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Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had extended the First Amendment's provisions protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press to apply to the governments of U.S. states.
The law specifically criminalized any activism supporting a revolution against the federal government. Benjamin Gitlow, a member of both the Socialist Party of America and the New York State Assembly, published a so-called “leftwing manifesto” in the newspaper The Revolutionary Age.
Gitlow v. New York, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 8, 1925, that the First Amendment protection of free speech also applies to state governments. Learn more about the case, the issues it raised, and the Court’s ruling in this article.
Benjamin Gitlow was indicted in the Supreme Court of New York, with three others, for the statutory crime of criminal anarchy. New York Penal Laws, §§ 160, 161. He was separately tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the Court of Appeals. 195 App.Div. 773; 234 N.Y. 132 and 539.
New York—decided in 1925—was the first Supreme Court decision applying the First Amendment’s free speech protections to abuses by state governments. There, Benjamin Gitlow was arrested for distributing a “Left-Wing Manifesto,” which advocated socialism in America.
Unanimous decision for New Yorkmajority opinion by Edward T. Sanford. In an opinion authored by Justice Edward Sanford, the Court concluded that New York could prohibit advocating violent efforts to overthrow the government under the Criminal Anarchy Law.
In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, decided in 1925, the Court assumed that the right of free speech was among the freedoms protected against state infringement by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Summary of this case from Ginsberg v. New York
