History: When fortune telling was illegal in Ohio
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Central Ohio is full of self-proclaimed psychics who purport to see the future, but such acts of clairvoyance were once crimes.
Flashback: Fortune telling without a license was illegal in Ohio during the early 1900s and many cities had similar local ordinances.
- A Lima man was arrested in 1912, with a newspaper headline reading: "Fails to Read His Own Future."
Cleveland pastor Gertrude Davis contested the state law in the 1920s after being found guilty in municipal court.
- Davis claimed the activity was part of a spiritualist ceremony, making it protected on free speech and religious expression grounds.
- Neither Ohio nor Cleveland offered any way to obtain a fortune telling license. Davis argued this rendered the law moot.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the lower verdict in 1928, ruling that free speech "does not deprive the state of its police power to enact laws for the protection of the public safety and morals and the protection of the general welfare."
- Justices also held that religious belief is not a legal defense for violating the law.
The intrigue: Some cities still ban the practice.
- The city code of Wickliffe, near Cleveland, states, "No person, not legally licensed to do so, shall represent himself to be an astrologer, fortuneteller, clairvoyant or palmister."
- The city of East Cleveland requires fortune tellers to pay an annual $200 fee.
- Columbus permits "Astrology, Fortune telling and Palm Reading" businesses in a commercial district.
Yes, but: We can't find a fortune telling ban in the present-day Ohio Revised Code and it's unclear when the rule was removed.
- Modern courts are more skeptical of these bans than in the past, notes the First Amendment Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
- Psychic services is now a $2.3 billion industry that employed 97,000 people as of last year, the AP reports.