Jones v. Opelika

Background

Members of Jehovah’s Witnesses (appellant Jobin and petitioners Jones, Bowden, and Sanders) were convicted for selling or offering religious books and pamphlets without municipal licenses in three cities: Opelika, Alabama; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Casa Grande, Arizona. Each city ordinance required payment of fixed license fees (examples in the records: $10 or $5 per year in Opelika, $25 per month or smaller short-term rates in Fort Smith, and $25 per quarter in Casa Grande). The defendants argued the ordinances violated freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Reasoning

The majority opinion held that these nondiscriminatory license taxes, when presumed reasonable in amount, do not automatically abridge constitutional freedoms. The Court treated the sale of books and pamphlets used to raise funds as involving commercial elements and distinguished ordinary regulatory fees from prior censorship or discretionary licensing that grants officials power to deny permission to speak. The majority noted it would not decide whether a license tax so large that it actually suppressed distribution would be constitutional, and it did not rule on revocation provisions that had not been applied in these cases.

Real world impact

The ruling affirms the convictions and permits cities to enforce nondiscriminatory occupational license taxes on people who sell or distribute printed matter for contributions. It leaves open future challenges about whether a particular fee is so large or cumulatively burdensome that it effectively suppresses speech or worship; the Court did not resolve those size-or-burden questions here.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent argued these flat taxes operate as prior restraints and can suppress minority religious expression and the free press, and would have reversed the convictions. That view emphasized historical abuses of taxes on printed matter and warned of cumulative burdens on itinerant preachers.