Jones v. City of Opelika
| Decision Date | 18 March 1941 |
| Docket Number | 5 Div. 109. |
| Citation | 30 Ala.App. 142,3 So.2d 74 |
| Parties | JONES v. CITY OF OPELIKA. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied April 22, 1941.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Lee County; W.B. Bowling, Judge.
Grover C. Powell, of Atlanta, Ga., for appellant.
Duke & Duke, of Opelika, for appellee.
Appellant when arrested, was going about the streets of the City of Opelika, holding two little pamphlets in his hand, and saying to the public: "Get your two copies for five cents."
Copies of the two pamphlets mentioned are before us, and we find in them nothing obscene or immoral; or which advocates unlawful conduct; or which is calculated to "disturb public order."
Here as in the case styled City of Cincinnati, Appellee v. Mosier Appellant, decided by the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County (Ohio), and reported in 61 Ohio App. at page 81, 22 N.E.2d 418, the evidence developed that the "books" peddled were religious books, pamphlets or tracts (one was "Face the Facts--and learn the only one way of escape"; and the other: "Fascism or Freedom") and "there is no evidence that such literature was in any way subversive of the morals of the public or inimical to our form of democratic government, or calculated to create a disturbance or breach of the peace of the country, or had the effect of interfering with the public welfare."
Appellant is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jehovah's Kingdom and (as he contends, without dispute in the testimony) one of Jehovah's witnesses, consecrated to bear witness concerning the Kingdom of Jehovah God. The sole mission of the pamphlets is to set forth the gospel of the Kingdom of God as he believes and preaches it.
He did not, he says, apply for or obtain a license (to "peddle" his pamphlets) because he regarded himself as sent by Jehovah God to do his work and believes that such application would have been an act of disobedience to Jehovah's Commandments which would result in his eternal destruction.
Appellant was tried in the Recorder's Court of the City of Opelika, and convicted, on the charge of selling or offering to sell books without a license being first obtained from the Clerk of said city as required by the city ordinance.
He appealed to the circuit court, where he was again convicted before the judge, sitting without a jury, and hence this appeal.
His defense was the unconstitutionality and invalidity of the ordinance (as applied to him), which requires a license to distribute printed matter. He says that it is in conflict with the Constitution of the State, and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the following particulars, viz.:
(a) It abridges and denies freedom of speech and freedom of the press; and (b) it abridges freedom of worship and freedom of conscience and religious liberty.
The part of the ordinance of the City of Opelika that was applied to appellant is as follows:
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...496, 516, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423; Schneider v. State (Town of Irvington), 308 U.S. 147, 60 S.Ct. 146, 84 L.Ed. 155. Jones v. City of Opelika, Ala.App., 3 So.2d 74, reversed, 241 Ala. 279, 3 So.2d 76, certiorari granted, 314 U.S. 593, 62 S.Ct. 93, 86 L.Ed. ___, writ dismissed for want o......
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Jones v. City of Opelika
...C. Powell, of Atlanta, Ga., opposed. THOMAS, Justice. The certiorari seeks to review the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Rosco Jones v. City of Opelika, 3 So.2d 74, wherein it held that an ordinance of the City of Opelika was void as applied to the defendant. The motion for rehearing whic......
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