Source: https://casetext.com/case/simon-schuster-v-crime-victims-bd
Timestamp: 2020-08-13 08:13:45
Document Index: 498817644

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 1983', '§ 632', '§ 632', '§ 632', '§ 632', '§ 631', '§ 1310', '§ 60', '§ 6201', '§ 632', '§ 632', '§ 1983', '§ 3681', '§ 6201', '§ 60', '§ 1310', 'art, 427']

Simon Schuster v. Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 | Casetext Search + Citator
Simon Schuster v. Crime Victims Bd.
(See Stats. 2000, ch. 261, § 3.) In 1991, the United States Supreme Court held that a somewhat similar New…
Seres v. Lerner
We affirm. 502 U.S. 105…
Full title:SIMON SCHUSTER, INC., PETITIONER v . MEMBERS OF NEW YORK STATE CRIME…
Date published: Dec 10, 1991
holding statute "not narrowly tailored to advance [the government’s] objective" and so "inconsistent with the First Amendment"
Summary of this case from Ne. Pa. Freethought Soc'y v. Cnty. of Lackawanna Transit Sys.
Argued October 15, 1991 Decided December 10, 1991
Among other things, New York's "Son of Sam" law provides that an "entity" contracting with a person "accused or convicted of a crime" for the production of a book or other work describing the crime must pay to respondent Crime Victims Board any moneys owed to that person under the contract; requires the Board to deposit such funds in an escrow account for payment to any victim who, within five years, obtains a civil judgment against the accused or convicted person and to the criminal's other creditors; and defines "person convicted of a crime" to include "any person who has voluntarily and intelligently admitted the commission of a crime for which such person is not prosecuted." After it discovered that petitioner publisher had signed an agreement with an author who had contracted with admitted organized crime figure Henry Hill for the production of a book about Hill's life, the Board, inter alia, determined that petitioner had violated the Son of Sam law and ordered it to turn over all money payable to Hill. Petitioner then brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking a declaration that the law violates the First Amendment, and an injunction barring the law's enforcement. The District Court found the law to be consistent with the Amendment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
(a) Whether the First Amendment "speaker" is considered to be Hill, whose income the New York law places in escrow because of the story he has told, or petitioner, which can publish books about crime with the assistance of only those criminals willing to forgo remuneration for at least five years, the law singles out speech on a particular subject for a financial burden that it places on no other speech and no other income and, thus, is presumptively inconsistent with the Amendment. Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 447; Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 230. The fact that the law escrows speech-derived income, rather than taxing a percentage of it outright as did the law invalidated in Arkansas Writers' Project, cannot serve as the basis for disparate treatment under the Amendment, since both forms of financial burden operate as disincentives to speak. Moreover, the Board's assertion that discriminatory financial treatment is suspect only when the legislature intends to suppress certain ideas is incorrect, since this Court has long recognized that even regulations aimed at proper governmental concerns can restrict unduly the exercise of rights under the Amendment. Furthermore, the Board's claim that the law is permissible under the Amendment because it focuses generally on an "entity," rather than specifically on the media, falters, first, on semantic grounds, since any entity that enters into a contract with a convicted person to transmit that person's speech becomes, by definition, a medium of communication, and, second, on constitutional grounds, since the governmental power to impose content-based financial disincentives on speech does not vary with the identity of the speaker. Accordingly, in order to justify the differential treatment imposed by the law, the State must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest, and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Id., at 231. Pp. 115-118.
(b) The State has a compelling interest in compensating victims from the fruits of crime. Cf. Caplin Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 629. However, contrary to the Board's assertion, the State has little if any interest in limiting such compensation to the proceeds of the wrongdoer's speech about the crime. The Board cannot explain why the State should have any greater interest in compensating victims from the proceeds of criminals' "storytelling" than from any of their other assets, nor offer any justification for a distinction between this expressive activity and any other activity in connection with its interest in transferring the fruits of crime from criminals to their victims. Cf., e.g., Arkansas Writers' Project, supra, at 231. Like the governmental entities in the latter and similar cases, the Board has taken the effect of the statute and posited that effect as the State's interest. Pp. 118-121.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Leon Friedman, Steven R. Shapiro, John A. Powell, and Arthur N. Eisenberg; for the Association of American Publishers, Inc., by R. Bruce Rich; and for the Motion Picture Association of Merica, Inc., by Richard M. Cooper, David E. Kendall, and Walter J. Josiah, Jr.
