Constitutional Law Keyed to Cohen
Scales v. United States
Facts
Petitioner, the chairman of the North and South Carolina Districts of the Communist Party, was convicted of violating the membership clause of the Smith Act, which made it a crime to become a member of an organization advocating the overthrow of the government by force or violence. The trial court instructed that in order to convict, the jury must find that the Communist Party advocated the violent overthrow of the government, in the sense of present advocacy of action to accomplish that end as soon as circumstances were ripe; and that Petitioner was an active member of the party, and not merely a nominal, passive, inactive, or purely technical member with knowledge of the party’s illegal advocacy and a specific intent to bring about overthrow as speedily as circumstances would permit.
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