Case Citator › Stromberg v. California

Stromberg v. California

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
283 U.S. 359
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
47 of 47
Citing cases (total)
47
Treatment dates
2008
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Stromberg v. California remains authoritative, but its general-verdict reversal rule is subject to harmless error review. The Nevada Supreme Court and, later, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an instruction offering a legally invalid ground for conviction does not invariably require reversal.
More on how this was screened

Stromberg's protection for peaceful political expression remains intact. All 47 flagged citations have been read; the two confirmed limits are listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

47 later cases cite Stromberg v. California; 47 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Stromberg v. California?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Nevada Supreme Court held that a verdict presenting Stromberg error may be upheld if the error is harmless.

    Cortinas v. State · Supreme Court of Nevada · filed

    We reject Cortinas’ argument and conclude that Stromberg error is not structural but instead is instructional trial error. As such, Stromberg error is amenable to harmless-error review.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Supreme Court held that an invalid alternative theory of guilt does not require automatic reversal under Stromberg when the instructional error was harmless.

    Hedgpeth v. Pulido · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    A conviction based on a general verdict is subject to challenge if the jury was instructed on alternative theories of guilt and may have relied on an invalid one. See Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931); Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 (1957). In this case the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that such an error is “structural error,” requiring that the conviction be set aside on collateral review without regard to whether the flaw in the instructions prejudiced the defendant. The parties now agree that the Court of Appeals was wrong to categorize this type of error as “structural.” They further agree that a reviewing court finding such error should ask whether the flaw in the instructions “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 623 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). We agree as well and so hold.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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