Louis Weinstock v. Subversive Activities Control Board

331 F.2d 75, 118 U.S. App. D.C. 1, 1963 U.S. App. LEXIS 3429

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: December 17, 1963
• Docket: 13422_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

PRETTYMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

This is a petition for review of an order o'f the Subversive Activities Control Board requiring the United May Day Committee to register as a Communist-front organization under Section 7 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.¹ The Board’s order was issued on April 27, 1956, and subsequent to the filing of the petition in this court, upon stipulation of the parties, the case was held in abeyance pending the outcome of the Communist Party proceedings. The latter were finally resolved in June of 1961.² Thereafter this court ordered the filing of briefs and the scheduling of oral arguments in the present case. Petitioner ³ asked that the Committee not be required to file a brief but that the court consider the brief filed in a companion case, American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born v. Subversive Activities Control Board, decided this date,⁴ as its brief “only insofar as any points of Constitutional Law are raised therein.” This request was embodied in a motion, filed March 12, 1962, which further recited:

“Only Constitutional questions can be raised by the Petitioner in any brief that might be filed on his behalf by any attorney whom he could afford to retain. The Petitioner does not desire to have any facts or testimony reviewed by this Court, but is willing to rést his case on the Constitutional questions raised by the other organizations which are prosecuting their appeals.”

The request was granted. Accordingly this petitioner is before the court seeking to have the Board’s order set aside on constitutional grounds.

The Supreme Court in the Communist Party case, supra, held the registration features of the statute to be constitutional when applied to a Communist-action organization. This court held in Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade v. Subversive Activities Control Board, decided today,⁵ that the opinion in the Communist Party case encompasses the statute when applied to Communist-front organizations. In that view the statute must be held valid in the case at bar. Accordingly the Board’s order is Affirmed.

1 . 64 Stat. 993, as amended, 50 U.S.C. § 786.

2 . Communist Party of United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 367 U.S. 1, 81 S.Ct. 1357, 6 L.Ed.2d 625 (1961).

3 . The petition for review was filed by Louis Weinstock, “as Intervenor,” on behalf of the organization, and he appears as petitioner in this court.

4 . 117 U.S.App.D.C. -, 331 F.2d 53 (1963).

5 . 117 U.S.App.D.C. -, 331 F.2d 64 (1963).