|
''Pennsylvania v. Nelson'', , was a United States Supreme Court case that established a precedent for the preemption of United States Federal law over State laws. The case was argued November 15–16, 1955 and the decision was handed down April 2, 1956. The State of Pennsylvania tried to convict a man of sedition under a state law, but a Federal law existed on the same subject. The Court ruled that the Federal law, the Smith Act, overruled the state law, the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, even though the state law was created before the federal law. Nelson, who was convicted under the state law, was therefore mistried. == Background == The Congressional act’s real name was the Alien Registration Act of 1940, but was referred to as the Smith Act because the anti-sedition section – the one Nelson claimed he should have been tried under – was authored by Rep. Howard W. Smith of Virginia. The section on sedition read: The State of Pennsylvania tried and convicted Steve Nelson, an acknowledged member of the Communist Party, under the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, sentencing him to twenty years in prison and a $10,000 fine as well as $13,000 for prosecution costs.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://supreme.justia.com/us/350/497/case.html )〕 The Smith Act was written after the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, but both were created during the Cold War, during the age of Joseph McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities Committee; this was the time of the "Red Scare", when McCarthy investigated many people, accusing them of being communists. Other questions on the constitutionality of the Smith Act have been raised in United States Supreme Court, during cases like U.S. v Brandt and Yates v. United States. Even though the act was amended in 1948, it was declared partially unconstitutional in the Yates decision. It has not been repealed.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C115.txt )〕 The Case was argued in front of the Warren Court whose members were: Earl Warren; Hugo Black; Stanley Reed; Felix Frankfurter; William O. Douglas; Harold Burton; Tom C. Clark; Sherman Minton; and John Marshall Harlan II. The Constitution of the United States establishes the U.S. Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. Treaties as "the supreme law of the land". This power, found in Article VI, Clause 2 is known as the Supremacy Clause. The text reads: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pennsylvania v. Nelson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|