Category talk:People convicted under the Smith Act

American criminals

The Smith Act is a criminal statute. The people prosecuated under it went to prison. An anonymous editor deleted this category from Category:American criminals with the edit summary: We don't label those convicted under other forms of political repression as "criminals." Very POV.[1] "Political repression" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not aware of any Wikipedia policy that prevents the inclusion of particular crimes in a criminal category, so I've reverted the deletion.   Will Beback  talk  03:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Will, there is a clear difference between criminals – those arrested for actual crimes – and those arrested for political crimes declared Unconstitutional by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. None of the Communists convicted under the Smith Act had actually advocated armed rebellion against the United States – their convictions rested on tendentious interpretation of passages from Karl Marx and Lenin, as well as testimony from "witnesses" who were anti-communist government agents paid to join the Communist Party and other groups by the FBI.(Cf. Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1990. 2nd Ed. University Press of Mississippi, 1991 - page 29.)

All of these people, as historians now agree, were convicted without due process – the very same sort of legal convictions that were passed by the government-run courts in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge (note that Wiki lists those victims of Stalinism who were convicted and executed on trumped-up charges of espionage for France, Britain, and Germany as victims of Soviet repressions, and not "convicted French spies", etc. The problem with your reasoning here is that the "American criminals" category would include Prudence Crandall, who was held in jail for teaching African Americans to read in violation of a Carolina statue, would also be defined here as a criminals. So would,in all likelihood, Susan B. Anthony, who attempted to vote in contravention of state statutes prohibiting women's suffrage. We could also call people who fought Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany "German criminals." This is beyond absurd. 166.203.190.27 (talk) 20:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your position, but it's not objective. Prudence Crandall was never convicted and apparently only spent a single night in jail, so she would not be included in any subcategory of Category:American criminals. Some time back I looked into the issue of categorizing "political prisoners", but it's very subjective decision. There's no question that many people convicted of crimes were not given fair trials, and even more make that claim. It's hard for us to base our categories based on such claims. The Smith Act is still on the books - it was never declared unconstitutional, though many of the individual convictions were overturned. Those that were are not included. I think it's inappropriate for us as Wikipedia editors to decide which laws are "valid" and which aren't. Espionage against a government is always a crime, no matter whether it be a good government or a bad one. For us to say that Soviet spies aren't really criminals while American spies are is a judgment call. As for Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia - later changes in the governemnts of those countries overturned or vacated many convictions, if I recall correctly. For us to say that people convicted by a jury of their peers under a valid law, and sentenced to time in prison, are not actually criminals is not objective.   Will Beback  talk  20:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding escaped slaves, that's a different matter with different issues. There are two sets of people involved, the runaway slaves and those who helped them escape. It's not clear to me what statutes covered the actual slaves the former, and if the judicial proceedings were civil rather than criminal. As for those who helped them, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 would apply. However I'm not sure if we have any articles about people convicted under that law. Sherman Booth was convicted, but the conviction was overturned. So it seems to be a hypothetical issue.   Will Beback  talk  21:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Will, it's relevant to note here that the two bases for the convictions of the Communist Party leaders were advocacy of incitement – overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1957 Yates v. United States decision – which ruled unconstitutional the conviction of numerous party leaders in a ruling that distinguished between advocacy of an idea for incitement and the teaching of an idea as a concept, and the membership clause. (Those who remained in federal jail subsequent to this ruling, until 1961, were merely held on the grounds of the Smith Act's membership clause, which was also struck down as Unconstitutional in Noto v. United States in 1961 – no more Communists held under the Smith Act following that ruling.) So the case is analogous to what you cite re: Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. In striving towards maximal objectivity, we shoul, at the least, make a distinction here on this basis, as you see fitting to do for the foreign conviction cases. Thanks,166.203.190.27 (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There's no question but that the Smith Act has an interesting history. While some convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court, at least one was upheld - Scales v. United States[2]. The cases that were overturned appeared to restrict the scope of the law, but not to invalidate it completely. Again, I certainly don't think that folks whose convictions were overturned should be included in this category (though if folks wanted to we could create a sibling category, like "People prosecuted under the Smith Act"). But the law is still on the books, and the some of the convictions were not overturned, so I don't think the situation is the same as when the Allies occupied Germany and re-wrote the legal code.   Will Beback  talk  21:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm very well familiar with the legal history. In fact, all of the Communists convicted under the Smith Act were convicted under the basis of advocating Marxist theory (testimony from witnesses did not substantially strengthen any of their cases except as adding to doing this, since it amounts to nothing but circumstantial evidence).

Junius Scales, the only one held under the Smith Act membership clause following the Court decision in 1961 to drop its consideration of members and leaders of the Communist Party as agents of insurrection per the Supreme Court ruling in Noto, was the sole convicted Communist who, in the opinion of the Court, had actually advocated armed overthrow. That conviction was issued on the basis of something other than the promotion of the volumes of literature Marx and Lenin (a horrendous, terrible, and inhumane act, Will Beback).

What's the solution? Well, why not put Scales into both "Americans convicted under the Smith Act" and "American criminals" – since Wikipedia permits double categorization in particular cases permitted by the category guidelines?

It's very considerate of you to consider expanding this category to include people who asssited runaway black slaves from the American South, but I seriously think we should simply do a revert for the category as a whole (lest, of course, we end up with a good precedent for inserting Socrates into the category of "Greek criminals".)

