Cantwell v. Connecticut

Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), is a landmark court decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment's federal protection of religious free exercise incorporates via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and so applies to state governments too. This decision has been described by legal scholars as one of the pivotal religious liberty cases decided between 1938 and 1946 that strengthened the First Amendment protection of religious liberty and "ushered in a new era of personal liberty protections for all Americans."

The statute was an early type of consumer protection law: it required the Secretary, before issuing a certificate permitting solicitation, to determine whether the cause was "a religious one or is a bona fide object of charity or philanthropy" and whether the solicitation "conforms to reasonable standards of efficiency and integrity." Upon determination of the cause's legitimacy, a solicitation certificate would be issued. Newton Cantwell (a Jehovah's Witness) and his two sons, were preaching in a heavily Roman Catholic neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. The Cantwells were going door to door, with books and pamphlets and a portable phonograph with sets of records. Each record contained a description of one of the books. One such book was "Enemies", which was an attack on organized religion in general and especially the Roman Catholic Church. Jesse Cantwell stopped two men on the street and requested permission to play a phonograph. They gave permission, and after hearing the recording, the two citizens were incensed; though they wanted to physically assault the Cantwells, they restrained themselves. Cantwell and his two sons were arrested and charged with: (1) violation of a Connecticut statute requiring solicitors to obtain a certificate from the secretary of the public welfare council ("Secretary") before soliciting funds from the public, and (2) inciting a common law breach of the peace.

The Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed with the Cantwells, finding that the statute was an effort by the state of Connecticut to protect the public against fraud, and as such, the statute was constitutional. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the conviction of all three on the statutory charge and affirmed one son's conviction of inciting a breach of the peace, but remanded the inciting a breach of peace charge against the other two for a new trial.

The issue presented before the court was whether the state's action in convicting the Cantwells of inciting a breach of the peace and violating the solicitation statute violated their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

Before the Cantwell decision, it was not legally clear that the First Amendment protected religious practitioners against restrictions at the state and local levels as well as federal. But the Supreme Court in Cantwell said it did, thereby ushering in an era of greatly strengthened religious freedom. This case incorporated the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, thereby applying it to the states and protecting free exercise of religion from intrusive state action. The Establishment Clause was incorporated seven years later in Everson v. Board of Education.