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The limits of prior restraint
How far can the press go?
Sedition Act of 1798
• Alexander Hamilton (left) is accused of corruption by James Thomson Callender
• Callender is imprisoned and fined
• Callender later turns on Jefferson, his benefactor
The end of seditious libel
• Sedition Act helps lead to Adams’ defeat in 1800
• Jefferson (left) lets Sedition Act lapse
• Still, press is less free during wartime
Abraham Lincoln
• Suspended habeas corpus to crack down on protesters
• Ohio publisher Clement Laird Vallandigham banished behind Confederate lines
• Censorship in effect
Schenck v. United States (1919)
• Schenck charged with violating Espionage Act
• Holmes (right) establishes a new standard: “clear and present danger”
• Wartime is different
Gitlow v. New York (1925)
• 14th Amendment extends First Amendment to the states
• Holmes now takes a more expansive view of free speech
• “Every idea is an incitement”
Whitney v. California (1927)
• Brandeis (left) refines “clear and present danger”
• A “serious” and “imminent” threat — an “emergency”
• Brandeis sided with majority on technicality
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)• Speech can be
prohibited if “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and —
• Is “likely to incite or produce such action”
• Brandeis standard
Near v. Minnesota (1931)
• Classic case defining the limits of prior restraint
• History of case told by Fred Friendly in Minnesota Rag
The Saturday Press
• Begun by Jay Near and Howard Guilford
• Claimed Minneapolis was controlled by Jewish gangsters
• Shut down after nine issues under state’s Public Nuisance Law
Near loses at state level
• Argues that Public Nuisance Law violates the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments
• Minnesota Supreme Court: “There is no constitutional right to publish a fact merely because it is true.”
Unlikely allies
Roger Baldwin Col. Robt. McCormick
Bad cases make bad law
• Harry Chandler, head of American Newspaper Publishers Association, was reluctant to get involved
• The Saturday Press was unsavory• Chandler feared a defeat would set back
the cause of press freedom
Charles Evans Hughes
• Chief Justice replaced Justice Sanford, author of Gitlow decision
• Reaffirmed that the 14th Amendment incorporated the First Amendment
Weymouth Kirkland
• “[E]very legitimate newspaper in the country regularly and customarily publishes defamation, as it has a right to in criticizing government agencies”
• Akin to saying that seditious libel is the purpose of a free press
Justice Brandeis
• “Of course there was defamation; you cannot disclose evil without naming the doers of evil”
• “A newspaper cannot always wait until it gets the judgment of a court”
• Isn’t this why we have a First Amendment?
Near wins, 5-4
• Near fails to re-establish himself as a newspaperman, dies in 1936
• Howard Guilford is assassinated by gangsters in 1934
• Nevertheless, they contribute to the idea of no prior restraint
Key points of Near
• Exceptions to the rule of no prior restraint– National security
• Obstruction of draft• Disclosing movement of ships or troops
– Obscenity– Fighting words (incitement)
Key points of Near
• Exceptions to the rule of no prior restraint• Unprotected speech may be punished after
the fact– William Blackstone– “Criminal” speech– Libel — certainly an issue with The Saturday
Press
Key points of Near
• Exceptions to the rule of no prior restraint• Unprotected speech may be punished after
the fact• Minnesota’s Public Nuisance Law
tantamount to prior restraint
The Pentagon Papers
• Daniel Ellsberg provided them to the New York Times and the Washington Post
• Federal appeals courts ruled against the Times and for the Post
• Supreme Court takes the case
New York Times Co.v. United States (1971)
• Supreme Court issues nine separate decisions
• Government could prosecute after publication
• Nixon tried, but was derailed by Watergate