In 1956, the Attorney General of Alabama brought an equity suit to the State Circuit Court of Montgomery, Alabama challenging the NAACP for violation of a state statute requiring that foreign corporations to qualify before doing business in the state. The NAACP, a nonprofit membership corporation enumerated in New York had not complied with the statute, believing itself to be exempt. The bill in equity sought both to enjoin the Association from conducting further business within the state and, indeed, to remove it from the state. Referring to the Association's involvement with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and it's role in funding and providing legal assistance to black students seeking admission to the state university, the bill charged that the Association was ". . . causing irreparable injury to the property and civil rights of the residents and citizens of the State of Alabama for which criminal prosecution and civil actions at law afford no adequate relief . . . ." The circuit court proceeded to issue an ex parte order restraining the Association from conducting business in the state or taking steps to qualify it to do so.
The Association responded by moving to dissolve the order on the grounds that it's activities within the state did not merit it's qualification under the statute and that the state's equity suit was intended to violate it's rights to freedom of speech and of assembly as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Before a hearing date was set, the state issued a subpoena for much of the Association's records, including bank statements and leases, but most notably the names and addresses of the "agents" or "members" of the Association in Alabama. In it's response to the bill of equity, the Association admitted that it was in breach of the statute and offered to attain qualification to continue business if that part of the ex parte order was lifted, but as the Association did not comply with the order to produce it's records, that motion was denied and the Association was held in contempt and fined $10,000. The contempt order allowed for the reduction or remission of the fine if the production order was complied with within five days, after which the fine would be raised to $100,000.
Contending that the State could not constitutionally force disclosure of the records, the Association moved to dismiss the contempt judgement once more. According to Alabama case law, however, a petitioner could not seek a hearing or to dissolve an order until it purged itself of contempt. After the Association was dismissed twice in it's attempt to have the State Supreme Court grant certiorari, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on the grounds that the case raised important constitutional questions.
In an opinion delivered by Justice John M. Harlan, the Supreme Court decided in favour of the petitioners, holding that "Immunity from state scrutiny of petitioner's membership lists is here so related to the right of petitioner's members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in doing so as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment" and, further, that freedom to associate with organisations dedicated to the "advancement of beliefs and ideas" is an inseperable part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the action of the state obtaining the names of the Association's membership would likely interfere with the free association of it's members, the state's interest in obtaining the records was superceded by the constitutional rights of the petitioners. Background
Decision