Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1 (1951), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the arrest of members of the Communist Party who were charged with conspiring to violate the Smith Act. The case regards the Eighth Amendment issue of excessive bail.
The District Court had set bail at the fixed amount of $50,000 (roughly $500,000 in 2017) for each of the petitioners. This was an amount greater than that used with other serious crimes. The defendants moved to reduce bail, claiming that it was “excessive” under the Eighth Amendment. The defendants were detained in the custody of appellee, United States Marshal James J. Boyle.
Overview
In 1951, 12 members of the Communist Party were arrested in the Southern District of California. Upon their arrest and on motion of the government to increase bail in the case of other petitioners, bail was fixed in the District Court for the Southern District of California at $50,000 for each person. The petitioners then moved to reduce bail under the Eighth Amendment, claiming that it was excessive. In support of their motion, petitioners submitted statements as to their financial resources, family relationships, health, prior criminal records, and other information. The only evidence offered by the government was a record showing that four persons previously convicted under the Smith Act in the Southern District of New York had forfeited bail. Their request was denied. The petitioners then filed the same issue under habeas corpus in the same 9th District Court, whereupon their petition was further dismissed. Finally, a request for certiorari was filed with the Supreme Court of the United States and granted.
Historical context
In the 1950s the United States experienced what is known as the Second Red Scare which lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. During this period, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy led anti—communist investigations which included making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason; thousands of citizens were accused of being Communists or Communist sympathizers and became the subject of unlawful investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The Smith Act, also known as the Alien Registration Act was a 1940 act that set criminal penalties for “advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government” and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government.
Defendants
Loretta Starvus Stack
A Connecticut native who moved to San Francisco after World War II, she worked as a waitress and bookkeeper. Stack was the party organizational secretary of the local Communist Party and was accused of inciting women to take up arms in support of Socialism. During the case hearing a witness testified that Stack learned to use a bayonet and won shooting prizes in Russia in 1932. After the Supreme Court ruling she left the Communist Party. In her later years she fought to improve bus service and organized a cooperative housing project.
Al Richmond
Al Richmond helped found The Daily People's World which was a leftist newspaper in San Francisco, and he served as its executive editor. Later, Richmond said of the anti-Communist campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy, "I think that a lot of people were silenced, and their withdrawal from social commitment extended long afterward." Richmond left the party in 1968 after his paper criticized the Soviet Union for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, though he remained a Marxist. His autobiography, "A Long View From The Left," was published in 1973.
Dorothy Healey
Healey began as a member of the Young Communist League and later the Communist Party. She was appointed a deputy labor commissioner by Governor Culbert Olson in 1940 and served as the Chairman of the Los Angeles Communist Party (1945). In 1952, she was arrested under the Smith Act. She appeared on college campuses in support of the antiwar movement in the 1960s, and in 1969, she openly opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1969; she effectively removed herself from the Communist Party because of this. Following her formal resignation in 1973, she became active in the New American Movement and the Democratic Socialists of America.