A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States

Nine votes to nothing

On 27 May 1935 the Supreme Court announced its decision in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, reversing the federal convictions of the Brooklyn poultry defendants.

Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote that Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act delegated legislative power without adequate standards. Justice Benjamin Cardozo concurred, joined by Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, agreeing that the delegated code-making authority lacked meaningful limits.

The judgment was unanimous, 9–0.

Chickens that had come to rest

The Court separately held that the challenged hours, wages and local poultry-sale rules could not stand under the Commerce Clause. The birds had come to permanent rest in New York, so the Schechters’ local transactions affected interstate commerce only indirectly.

The interstate journey mattered: 96 percent of live poultry marketed in New York City arrived from other states, and the Schechters typically resold within 24 hours. The holding was that this particular journey had already ended.

What the nickname obscures

The indictment ran to 60 counts; the trial court dismissed 27 and acquitted on 14. Ten straight-killing conviction counts and one unfit-chicken count reached review — and that single count supplied the nickname.

‘Straight killing’ was chiefly a straight-selling rule requiring buyers to take the run of a coop except for culls, not a mandated slaughter technique. No religious-liberty claim was decided.

The ruling disabled the mandatory National Recovery Administration code system, and federal compliance and enforcement procedures were consequently abolished.