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Constitutional Law Keyed to Levinson
United States v. Cruikshank
Citation:
92 U.S. 542 (1876)Facts
The United States (Plaintiff) government in Louisiana indicted and attempted to prosecute members of a white militia who attacked local members of the Republican party, alleging that the militia, including Cruikshank (Defendant), had interfered with the victims’ constitutional rights to assemble peacefully and to bear arms under the Second Amendment. In a local Louisiana election in 1872, members of local Democratic and Republican parties had claimed to have won the offices of judge and sheriff in Grant Parish, Louisiana. The Republican faction, comprised of free African-American citizens, seized a courthouse, but they were ambushed by a white militia which brutally massacred members of the Republican party as they tried to escape the courthouse.
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