Also known as: at-large
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
A state of being free from custody or control. The condition applies when a person or animal escapes confinement or remains unapprehended after committing an offense.
The body of citizens as a whole. This sense identifies interests or effects shared across an entire community rather than by specific individuals.
A state of being free from custody or control. The condition applies when a person or animal escapes confinement or remains unapprehended after committing an offense.
Police respond to a shooting at a public park. The victim identifies the shooter but officers learn the gunman fled on foot and remains unapprehended. Because the perpetrator is still at large, the court finds the primary purpose of the interrogation was to address an ongoing emergency, rendering the victim's statements nontestimonial.
A city zoning ordinance limits unrelated persons living together. Property owners challenge the rule as violating substantive due process. The court refuses to roam at large in the constitutional field and instead anchors its analysis to longstanding traditions rather than personal policy preferences.
The body of citizens as a whole. This sense identifies interests or effects shared across an entire community rather than by specific individuals.
After the House passes a revenue bill and the Senate concurs with amendments, the President returns it with objections. The originating House must enter those objections at large on its journal before reconsidering the measure. The clerk records every sentence of the veto message verbatim so members can review the full text during the override debate.
During a declared war, Congress enacts a statute directing all citizens to seize enemy vessels. Private ship owners interpret the law as freeing subjects at large to attack enemy property without further sovereign commission. The court holds the statute supplies the necessary general order under the law of nations.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
In early 1973, Mrs. Inez Moore received a notice of violation from the city of East Cleveland. The notice stated that her grandson John Moore, Jr., was an illegal occupant of her home. It directed her to comply with the housing ordinance. Mrs. Moore lived in her East Cleveland home together with her son Dale Moore, Sr., and her two grandsons Dale Moore, Jr., and John Moore, Jr. John came to live with her after his mother's death when he was less than one year old. When she failed to remove John from the home, the city filed a criminal charge against her. Mrs. Moore moved to dismiss the charge. She claimed that the ordinance was constitutionally invalid on its face. Her motion was overruled. Upon conviction she was sentenced to five days in jail and a $25 fine. The East Cleveland ordinance limited occupancy of a dwelling unit to members of a single family. The ordinance defined family to include only a husband or wife of the nominal head of the household, unmarried children of the head or spouse provided they have no children residing with them, a parent of the head or spouse, or not more than one dependent child of the head or spouse along with that child's spouse and dependent children. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction after giving full consideration to her constitutional claims. The Ohio Supreme Court denied review of the case. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of her appeal.
View case3 common questions
When a perpetrator remains at large after an incident, courts treat statements made to police as nontestimonial if the primary purpose was to resolve an ongoing emergency. The unknown location of the suspect is one factor courts weigh under the primary-purpose test.
In due process cases the phrase warns judges against roaming at large without anchoring analysis to tradition or text. This usage signals judicial restraint rather than describing physical freedom or the general public.
No. Article I, Section 7 requires that presidential objections be entered at large on the journal, meaning recorded in full detail. The phrase denotes completeness of the entry rather than any reference to the public or freedom from restraint.
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View caseA state statute bans contraceptive use by married couples. Challengers argue the law invades a right not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The court determines whether the asserted liberty is so rooted in the traditions and collective conscience of the people at large that it ranks as fundamental.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseA magazine publishes an article accusing a private attorney of communist affiliations. The attorney sues for defamation. The court holds that the constitutional privilege extends to criticism of nonpublic persons who shape events in areas of concern to society at large, requiring the plaintiff to prove actual malice.
In 1968, Chicago police officer Richard Nuccio shot and killed a youth named Nelson. State authorities prosecuted Nuccio and obtained a conviction for second-degree murder. The Nelson family retained petitioner Elmer Gertz, a Chicago attorney, to represent them in civil litigation against Nuccio. Respondent Robert Welch, Inc., publishes American Opinion, a monthly magazine expressing the views of the John Birch Society. In March 1969, the magazine published an article titled "FRAME-UP: Richard Nuccio And The War On Police." The article accused Gertz of participating in a Communist conspiracy to discredit local law enforcement, described him as a "Leninist" and "Communist-fronter," and claimed he had been an officer of the National Lawyers Guild, which it portrayed as a Communist organization involved in planning attacks on Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The article contained numerous inaccuracies, including the false implication that Gertz had a criminal record. Gertz had served as an officer of the National Lawyers Guild approximately fifteen years earlier but had no involvement in planning the 1968 demonstrations. He had never been a member of the Marxist League for Industrial Democracy or the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. The managing editor of American Opinion made no effort to verify the charges against Gertz before publication and appended an editorial introduction stating that the author had conducted extensive research. Gertz filed a diversity action for libel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The district court ruled that the statements constituted libel per se under Illinois law. After a trial, the jury awarded Gertz $50,000 in compensatory damages. The district court later entered judgment for the defendant notwithstanding the verdict, applying the New York Times standard. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the application of constitutional standards to defamation of a private individual.
View case1 common questions
A private plaintiff may face the actual-malice standard if the defamatory statements concern matters of general or public interest that affect society at large. The extension protects speech on issues that transcend purely private disputes.
…White) I believe the decision of the Court represents poor constitutional law and entails harmful consequences for the country at large. How serious these consequences may prove to be only time can tell. But the basic flaws in the Court's justification seem to me readily apparent now once all sides of the problem are…