Murdock v. Pennsylvania
Headline: Door-to-door religious literature license fee struck down, freeing itinerant evangelists and small religious groups from flat municipal taxes that blocked house-to-house distribution.
Holding: The Court held that a flat municipal license tax imposed as a condition on door-to-door distribution of religious literature violates the First Amendment and cannot be required of itinerant evangelists or similar religious distributors.
- Stops cities from charging flat license fees for door-to-door religious literature distribution.
- Protects small religious groups and itinerant evangelists from per-visit taxes.
- Leaves room for police regulation of disorderly conduct and narrow registration rules.
Summary
Background
The City of Jeannette, Pennsylvania enforced an old ordinance requiring a license and fixed fee for anyone canvassing or soliciting sales door-to-door. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses went from house to house offering religious books and pamphlets, sometimes accepting small contributions, and were arrested for failing to obtain the license. Lower Pennsylvania courts upheld their convictions, and the cases reached the Supreme Court.
Reasoning
The Court asked whether a municipal license tax can be required as a condition of distributing religious literature door-to-door. The majority said no. It explained that handing out and selling religious tracts is a long-standing form of evangelism protected by the First Amendment, and a flat license tax imposed as a condition of that activity is effectively a tax on the exercise of constitutional freedoms. Because the fee was unrelated to regulation or policing costs and could suppress minority religious activity, the Court held the license tax unconstitutional and reversed the convictions.
Real world impact
The decision protects itinerant evangelists and small religious distributors from being forced to buy a municipal license just to carry their literature into homes. The ruling does not remove all government power to regulate conduct; it leaves room for policing of breaches of the peace, narrow registration systems, or taxes on income or property. The judgment vacates the controlling precedent and sends the cases back to the state court to proceed consistent with the opinion.
Dissents or concurrances
Several Justices dissented, arguing the book distributions were commercial sales or occupation activity and that nondiscriminatory municipal taxes are permissible when not shown to be oppressive.
Opinions in this case:
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