Title: Edwards v. South Carolina, 372, U.S. 229
Facts:
March 2nd, of 1967 students from a colored high school along with college students met at Zion Baptist church in Columbia. This was a protest to the Legislative and citizens of South Carolina on the laws and discriminatory actions against students of different color. Midafternoon the students went to the State House. For 45 minutes, the students demonstrated by marching through the State grounds. No misconduct was presented by the hundreds of on lookers. Police presence was established at the demonstration where the police advised the demonstrators to leave. The demonstrators refused to leave and the group of demonstrators were arrested and escorted to county and city jails. The State charged the demonstrators of breach of peach which resulted in fines and multiple days in jail.
Issues:
The issue was the demonstrators faced a charge of breaching of the peace, the demonstrators appealed this decision based off of the due process of the Fourteenth Amendment. These demonstrators did not feel the State did not have enough evidence of the breach of peach, because it was a peaceful demonstration.
Decision:
The Supreme Court of South Carolina decision was that the state did not have the authority to arrest and charge the demonstrators under the facts of the case. They were arrested based on the expression and opinions. South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the decision because the convictions against the demonstrators because there was no evidence of breach of the peach.
Reasoning:
“The original trial used South Carolina law on breach of peace as the basis for conviction. In his final decision and after reviewing 17 previous cases, Justice Stewart did not believe the prosecution provided evidence to warrant conviction” (Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 US 229 - Supreme Court 1963, 2011).
Dissenting Opinions:
A Justice Clark actually wrote a dissenting option. The opinion stated the Justice Clark...