Facts of The Case
No town ordinance prohibited or regulated the use of a public park in Havre de Grace, though it had been the town's custom over the years to issue permits to civic groups that wanted to use it for various purposes. The Jehovah's Witnesses requested permission from the city's Park Commissioner to use it, but were told that another group had signed up for that particular Sunday. Undeterred, they requested other Sundays but were turned down after a hearing by the City Council. At the hearing, the Council members asked them questions about their views of Roman Catholics, their refusal to salute the American flag and other subjects not related to the use of a permit. After the hearing, their request was turned down. Nevertheless, the Witnesses went ahead and held their public meetings in the park, with Niemetko, their preacher, being arrested in 1949. He was arrested under a disorderly conduct statute, though there was no evidence, at the time of arrest, that disorder, threats of riot or other violence impended.
Read more about this topic: Niemotko V. Maryland
Famous quotes containing the words facts of, facts and/or case:
“Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography.... For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form—it may be called fleeting or eternal—is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)