,
  - keeping and bearing arms,
  - life and liberty without due process,
  - equal benefit of laws for security of persons and property,
  - voting in Louisiana elections.
- A jury found several defendants guilty on the first sixteen counts and not guilty on the remainder.
- Defendants moved in arrest of judgment, asserting the indictment did not state federal offenses; questions were certified to the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress could, under the Enforcement Act and the Reconstruction Amendments, criminally punish private individuals for conspiring to interfere with rights associated with the First and Second Amendments.
2. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment authorized federal punishment of purely private deprivations of due process and equal protection absent state action.
3. Whether voting-related counts adequately alleged interference with a right protected by the Fifteenth Amendment, including racial motivation and a federally protected voting right.
4. Whether the indictment pled the alleged federal rights and their infringement with sufficient specificity to state an offense.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the convictions and remanded with instructions to discharge the defendants.
- The Court held that the First and Second Amendments restrict the national government, not the states, and the indictment did not allege interference with a federally protected assembly purpose.
- The Court held the Fourteenth Amendment targets state action; the indictment alleged private violence and intimidation, not action under state authority.
- The Court held the Fifteenth Amendment permits federal protection against race-based voting discrimination, but the indictment failed to allege with sufficient particularity that defendants acted on account of race or that the targeted voting right was secured by federal law rather than state law.
- Multiple counts were deemed too general to connect the alleged conspiracy to a right within federal jurisdiction as charged.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional provisions in the Bill of Rights, as construed here, limit the national government and do not themselves create federal criminal jurisdiction over private interference with those rights.
- The Fourteenth Amendment does not authorize Congress to punish private individuals for deprivations of due process or equal protection absent conduct attributable to a state.
- The Fifteenth Amendment protects against denial or abridgment of voting rights on account of race; federal prosecution requires allegations showing racial motivation and a protected right within the amendment’s scope.
- An indictment under federal civil-rights enforcement statutes must plead facts with enough specificity to identify a federally secured right and show how the charged conduct falls within federal power.

## Conclusion

The Court set aside the federal convictions because the indictment did not adequately allege violations of rights that the federal government could protect against private actors, and it failed to plead necessary elements—especially state action for Fourteenth Amendment theories and race-based interference for Fifteenth Amendment voting theories—required to state federal offenses.


United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876)