United States v.

Spock
416 F.2d 165; 1969
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
1. Facts:
Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., and two other persons
signed a document protesting the Selective Service draft in the Vietnam
War, and later engaged in various activities of protest. They were then
charged with others known and unknown, with conspiring to counsel, aid
and abet diverse Selective Service registrants to neglect, fail, refuse and
evade service in the armed forces of the United States and all other duties
required of registrants under the Universal Military Training and Service Act
and the rules, regulations and directions duly made pursuant to said Act to
fail and refuse to have in their personal possession at all times their
registration certificates & valid notices of classification 3 and also
conspiring to unlawfully, willfully and knowingly hinder and interfere, by
any means, with the administration of the Universal Military Training and
Service Act.
2. Procedural History:
The defendants were convicted and upon conviction in the lower court for
conspiracy in violation of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50
U.S.C.S. app. 462(a), defendants appealed, claiming a right to directed
acquittals, either because of constitutional immunity or because the
government failed in its proof.
3. Issue(s):
Whether the signed the document from the defendants protesting the
Selective Service draft in the Vietnam War, and the various activities of
protest that the defendants engaged in was protected speech/expression
under the First Amendment of the constitution.
4. Rule(s) of Law:
Criminal intent in conspiracy must be judged strictissimi juris to avoid the
danger of punishing one for his lawful, constitutionally protected purposes
because of unprotected purposes of the organization he did not share.
5. Holding(s):
The court reversed the convictions of two of the defendants because their
activities did not amount to criminal conspiracy. Then a new trial was
ordered for the other defendants.
6. Reasoning:
The principle of strictissimi juris required the acquittal of Spock and Feber
because the government did not have the evidence that showed the
necessary intent to adhere to the illegal aspects of a conspiracy. New trial
was ordered because it found that the use of special questions to the jury by
the lower court in a criminal case was held to be prejudicial and could infringe
on the jurys power to deliberate free from legal fetters; on its power to arrive

at a general verdict without having to support it by reasons or by a report of

its deliberations.