United States v. Brown

Section 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 forbids any member of the Communist Party from serving as an executive officer of a labor union, with the goal of preventing politically-motivated strikes that would pose a danger to the national economy. Archie Brown, a San Francisco longshoreman and admitted member of the Communist Party, was three times elected to the executive board of the local International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union from 1959 through 1961. On May 24, 1961, Brown was charged with violating section 504 of the LMRDA. No evidence was presented at trial suggesting that Brown was involved in any other illegal activity or plotting a political strike.

Brown was found guilty and sentenced to six months in prison. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed the conviction and found that section 504 violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. In response to appeal by the United States to the Supreme Court, Brown also argued that section 504 constitutes a bill of attainder, a law that targets a single individual or group, and therefore violates Article I, Section 9.