Alan Dershowitz, Special Counsel to Acting U.S. President Donald J. Trump During the 2019 Impeachment Inquiry, One-Time Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, and Self-Proclaimed Constitutional Scholar; Openly Claims That the Federal Government Possesses the Extrajudicial Authority Necessary to Retroactively Detain and Forcibly Vaccinate Citizens by Virtue of the 10th Amendment to Curb the Spread of a Contagious Disease

Citing a 1905 ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the Jacobson v. Massachusetts¹ proceeding as justification for his pedantic assertions, Dershowitz would later proclaim in the following series of statements, that individuals have no right to refuse the overtures of the state with regard to the imposition of medical mandate requiring them to submit to a vaccine regimen in the midst of a prolonged national public health emergency:

“Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree.”

“You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business.”

When questioned by Jason Goodman during a syndicated May 16th, 2020, ‘Crowdsource the Truth’ podcast regarding the constitutional viability of such recourse, the Aristotelian author and media endorsed advocate of civil liberties issued the following utterance – an exclamation whose content could more aptly be characterized as a contemporary incarnation of Stalinist edict, as opposed to rhetorical contrivance extolling the inviolable nature of one’s personal freedom:

“Absolutely, and if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

¹ Written synopsis from the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute


Henning Jacobson, Pltff. in Err. (Plaintiff in Error), v. (versus) the Commonwealth of Massachusetts No. 70

197 U.S. 11
25 S.Ct. (25th Convening of the Supreme Court) 358
49 L.Ed. 643

Argued December 6, 1904

Decided February 20, 1905

A case determining the validity, as dictated by precepts outlined within the contents of the Constitution of the United States, of certain provisions contained within the statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts pertaining to vaccine mandate.

The Revised Laws of that commonwealth, Chap. 75, § 137 (Chapter 75, Signum Sectiōnis or Section 137), provide that ‘the board of health of a city or town, if, in its opinion, it is necessary for the public health or safety, shall require and enforce the vaccination and revaccination of all the inhabitants thereof, and shall provide them with the means of free vaccination. Whoever, being over twenty-one years of age and not under guardianship, refuses or neglects to comply with such requirement shall forfeit $5’ ($5 USD being the numerical equivalent of $147.68 in 2020)

An exception is made in favor of ‘children who present a certificate, signed by a registered physician, that they are unfit subjects for vaccination’ – § 139.

Proceeding under the above statutes, the board of health of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 27th day of February, 1902, adopted the following regulation: ‘Whereas, smallpox has been prevalent to some extent in the city of Cambridge, and still continues to increase; and whereas, it is necessary for the speedy extermination of the disease that all persons not protected by vaccination should be vaccinated; and whereas, in the opinion of the board, the public health and safety require the vaccination or revaccination of all the inhabitants of Cambridge; be it ordered, that all the inhabitants habitants of the city who have not been successfully vaccinated since March 1st, 1897, be vaccinated or revaccinated.’

Subsequently, the board adopted an additional regulation empowering a named physician to enforce the vaccination of persons as directed by the board at its special meeting of February 27th.

The above regulations being in force, the plaintiff in error, Jacobson, was proceeded against by a criminal complaint in one of the inferior courts of Massachusetts. The complaint charged that on the 17th day of July, 1902, the Board of Health of Cambridge, being of the opinion that it was necessary for the public health and safety, required the vaccination and revaccination of all the inhabitants thereof who had not been successfully vaccinated since the 1st day of March, 1897, and provided them with the means of free vaccination; and that the defendant, being over twenty-one years of age and not under guardianship, refused and neglected to comply with such requirement.

The defendant, having been arraigned, pleaded not guilty. The government put in evidence the above regulations adopted by the board of health, and made proof tending to show that its chairman informed the defendant that, by refusing to be vaccinated, he would incur the penalty provided by the statute, and would be prosecuted therefor; that he offered to vaccinate the defendant without expense to him; and that the offer was declined, and defendant refused to be vaccinated.

The prosecution having introduced no other evidence, the defendant made numerous offers of proof. But the trial court ruled that each and all of the facts offered to be proved by the defendant were immaterial, and excluded all proof of them.

The defendant, standing upon his offers of proof, and introducing no evidence, pleaded for the inclusion of numerous instructions to the jury, among which were the following:

That § 137 of Chapter 75 of the Revised Laws of Massachusetts was in derogation of the rights secured to the defendant by the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, and tended to subvert and defeat the purposes of the Constitution as declared in its preamble;

That the section referred to was in derogation of the rights secured to the defendant by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, specifically with regard to clauses of present within the contents of said amendment providing that no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; and

That said stipulation was opposed to the spirit of the Constitution.

Each of defendant’s petitions for the inclusion of such considerations were rejected, and he duly objected. The defendant requested the court, but the court refused, to instruct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. And the court instructed the jury, in substance, that, if they believed the evidence introduced by the commonwealth, and were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of the offense charged in the complaint, they would be warranted in finding a verdict of guilty. A verdict of guilty was thereupon returned.

CONCLUSION: Citing the necessity of ensuring the safety of the general public through the imposition of extrajudicial authority in what the court determined was a justifiable exercise of police power – a power which the state did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under the Constitution – the U.S. Supreme Court held that the law was a legitimate exercise of the state’s jurisdictional regency to protect the public health and safety of its citizens. Local boards of health determined when mandatory vaccinations were needed, thus making the requirement neither unreasonable nor arbitrarily enforced.

LINKED ARTICLE OF REFERENCE

*VIDEO* Alan Dershowitz: “The State Has the Authority to Forcibly Remove You From Your Place of Residence, Take You to a Doctor’s Office, and Plunge a Needle Into Your Arm to Prevent You From Spreading a Contagious Disease”