Whitney v. California

The 1927 case of Whitney v. California addressed the conviction of Anita Whitney, who had engaged in speech that raised a threat to society. Whitney was convicted under a 1919 California law for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party, and this group, the state claimed, was dedicated to the violent overthrow of government. Although Whitney herself did not advocate violence in the pursuit of political goals, her association with the organization made her guilty under California law. In their unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court upheld Whitney’s conviction. While Louis Brandeis concurred with his fellow justices in the decision, he famously used his concurrence to expound on the nature of free speech, giving voice to one of the greatest defenses of the freedom of speech in American history.