Yates v. United States

Yates and 13 other Communist Party members (defendants) were convicted under the Smith Act for conspiring to advocate and organize toward the violent overthrow of the government. The trial court instructed the jury that the charged advocacy taught the necessity — not merely the desirability — of violently overthrowing the government and urged a duty to do so, relying on Dennis v. United States, which had upheld the Smith Act's constitutionality for a group of significant size capable of immediate action. Yates argued the instructions failed to require that the advocacy be intended to incite actual illegal action, as opposed to merely teaching the idea of overthrow.

Whether speech advocating the overthrow of the government is protected under the First Amendment when it is not made with the intent to incite illegal activity in the near or immediate future.