Near v. Minnesota 1931

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages35-39

Page 35

Appellant: J.M. Near

Appellee: State of Minnesota, ex rel. Floyd B. Olson, County Attorney of Hennepin County

Appellant's Claim: That a state "gag law" preventing publication of his newspaper violated the First Amendment freedom of the press.

Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Weymouth Kirkland and T.E. Latimer

Chief Lawyers for Appellee: James E. Markham and Arthur L. Markve

Justices for the Court: Louis D. Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Evans Hughes (writing for the Court), Owen Josephus Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone

Justices Dissenting: Pierce Butler, James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter

Date of Decision: June 1, 1931

Decision: The law violated the freedom of the press.

Significance: This was the first time the Supreme Court declared that "prior restraints" on publication violated the First Amendment.

Page 36

True or false?

In 1925, Minnesota passed a law called the Minnesota Gag Law. The law allowed judges to stop the publication of any newspaper that created a scandal or defamed (lied about) a person. The law was designed to fight "yellow journalism," which was a trend in the newspaper industry in the 1920s to print exaggerated or false stories.

J.M. Near published a newspaper in Minneapolis, Minnesota, called The Saturday Press. Near's prejudice against Catholics, Jews, and African Americans showed through in The Saturday Press. The newspaper, however, also printed articles about corruption in city politics, and many of them were true.

From September through November 1927, The Saturday Press published a series of articles that said Minneapolis was being controlled by a Jewish gangster. The articles accused the city mayor, county attorney, and chief of police of accepting bribes and refusing to stop the gangster. On behalf of the state of Minnesota, the county attorney sued Near and The Saturday Press. He charged them with violating the Gag Law by publishing scandalous and defamatory (untrue) material that lied about public officials.

Near tried to get the lawsuit thrown out of court. He argued that the Gag Law violated the First Amendment freedom of the press, which says "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press." Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, states also must obey the freedom of the press.

The trial judge rejected...

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