# O'BRIEN v. Brown

> Supreme Court of the United States · July 7, 1972 · 409 U.S. 1

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425037

## Case

- **Full name:** O'BRIEN Et Al. v. BROWN Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** July 7, 1972
- **Citations:** 409 U.S. 1; 92 S. Ct. 2718; 34 L. Ed. 2d 1; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 18
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Douglas
- **Judges:** Marshall, White, Douglas
- **Cited by:** 93 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425037

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that “[vjital rights of association guaranteed by the Constitution” are involved in federal court challenges to party delegate-seating decisions

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
I would deny the stays and deny the petitions for cer-tiorari. The grant of the stays is, with all respect, an abuse of the power to grant one. The petitions for cer-tiorari will not be voted on until October, at which time everyone knows the cases will be moot. So the action granting the stays is an oblique and covert way of deciding the merits. If the merits are to be decided, the cases should be put down for argument. As Mr. Justice Marshall has shown, the questions are by no means frivolous. The lateness of the hour before the Convention and the apparently appropriate action by the Court of Appeals on the issues combine to make a denial of the stays and a denial of the petitions the only responsible action we should take without oral argument.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425037. Public record. Not legal advice.