SCHAEFER v. UNITED STATES

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether the First Amendment protected the publishers of a German-language newspaper from criminal conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917 for publishing edited and translated news reports and editorials that allegedly interfered with military recruitment and promoted the success of the enemy during World War I.

Action

Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

The Philadelphia Tageblatt and the Philadelphia Sonntagsblatt were German-language newspapers published by the Philadelphia Tageblatt Association, a Pennsylvania corporation. During World War I, while the United States was at war with Germany, defendants Peter Schaefer, Louis Vogel, Paul Werner, John Darkow, and August Lemke were accused of printing and circulating “false reports” represented as dispatches from foreign locations. The government alleged that the publications were intended to “promote the success of the enemies of the United States,” specifically the Imperial German government. The defendants were additionally charged with willfully obstructing the United States’ recruiting and enlistment service, thereby causing injury to the nation’s wartime military efforts and interfering with the government’s ability to raise troops during wartime.

After arraignment, each defendant pleaded not guilty. Before trial, they jointly moved for severance, arguing that a joint trial would improperly restrict each defendant’s independent exercise of peremptory challenges during jury selection. Existing federal law treated jointly tried defendants as a single party for purposes of such challenges. Defense counsel maintained that this limitation diminished an individual defendant’s constitutional rights by preventing each accused person from exercising the full number of challenges otherwise available in a separate trial.

The trial court denied severance, despite additional grounds advanced by the defense, and each defendant preserved an exception to the ruling. During jury selection, counsel sought to reinforce their objection by separately exercising peremptory challenges for individual defendants while stating that the remaining defendants accepted those jurors. After ten challenges had been used, counsel attempted further peremptory challenges collectively, contending that no defendant should be bound by challenges previously exercised solely for a codefendant. The court rejected that position, holding under the governing act of Congress that all jointly tried defendants were to be treated as “a single party.” The defendants again excepted. The case proceeded to trial, and the jury ultimately returned guilty verdicts against the defendants.