People v. Rubin

The American Nazi Party planned to march through a community in Skokie, Illinois in which approximately 7,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust lived, on Adolph Hitler’s birthday. The national director of the Jewish Defense League, Irving Rubin (defendant), held a press conference in which he announced that the Defense League planned to bring thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish counter-protesters to the community to physically block the Nazis from marching there. Rubin stated that the Defense League would pay for round-trip transportation for any able-bodied and willing counter-protester from anywhere in the country. Rubin then announced that the Defense League would pay $500 to any individual who killed, maimed, or seriously injured any member of the American Nazi Party in defense of the community. Rubin characterized this policy as a blanket offer to any person, so long as the individual could prove that it occurred in defense of the community. Rubin was charged with solicitation of murder. Rubin filed a motion to set aside the charge, alleging that there was no evidence sufficient to support a charge of solicitation of murder, and that his advocacy of crime speech was constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. The trial judge denied the motion as to the sufficiency of probable cause, but set aside the charge based upon First Amendment grounds.