| Garner v. Louisiana | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued October 18–19, 1961 Decided December 11, 1961 | |
| Full case name | John Burrell Garner, et al. v. State of Louisiana, Mary Briscoe, et al. |
| Citations | 368U.S.157 (more) 82 S. Ct. 248; 7L. Ed. 2d 207; 1961U.S. LEXIS 28 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Louisiana,365 U.S. 840 (1961). |
| Holding | |
| The convictions were so totally devoid of evidentiary support as to violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Warren, joined byunanimous |
| Concurrence | Frankfurter |
| Concurrence | Douglas |
| Concurrence | Harlan |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. I,XIV | |
Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157 (1961), was alandmark case argued byThurgood Marshall before theUS Supreme Court. On December 11, 1961, the court unanimously ruled thatLouisiana could not convict peaceful sit-inprotesters who refused to leave dining establishments under the state's "disturbing the peace" laws.[1][2]
African-American students fromSouthern University sat at a whites-only segregated lunch bar at Sitman's Drugstore inBaton Rouge,Louisiana. The management summoned thepolice after the students quietly remained despite being asked to relocate to another counter.
After ordering the black patrons to leave, the police arrested them, charged them with disturbing the peace, and claimed that their behavior could "foreseeably disturb or alarm the public," according to the state's "disturbing the peace" statute.[3]
TheNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People defended the student demonstrators, and theKennedy administration'sJustice Department filed a legal brief on their behalf.[4]
In a 9–0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the African-American students' favor, agreeing that the state had violated due process of law under the Fourteenth amendment, and found no evidence that the students' behavior could have foreseeably disturbed the peace.
In his written opinion, JusticeJohn Marshall Harlan likened sit-in demonstrations to verbal expression as a form of free speech.[5]
JusticeWilliam O. Douglas's concurring opinion stated, “For the police are supposed to be on the side of the Constitution, not on the side of discrimination. Yet if all constitutional questions are to be put aside and the problem treated merely in terms of disturbing the peace, I would have difficulty in reversing these judgments. I think, however, the constitutional questions must be reached and that they make reversal necessary.”[6]
Garner v. Louisiana was an important case for theCivil Rights Movement, and one of many civil rights cases argued before theWarren Court (1953–69). Eventually, theCivil Rights Act of 1964 "outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce."