166.203.190.27 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Socrates, I don't see why he would not be categorized among Ancient Greek criminals. He's currently categorized, indirectly, Category:Greek people who died in prison custody and Category:Greek prisoners sentenced to death. I also see that one of the counts against Socrates was impiety, which is comparable to blasphemy or heresy. Category:People executed for heresy includes this disclaimer: This category concerns persons sentenced to death for heresy according to their judges. In no way Wikipedia assumes or suggests that these persons can be considered heretics today. Perhaps a similar disclaimer here would solve the problem?

Regarding the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: If we have no articles about people convicted under that or similar statutes then it's a moot point.

Regarding whether the prosecutions under the Smith Act were valid or not, that's for the courts to decide. When they decided that the convictions were incorrect they overturned them. It's not for us to second-guess their decisions and decide, five decades later, that they didn't really count, that the juries were wrong, that the prosecuted people didn't really spend time in prison, and that they didn't really have criminal records. This category is already a subcategory of American criminals, McCarthyism, and Victims of American political repression. If they weren't convicted and they weren't sent to prison, then how were they victims of political repression? The fact is that they were victims, and they were made criminals due to their beliefs or associations. Sure, it was unjust and perhaps even unconstitutional, at least in my opinion. But my opinion, or yours, doesn't count as to whether these people were criminals in the eyes of the law.   Will Beback  talk  23:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

PS: I have this page on my watchlist so you don't have to alert me of new postings. (If you register an account you'll have a watchlist too.)   Will Beback  talk  23:56, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding for whom it is to decide whether the prosecutions were valid or not, given your appeal to the Supreme Court – good choice – I am only going to simply reiterate once over, Will, that the provisions in question for everybody (except Scales) were overturned by subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court.

You seem satisfied with this standard as far as the judicial verdicts of other countries:

"As for Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia - later changes in the governemnts of those countries overturned or vacated many convictions, if I recall correctly."

Do we have a discrepancy there, then? The same happened in the United States!

Are you denying that people such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Gus Hall, and – hell, V. J. Jerome (jailed for publishing a Marxist aesthetics pamphlet) were convicted on the basis of actual sedition? All were freed by 1961. The single person actually convicted of unoverturned incitement was Mr. Junius Scales.

Naturally, there is a great deal of precaution that should be taken with people sentenced for political crimes. Hence, Wikipedia does not list the lengthy list of Soviet repression victims as "Soviet criminals". None of this was even an issue until you moved these people from "Victims of American political repression" to this new category you have created – then you proceeded to promptly list the entire category as criminals, although clearly such people as Victoria Woodhull, the great feminist in the subcategory "People convicted under the Comstock laws" was not listed as a "criminal" by your categorization methodology. Feel free to add her as well – along with Susan B. Anthony and a whole bunch of other progressive people of the Leftist persuasion. 166.203.190.27 (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. government and constitution in 2009 are substantially the same as they were in 1960 and 1930, and the law has never been repealed, so I don't think these are comparable situations to convictions nullified in those other circumstance. However I'm not well-informed on the the exact steps involved in de-nazification and de-stalinization, so that's probably not a productive branch. Were the convictions of Flynn, Hall, and Jerome overturned? If so then they don't belong in the category. If they were convicted then they do belong. The entire category is still under "Victims of American political repression" because they were repressed by being sent to prison as criminals. As for Woodhull, our article on her says: Woodhull, Claflin, and Blood were acquitted on a technicality six months later... So apparently that categorization is a mistake.   Will Beback  talk  00:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Very correct regarding Victoria Woodhull. :-)

I'm not sure that the fact that our government is a lineal descendant of the administration we had in 1789 is the relevant litmus test here: certainly the evolutionary changes within our system have been profound and wide-ranging, as has much of American policy even since the 1960s. The de-Stalinization process in Russia was by no means something that happened overnight, either: rehabilitations continued into the late 1980s, and the legal code of the Russian Federation post-independence was itself largely inherited from the Soviet code of the Soviet RSFSR legal code – though I have already digressed too much.

As you can glean from the Smith Act article,

"Yates v. United States [1957] ruled unconstitutional the conviction of numerous party leaders in a ruling that distinguished between advocacy of an idea for incitement and the teaching of an idea as a concept."

Regarding your question as to whether the convictions of Flynn, Hall, and Jerome overturned, Flynn was released after 9 months following a conviction in 1951, while Hall and Jerome were also released during the 1950s, Hall's coming just prior to the 1957 decision in Yates. The convictions of such members rested on the "clear-and-present-danger test" instituted by Judge Learned Hand – but the criteria according to which this test was applied was stricken down in 1957 according to the Yates v. United States, with the nail-in-the-coffin coming in 1961 with the Noto decision. Yates alone was enough to stop any further indictment of any more CPUSA member 166.203.190.27 (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW, here's the current version of the act, § 2385. Advocating Overthrow of Government. I imagine that many countries have similar laws. Advocating the overthrow is the same as inciting treason, which no government is going to like. The issue in the U.S. is the conflict of such a statute with the Bill of Rights.   Will Beback  talk  06:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we can all be glad that there haven't been further convictions under that statute. But the fact remains that there were criminal convictions in the past. Other than our own opinion, I don't see how we can say that these people were not convicted of violating a criminal statute. Would it be better if we add a disclaimer like the one I quoted above?   Will Beback  talk  06:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)