Court Cases

In 1804, Harry Croswell was convicted on libel charges for publishing an article claiming that the President, Thomas Jefferson, had paid James Callender to make harmful statements about the previous presidents, George Washington and John Adams. New York Supreme Court Judge James Kent argued that truth should be a viable defense to libel, something that Croswell was not allowed to prove in his case.

This case established that truth was a defense in libel cases if it was published with good intention.

In 1907, Thomas M. Patterson published articles and a cartoon criticizing decisions the Colorado Supreme Court had made and so he was convicted for contempt. He argued that while he did publish the materials, that they were not contemptuous and that he should be able to use truth as his defense.

 On September 10, 1917, Peter Schaeffer and four of his colleagues were arrested for "willfully mistranslating or abridging the original publications" in their publication of condensed and translated articles(it was a newspaper in German). They were charged for violating the Espionage Act of 1917, but two of the Supreme Court Justices disagreed with this, saying that such prosecutions "threatened freedom of thought and of belief". Three of the men were pardoned several months later by President Woodrow Wilson in partial response to a 10,000 person petition, showing how petitions do actually work. More about petitions here.

In fall of 1927, Jay Near, the editor of The Saturday Press newspaper, published a series of articles attacking Minneapolis City Officials for "dereliction of duty." Floyd B. Olson, county attorney at the time, used a public nuisance law that could shut down "a malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspaper, magazine, or other periodical." In a 5-4 decision, The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not allow prior restraint of the press and that the Fourteenth Amendment gave the states protections under the First Amendment.

In 1944, O. M. Hartzel was indicted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 because he was selling literature disparaging American Allies during WW2. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court because it showed no "clear or present danger", even if his words were "vicious and unreasoning attacks."

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg made copies of a classified 7,000 page study on American Involvement in Vietnam and he gave copies to the New York Times. The Times published these documents as "The Pentagon Papers." The Nixon Administration barred the publishing after three installments were published, citing "a threat to national security" as their reasoning. The Supreme Court overturned this in a 6-3 decision,  all claiming that the executive branch could be granted no power to censor the press.

Hugo Zacchini, the Human Cannonball, sued the Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company after a reporter has filmed his entire act after he told them not to. The Ohio Supreme Court claimed that while it did violate his right to publicity, that the right of privacy had to give way to the right of the public to be informed. The Supreme Court overturned this ruling saying that the First Amendment did not immunize the press from violating publicity law and that in doing this, the company cost Zacchini economic value.

Three high school journalists sued their Missouri School District after the principal, Robert E. Reynolds, removed several articles from a pending issue of their school newspaper. The Supreme Court ruled in an 8-3 decision that this was not a violation of their rights as the school newspaper did not explicitly qualify as a "public forum" and, as Justice Byron R. White said for the majority, the rights of public school students “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.” Students are not stripped of their First Amendment rights, but they don't have the same rights as adults in public situations.