Hartzel v. United States/Dissent Reed

by Stanley Forman Reed

United States Supreme Court

322 U.S. 680

HARTZEL  v.  UNITED STATES.

No. 531.  Argued: April 25, 1944. --- Decided: June 12, 1944.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT.

Mr. Justice REED, with whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice JACKSON concur, dissenting.

The First Amendment to the Constitution preserves freedom of speech and of the press in war as well as in peace. The right to criticize the Government and the handling of the war is not questioned. Congress has not sought, directly or indirectly, to abridge the right of anyone to present his views on the conduct of the war or the making of the peace. The legislation under which Hartzel was tried and convicted was aimed at those who, in time of war, 'shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States.' It is only when the requisite intent to produce those results is present that criticism may cross over the line of prohibited conduct. The constitutional power of Congress so to protect the national interest is beyond question. Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470.

If the petitioner committed acts from which a properly instructed jury could reasonably conclude that the requisite intention existed to cause the evils against which the statute is directed, the sentence was proper. As the verdict was general, we need only to examine the proceedings under the count of the indictment which charged violation of the law in the words quoted in the preceding paragraph. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 105, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1387, 87 L.Ed. 1774.

Petitioner urges that these articles, which contain on their face no explicit call upon the military to disobey orders, act in a disloyal manner, mutiny or disregard their duty, cannot be a violation of the statute because they offer no proof of the necessary intent and none is offered outside of the papers themselves. We think that this argument fails. Congress has made it an offense willfully to attempt to cause insubordination and likewise willfully to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the Nation. It does not commend itself to us to hold that thereby Congress was merely concerned with crude attempts to undermine the war effort but gave free play to less obvious and more skillful ways of bringing about the same mischievous results. Papers or speeches may contain incitements for the military to be insubordinate or to mutiny without a specific call upon the armed forces so to act. If circulated for the purpose of undermining military discipline, scurrilous articles, attacking an ally, a minority of our citizens and the President, may contain, without words of solicitation, indications of purpose sufficient, if accepted as true, from which to draw an intent to accomplish the unlawful results.

Moreover, when the other evidence is added to the articles themselves, we think that enough facts revealing the requisite intent were presented to justify the verdict. Other similar articles circulated prior to the declaration of war tended to show a continuing intention. The articles which were the basis of the indictment were sent to military officers including those of the highest rank. This circumstance is brought forward by petitioner as indicative of a lack of intention to undermine the military forces. This was doubtless weighed by the jury, but certainly it cannot be said that circulation of propaganda among officers shows less intention to proselyte than to circulate among the enlisted personnel. Copies were sent to the Infantry Journal, a publication circulating largely in the armed forces. Nothing appears as to any motive, other than interference with discipline, that the petitioner might have in distributing this type of pamphlet to professional military officers. The jury was entitled to weigh the fact that the articles were sent anonymously. The jury was also entitled to weigh the fact that those to whom the articles were sent were hand-picked and composed a select group. These actions speak as loud as words.

Hartzel himself, moreover, made a statement which was introduced at the trial. In it he told of the preparation of the pamphlets, the selection of the mailing list from among prominent personages and associations and his reason for his acts. His intent appears in these words:

'Finally, the prime motive which impelled me in writing and distributing the articles discussed above, was the hope that they might tend to create sentiment against war amongst the white races and in diverting the war from them, to unite the white races against what I consider to be the more dangerous enemies, the yellow races.'

The jury might well infer from the quoted paragraph that Hartzel, by placing these pamphlets in military hands, was attempting to cause insubordination among the troops. He sought to develop sentiment 'against war among the white races.' Germans are a 'white race.'

These pamphlets were distributed in 1942. The military situation was then nothing like so strong as now nor confidence in our strategy so uniform. A large segment of public opinion desired to concentrate against Japan, rather than Germany and Italy, a viewpoint which doubtless had advocates among the members of the armed forces. It was an opportune time from the viewpoint of the German enemy to put pamphlets such as these in circulation which taught suspicion of Britain, vilified Jews and promoted lack of confidence in the President. On the question of intention, the circumstances under which the pamphlets were distributed were important and entitled to weight. Petitioner played precisely upon those prejudices from which at that time insubordination or disloyalty was most likely to develop.

We are not a jury passing on Hartzel's state of mind. Our sole and very limited duty is to decide whether there was evidence enough warranting the trial judge letting the case go to the jury, whether 12 jurymen had warrant for their finding that Hartzel's very purpose was to undermine the will of our soldiers to fight our Nazi enemy, and whether the Circuit Court of Appeals was warranted in sustaining such a finding. We are at a loss to know what other intent is to be attributed to the dissemination of these documents to our soldiery. To adapt the language of Mr. Justice Holmes speaking for a unanimous Court in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 51, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470, of course the documents would not have been sent unless they had been intended to have some effect, and we do not see what effect they could be expected to have upon persons in the military service except to influence them to obstruct the carrying on of the war against Germany when petitioner deemed that a betrayal of our country.

'All of the circumstances of the case, it seems to me, the very language of the pamphlets composed and distributed by Hartzell show such intent. For what purpose other than hindering the carrying on of the war in any way did he have or could he have had in mind? He appeared on the stand to be an unusually shrewd person. The story he tells of his education and his activities indicate that whatever he does is deliberate and with a definite purpose. He is not a fanatic attached to a cause, having political and economic theories for the liberation of oppressed peoples as were the defendants in Pierce v. United States, 252 U.S. 239, 40 S.Ct. 205, 64 L.Ed. 542, and Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 40 S.Ct. 17, 63 L.Ed. 1173, where Justices Holmes and Brandeis in dissenting opinions found that the literature distributed by the defendants had as its purpose propagating certain economic ideas rather than interfering with enlistment or recruiting or insubordination or disloyalty to the army. In this case the jury were warranted in presuming from the preparation and circulation of the literature that Hartzell intended to obstruct enlistment and recruiting and to cause insubordination and disloyalty in the military service of the United States.'

On these facts we would intrude on the historic function of the jury in criminal trials to say that the requisite intent 'to cause insubordination, disloyalty, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces' was lacking. The right of free speech is vital. But the necessity of finding beyond a reasonable doubt the intent to produce the prohibited result affords abundant protection to those whose criticism is directed to legitimate ends.

Notes