More Reasoned Speech
Charlotte Whitney, or her attorneys, made the same mistake as many defendants who have been accused of a crime. She failed to bring up possible reasons that she shouldn’t have been charged, or convicted of a crime, when she had her trial. When the United States Supreme Court got her case, it was too late for them to make up facts that were probably true, but had never been established during the trial that ended in her conviction. Miss Whitney was a political activist and in 1919 she found herself in the middle of an emotionally-laden debate and crackdown surround the evils of socialism and communism. California had passed a law prohibiting what it called criminal syndicalism. By associating with and helping to form the Communist Labor Party of California, Ms. Whitney violated the law and was convicted. The question that justified her appeal to the United States Supreme Court asked if the California law violated a federal question, specifically the rights that allow for freedom of spee