Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
331June 3, 1946
Pennekamp v. Florida
Facts:
Petitioners, the publisher and associate editor of a newspaper, were
responsible for the publication of two editorials and a cartoon criticizing certain
actions previously taken by a Florida trial court of general jurisdiction in certain nonjury proceedings as being too favorable to criminals and gambling establishments.
Petitioners were cited for contempt, the citation charging, inter alia, that the
publications reflected upon and impugned the integrity of the court, tended to
distrust for the court, willfully withheld and suppressed the truth, and tended to
obstruct the fair and impartial administration of justice in pending cases.
Issue:
Whether the publications obstruct the fair and impartial administration of
justice.
Held:
No. The danger to fair judicial administration has not the clearness and
immediacy necessary to close door of permissible public comment. The petitioners'
right of free expression in the press should not be abridged. Since the publications
concerned the attitude of the judges toward those charged with crime, not
comments on evidence or rulings during a jury trial, their effect on juries that might
eventually try the alleged offenders is too remote to be considered a clear and
present danger to justice.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free
speech is practiced, that danger apprehended is imminent and is a serious one. The
permit to be issued is for the use of public places and not for the assembly itself.
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
444 U.S. 896(1979)
Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia
Facts:
Members of the media sought access to a courtroom during a murder trial. An
individual named Stevenson was indicted for murdering a hotel manager. Wheeler
and McCarthy, reporters for Richmond Newspapers, Inc., were in attendance during
the fourth trial. The accused moved for the trial to be closed to the public.
Issue:
Whether a criminal trial itself may be closed to the public upon the
unopposed request of a defendant, without any demonstration that closure is
required to protect the defendants superior right to fair trial, or that some other
considerations requires closure.
Held:
No. Absent an overriding interest articulated in findings, the trial of a criminal
case must be open to the public. Early history of open trials in part reflects
widespread acknowledgement, long before there were behavioural scientist, that
public trials had significant community therapeutic value. To work effectively, it is
important that societys criminal process satisfies the appearance of justice, and
that the appearance of justice can best be provided by allowing people to observe
it.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
Held:
Yes. Section 19 of said resolution has no statutory basis. The Commission was
not been granted the right to supervise and regulate the exercise by media
practitioners themselves of their right to expression during plebiscite periods.
Plebiscite issues are matters of public concern and importance. The peoples right to
be informed and to be able to freely and intelligently make a decision would be
better served by access to an unabridged discussion of the issues.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
323 U.S. 516January 8, 1945
Thomas
v. Collins
Facts:
Thomas was the president of the International Union U.A.W. and a vice
president of the C.I.O. He was arrested for not complying with Section 5 and 12 of
the statute of Texas regulating labor unions and their activities require that anyone
who wants to solicit members for memberships in specified labor unions must first
obtain an organizers card.
Issue:
Whether the Texas law requiring labor organizers to secure permission to
solicit members violated the free Speech Clause.
Held:
Yes. The law was unconstitutional as it interfered with the freedom of speech
and of assembly which possesses a sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious
intrusions. Lawful public assemblies, involving no element of grave and immediate
danger to an interest the state is entitled to protect, are not instrument of harm
which require previous identification of the speakers. A requirement that one must
register before he undertakes to make a public speech to enlist support for a lawful
movement is quite incompatible with the requirements of the First Amendment.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
Facts:
The statute of Alabama makes it unlawful for any person, without a just cause
or legal cause or excuse, to go near or loiter about any place of business for the
purpose of influencing other person not to buy, deal or be employed at such place
of business; or to picket a place of lawful business for the purpose of impending,
interfering with, or injuring such business. The petitioner was convicted of loitering
and picketing as charged in a complaint.
Issue:
Whether the statute was violative of freedom of speech and of the press.
Held:
Yes. Freedom of speech and of the press, secured by the First Amendment
against abridgement by the United States, is secured to all persons by the
Fourteenth Amendment against abridgement by the States. The existence of penal
statute which does not aim specifically at evils within the allowable area of state
control, but sweeps within its ambit other activities that constitute exercise of
freedom of speech or of the press, results in a continuous and pervasive restraint of
all freedom of discussion that might reasonably be regarded as within its purview.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila
No. The VAT is not a license tax. It is not a tax on the exercise of a privilege,
much less a constitutional right. It is imposed on the sale, barter, lease or exchange
of goods or properties or the sale or exchange of services and the lease of
properties purely for revenue purposes. To subject the press to its payment is not to
burden the exercise of its right any more that to make the press pay income tax or
subject it to general regulation is not to violate its freedom under the Constitution.
Digested by: Jocelyn T. Umila