NAACP v. Button
| NAACP v. Button | |
|---|---|
|
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| Argued November 8, 1961 Reargued October 9, 1962 Decided April 2, 1963 |
|
| Full case name | National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Button |
| Citations | 371 U.S. 415 (more)
83 S. Ct. 328; 9 L. Ed. 2d 405
|
| Prior history | 202 Va. 142, 116 S. E. 2d 55 |
| Holding | |
| Virginia laws on barratry, champerty, and maintenance violate the 1st and 14th Amendments | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Brennan, joined by Warren, Black, Goldberg |
| Concurrence | Douglas |
| Concur/dissent | White |
| Dissent | Harlan, joined by Clark, Stewart |
| Laws applied | |
| 1st Amendment; 14th Amendment | |
NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963) is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ruling, and also overturned certain laws enacted by the state of Virginia in 1956 as part of the Stanley plan and massive resistance, as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The statutes here stricken down by the Supreme Court (and one overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court after the 1959 remand in Harrison v. NAACP) had expanded the definitions of the traditional common law crimes of barratry, champerty, and maintenance and had been targeted at the NAACP and its civil rights litigation.
After the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education, especially the 1955 decision known as Brown II, which ordered federal courts to enforce the 1954 decision "with all deliberate speed", U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd declared a policy of Massive Resistance to desegregation of Virginia's schools. Meanwhile, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was filing legal challenges to segregation in various Virginia schools. Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County had been filed in 1951, and became a companion case decided along with Brown. In January 1956, Virginia voters called for a limited state constitutional convention to allow tuition grants, which could be used at segregation academies and thus undercut the desegregation required by Brown. That constitutional convention was held in March 1956.
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