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Cantwell v. Connecticut

Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), was a United States Supreme Court decision holding that incorporated (enforced) the First Amendment's protection of religious free exercise against individual states (as opposed to federal actions).

Background

A Connecticut statute required licenses for those soliciting for religious or charitable purposes. The statute was an early type of consumer protection law: it required the Secretary, before issuing a certificate permitting solicitation, to determine whether the cause was

"a religious one or is a bona fide object of charity or philanthropy" and whether the solicitation "conforms to reasonable standards of efficiency and integrity."

Upon determination of the cause's legitimacy, a solicitation certificate would be issued.

Facts of the case

Newton Cantwell (a Jehovah's Witness) and his two sons were arrested in New Haven, CT in 1938 for, among other things: (1) violation of a Connecticut statute requiring solicitors to obtain a certificate from the secretary of the public welfare council ("Secretary") before soliciting funds from the public, and (2) breach of the peace.

Newton Cantwell and his two sons, Jesse and Russel, were Jehovah's Witnesses who were proselytizing in a heavily-Roman Catholic neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. The Cantwells were going door to door, with books and pamphlets and a portable phonograph with sets of records. Each record contained a description of one of the books. One such book was "Enemies", which was an attack on organized religion in general and especially the Roman Catholic Church. The two citizens who heard the record were incensed; though they wanted physically to assault the Cantwells, they restrained themselves.

The Cantwells were arrested and charged with inciting a common-law breach of the peace and violating a statute requiring registration of religious solicitors.

The Cantwells said they did not get a license because they did not believe the government had the right to determine whether the Witnesses were a religion. They maintained the statute denied the trio their due process rights under the 14th Amendment, and it also denied them their freedom of speech and religious expression.

Prior history

The Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed, finding that the statute was an effort by the state of Connecticut to protect the public against fraud, and as such, the statute was constitutional.

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the conviction of all three on the statutory charge and affirmed one son's conviction of breach of the peace, but remanded the breach of peace charge against the other two for a new trial.

Issue

The issue presented before the court was whether the state's action in convicting the Cantwells with inciting a breach of the peace and violating the solicitation statute violated their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

Decision of the Court

The Court found that Cantwell's action was protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Justice Owen Roberts wrote in a unanimous opinion that "to condition the solicitation of aid for the perpetuation of religious views or systems upon a license, the grant of which rests in the exercise of a determination by state authority as to what is a religious cause, is to lay a forbidden burden upon the exercise of liberty protected by the Constitution."

Significance

Before the Cantwell decision, it was not legally clear that the First Amendment protected religious practitioners against restrictions at the state and local levels as well as federal. But the Supreme Court in Cantwell said it did, thereby ushering in an era of greatly strengthened religious freedom.

This case incorporated (enforced) the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause against the states, thereby protecting free exercise of religion from intrusive state action. The Establishment Clause was incorporated seven years later in Everson v. Board of Education (1947).

The Cantwell decision also marked the first time the U.S. Supreme Court incorporated the free exercise clause into the 14th Amendment, something it would do from that time forward.