New York Criminal Anarchy Law Repealed
New York state on this day repealed its Criminal Anarchy Act, enacted on April 3, 1902.
The law became the model for similar state laws in twenty-nine other states, such as the California Criminal Syndicalism law. These laws were used during the 1920s and 1930s as the primary instrument for state prosecutions of alleged radicals for their political views.
The New York Criminal Anarchy law has a special place in American constitutional law history. During the Red Scare (1919–1920), it was used to prosecute Benjamin Gitlow for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. Gitlow’s appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in the landmark decision of Gitlow v. New York, on June 8, 1925, in which the Court for the first time held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment and made them applicable to the states.
The “incorporation” doctrine became the basis for the civil liberties and civil rights revolution in the following decades, as the Supreme Court incorporated other provisions of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment.
In a curious twist of history, Benjamin Gitlow died the day before (July 19, 1965) New York repealed the Criminal Anarchy law under which he was prosecuted and became famous in the Supreme Court appeal of his conviction.
Learn more about the Gitlow case: Marc Lendler, Gitlow v. New York: Every Idea an Incitement (2012)
Read about the history of criminal anarchy, criminal syndicalism, sedition, and similar laws: Geoffrey Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004)
Learn about the 100 Year fight for free speech in America: Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone, The Free Speech Century (2018)