Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Near_v._Minnesota/Opinion_of_the_Court
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 15:20:59+00:00

Document:
If we cut through mere details of procedure, the operation and effect of the statute, in substance, is that public authorities may bring the owner or publisher of a newspaper or periodical before a judge upon a charge of conducting a business of publishing scandalous and defamatory matter — in particular, that the matter consists of charges against public officers of official dereliction — and, unless the owner or publisher is able and disposed to bring competent evidence to satisfy the judge that the charges are true and are published with good motives and for justifiable ends, his newspaper or periodical is suppressed and further publication is made punishable as a contempt. This is of the essence of censorship.
2 Cooley, Const.Lim., 8th ed., p. 885. But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. Id., pp. 883, 884. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions. Patterson v. Colorado, supra; Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U.S. 402, 419. In the present case, we have no occasion to inquire as to the permissible scope of subsequent punishment. For whatever wrong the appellant has committed or may commit by his publications the State appropriately affords both public and private redress by its libel laws. As has been noted, the statute in question does not deal with punishments; it provides for no punishment, except in case of contempt for violation of the court's order, but for suppression and injunction, that is, for restraint upon publication.
Schenck v. United States, supra. These limitations are not applicable here. Nor are we now concerned with questions as to the extent of authority to prevent publications in order to protect private rights according to the principles governing the exercise of the jurisdiction of courts of equity.
The fact that, for approximately one hundred and fifty years, there has been almost an entire absence of attempts to impose previous restraints upon publications relating to the malfeasance of public officers is significant of the deep-seated conviction that such restraints would violate constitutional right. Public officers, whose character and [p719] conduct remain open to debate and free discussion in the press, find their remedies for false accusations in actions under libel laws providing for redress and punishment, and not in proceedings to restrain the publication of newspapers and periodicals. The general principle that the constitutional guaranty of the liberty of the press gives immunity from previous restraints has been approved in many decisions under the provisions of state constitutions.
To prohibit the intent to excite those unfavorable sentiments against those who administer the Government is equivalent to a prohibition of the actual excitement of them, and to prohibit the actual excitement of them is equivalent to a prohibition of discussions having that tendency and effect, which, again, is equivalent to a protection of those who administer the Government, if they should at any time deserve the contempt or hatred of the people, against being exposed to it by free animadversions on their characters and conduct.
1 ^ Mason's Minnesota Statutes, 1927, 10123-1 to 10123-3.
2 ^ Mason's Minn.Stats. 10112, 10113; State v. Shipman, 83 Minn. 441, 445, 86 N.W. 431; State v. Minor, 163 Minn. 109, 110, 203 N.W. 596.
4 ^ May, Constitutional History of England, vol. 2, chap. IX, p. 4; DeLolme, Commentaries on the Constitution of England, chap. IX, pp. 318, 319.
5 ^ See Hugonson's Case, 2 Atk. 469; Respublica v. Oswald, 1 Dallas 319; Cooper v. People, 13 Colo. 337, 373, 22 Pac. 790; Nebraska v. Rosewater, 60 Nebr. 438, 83 N.W. 353; State v. Tugwell, 19 Wash. 238, 52 Pac. 1056; People v. Wilson, 64 Ill. 195; Storey v. People, 79 Ill. 45; State v. Circuit Court, 97 Wis. 1, 72 N.W.193.
6 ^ Chafee, Freedom of Speech, p. 10.
7 ^ See 29 Harvard Law Review, 640.
8 ^ See Duniway "The Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts," p. 123; Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. 2, 261.
9 ^ Journal of the Continental Congress, 1904 ed., vol. I, pp. 104, 108.
10 ^ Report on the Virginia Resolutions, Madison's Works, vol. iv, 544.
11 ^ Dailey v. Superior Court, 112 Cal. 94, 98, 44 Pac. 458; Jones, Varnum & Co. v. Townsend's Admx., 21 Fla. 431, 450; State ex rel. Liversey v. Judge, 34 La. 741, 743; Commonwealth v. Blanding, 3 Pick, 304, 313; Lindsay v. Montana Federation of Labor, 37 Mont. 264, 275, 277, 96 Pac. 127; Howell v. Bee Publishing Co., 100 Neb. 39, 42, 158 N.W. 358; New Yorker Staats-Zeitung v. Nolan, 89 N.J.Eq. 387, 105 Atl. 72; Brandreth v. Lane, 8 Paige 24; New York Juvenile Guardian Society v. Roosevelt, 7 Daly 188; Ulster Square Dealer v. Fowler, 111 N.Y.Supp. 16; Star Co. v. Brush, 170 id. 987, 172 id. 320, 172 id. 851; Dopp v. Doll, 9 Ohio Dec.Rep. 428; Respublica v. Oswald, 1 Dall. 319, 325; Respublica v. Dennie, 4 Yeates 267, 269; Ex parte Neill, 32 Tex.Cr. 275, 22 S.W. 923; Mitchell v. Grand Lodge, 56 Tex.Civ.App. 306, 309, 121 S.W. 178; Sweeney v. Baker, 13 W.Va. 158, 182; Citizens Light, Heat & Power Co. v. Montgomery Light & Water Co., 171 Fed. 553, 556; Willis v. O'Connell, 231 Fed. 1004, 1010; Dearborn Publishing Co. v. Fitzgerald, 271 Fed. 479, 485.
12 ^ Madison, op. cit. p. 549.

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