United States v. Spock416 F.2d 165; 1969 United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

1. Facts: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., and two other persons signed a document protesting the Selective Service draft in the Vietnam War, and later engaged in various activities of protest. They were then charged with others known and unknown, with conspiring to counsel, aid and abet diverse Selective Service registrants to neglect, fail, refuse and evade service in the armed forces of the United States and all other duties required of registrants under the Universal Military Training and Service Act and the rules, regulations and directions duly made pursuant to said Act to fail and refuse to have in their personal possession at all times their registration certificates & valid notices of classification 3 and also conspiring to unlawfully, willfully and knowingly hinder and interfere, by any means, with the administration of the Universal Military Training and Service Act.

2. Procedural History: The defendants were convicted and upon conviction in the lower court for conspiracy in violation of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U.S.C.S. app. § 462(a), defendants appealed, claiming a right to directed acquittals, either because of constitutional immunity or because the government failed in its proof.

3. Issue(s): Whether the signed the document from the defendants protesting the Selective Service draft in the Vietnam War, and the various activities of protest that the defendants engaged in was protected speech/expression under the First Amendment of the constitution.

4. Rule(s) of Law: Criminal intent in conspiracy must be judged strictissimi juris to avoid the danger of punishing one for his lawful, constitutionally protected purposes because of unprotected purposes of the organization he did not share.

5. Holding(s): The court reversed the convictions of two of the defendants because their activities did not amount to criminal conspiracy. Then a new trial was ordered for the other defendants.

6. Reasoning: The principle of strictissimi juris required the acquittal of Spock and Feber because the government did not have the evidence that showed the necessary intent to adhere to the illegal aspects of a conspiracy. New trial was ordered because it found that the use of special questions to the jury by the lower court in a criminal case was held to be prejudicial and could infringe on the jury’s power to deliberate free from legal fetters; on its power to arrive at a general verdict without having to support it by reasons or by a report of its deliberations.