In Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290 [1961] the petitioner, an affiliate of the Communist Party, was convicted under the membership clause of the Smith Act for belonging to an organization which sought the violent overthrow of the government. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although the evidence demonstrated that the Communist Party propagated the forcible overthrow of the government, it failed to establish that the Communist Party presently urged the "violent overthrow of the Government now or in the future" (id. at 298). The Court noted the distinction between the statement of "an idea which may prompt its hearers to take unlawful action" and exhortation that such action be taken (id. at 297.) To sustain a conviction, the Court ruled that "there must be some substantial direct or circumstantial evidence of a call to violence now or in the future which is both sufficiently strong and sufficiently pervasive to lend color to the otherwise theoretical material regarding Communist Party teaching" (367 US at 298). Finding that the evidence presented was "too remote from concrete action" to be regarded as "indoctrination of a group in preparation for future violent action," the Court reversed the conviction on the ground of legal insufficiency (id. at 297.)