Dennis v. United States

Dennis v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 4, 1950 Decided June 4, 1951
Full case name	Eugene Dennis, et al. v. United States
Citations	341 U.S. 494 (more) 71 S. Ct. 857; 95 L. Ed. 1137; 1951 U.S. LEXIS 2407
Case history
Prior	Motion by co-defendant to dismiss attorney denied, 9 F.R.D. 367 (S.D.N.Y. 1949); defendants convicted, S.D.N.Y., October 29, 1949; affirmed, 183 F.2d 201 (2d Cir. 1950); cert. granted, 340 U.S. 863 (1950).
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 342 U.S. 842 (1951); rehearing denied, 355 U.S. 936 (1958).
Holding
Defendants' convictions for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government by force through their participation in the Communist Party were not in violation of the First Amendment. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson Associate Justices Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas Robert H. Jackson · Harold H. Burton Tom C. Clark · Sherman Minton
Case opinions
Plurality	Vinson, joined by Reed, Burton, Minton
Concurrence	Frankfurter
Concurrence	Jackson
Dissent	Black
Dissent	Douglas
Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; 18 U.S.C. §§ 10, 11 (1946)
Overruled by
Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957) Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)

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Dennis v. United States (341 U.S. 494)

Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951), was a United States Supreme Court case relating to Eugene Dennis, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. The Court ruled that Dennis did not have the right under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to exercise free speech, publication and assembly, if the exercise involved the creation of a plot to overthrow the government.^[1] In 1969, Dennis was de facto overruled by Brandenburg v. Ohio.