Link to Supreme Court Decision

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) was an important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On April 13th, 1873, an armed white militia attacked a civil rights strategy meeting in Colfax, Grant Parish, Louisiana. Although some of the African Americans were armed and initially defended themselves, estimates were that over 100 were killed, most of them following surrender, and 50 were being held prisoner that night. A total of three whites were killed.

Some members of the white mob were indicted and charged under the Enforcement Act of 1870. Among other provisions, the law made it a felony for two or more people conspired to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights.

Given the disproportionate rate of black fatalities, historians have come to call the event the Colfax Massacre, and it was called the Colfax Riot in local white communities.

William J. Cruikshank was one of those arrested and became the principal name on the indictement. Cruikshank and about 80 others from the lynch mob were arrested, and 17 were eventually brought to trial in New Orleans before a Federal Circuit Court judge including Cruikshank. They were charged with a number of violations, the most important being violating the victims' "right and privilege peacably to assemble together". They were not however charged with murder since murder was a Louisiana State offence, not a Federal offence, and the Louisiana authorities did not prosecute.

Cruikshank and the others were found guilty in new Orleans, but the verdict was appealed and the case sent to the Supreme Court for a final decision. In what became a landmark case for the continued oppresion of African Americans the defendants were set free. Essentially the Supreme Court found that the charges were really State offences, not Federal, and as such could not be prosecuted Federally.