In the summer of 1977, New York was terrorized by a serial killer popularly known as the Son of Sam. The hunt for the Son of Sam received considerable publicity, and by the time David Berkowitz was identified as the killer and apprehended, the rights to his story were worth a substantial amount. Berkowitz's chance to profit from his notoriety while his victims and their families remained uncompensated did not escape the notice of New York's Legislature. The State quickly enacted the statute at issue, N.Y.Exec. Law § 632-a (McKinney 1982 and Supp. 1991).
The statute was intended to "ensure that monies received by the criminal under such circumstances shall first be made available to recompense the "victims of that crime for their loss and suffering." Assembly Bill Memorandum Re: A 9019, July 22, 1977, reprinted in Legislative Bill Jacket, 1977 N.Y. Laws, ch. 823. As the author of the statute explained, "[i]t is abhorrent to one's sense of justice and decency that an individual . . . can expect to receive large sums of money for his story once he is captured — while five people are dead, [and] other people were injured as a result of his conduct." Memorandum of Senator Emanuel R. Gold, reprinted in New York State Legislative Annual, 1977, p. 267.
"Every person, firm, corporation, partnership, association or other legal entity contracting with any person or the representative or assignee of any person, accused or convicted of a crime in this state, with respect to the reenactment of such crime, by way of a movie, book, magazine article, tape recording, phonograph record, radio or television presentation, live entertainment of any kind, or from the expression of such accused or convicted person's thoughts, feelings, opinions or emotions regarding such crime, shall submit a copy of such contract to the board and pay over to the board any moneys which would otherwise, by terms of such contract, be owing to the person so accused or convicted or his representatives." N.Y.Exec. Law § 632-a(1) (McKinney 1982).
Claims against the account are given the following priorities: (a) payments ordered by the Board under subsection (8); (b) subrogation claims of the State for payments made to victims of the crime; (c) civil judgments obtained by victims of the crime; and (d) claims of other creditors of the accused or convicted person, including state and local tax authorities. § 632-a(11) (McKinney Supp. 1991).
Subsection (10) broadly defines "person convicted of a crime" to include "any person convicted of a crime in this state either by entry of a plea of guilty or by conviction after trial and any person who has voluntarily and intelligently admitted the commission of a crime for which such person is not prosecuted." § 632-a(10)(b) (emphasis added). Thus, a person who has never been accused or convicted of a crime in the ordinary sense, but who admits in a book or other work to having committed a crime, is within the statute's coverage.
The Son of Sam law supplements preexisting statutory schemes authorizing the Board to compensate crime victims for their losses, see N.Y.Exec. Law § 631 (McKinney 1982 and Supp. 1991), permitting courts to order the proceeds of crime forfeited to the State, see N.Y.Civ.Prac. Law §§ 1310- 1352 (McKinney Supp. 1991), providing for orders of restitution at sentencing, N.Y. Penal Law § 60.27 (McKinney 1987); and affording prejudgment attachment procedures to ensure that wrongdoers do not dissipate their assets, N.Y.Civ.Prac. Law §§ 6201- 6226 (McKinney 1980 and Supp. 1991). The escrow arrangement established by the Son of Sam law enhances these provisions only insofar as the accused or convicted person earns income within the scope of § 632-a(1).
This case began in 1986, when the Board first became aware of the contract between petitioner Simon Schuster and admitted organized crime figure Henry Hill.
In August, 1981, Hill entered into a contract with author Nicholas Pileggi for the production of a book about Hill's life. The following month, Hill and Pileggi signed a publishing agreement with Simon Schuster. Under the agreement, Simon Schuster agreed to make payments to both Hill and Pileggi. Over the next few years, according to Pileggi, he and Hill "talked at length virtually every single day, with not more than an occasional Sunday or holiday skipped. We spent more than three hundred hours together; my notes of conversations with Henry occupy more than six linear file feet." App. 27. Because producing the book required such a substantial investment of time and effort, Hill sought compensation. Ibid.
The result of Hill and Pileggi's collaboration was Wiseguy, which was published in January, 1986. The book depicts, in colorful detail, the day-to-day existence of organized crime, primarily in Hill's first-person narrative. Throughout Wiseguy, Hill frankly admits to having participated in an astonishing variety of crimes. He discusses, among other things, his conviction of extortion and the prison sentence he served. In one portion of the book, Hill recounts how members of the Mafia received preferential treatment in prison:
"The dorm was a separate three-story building outside the wall, which looked more like a Holiday Inn than a prison. There were four guys to a room, and we had comfortable beds and private baths. There were two dozen rooms on each floor, and each of them had mob guys living in them. It was like a wiseguy convention — the whole Gotti crew, Jimmy Doyle and his guys, "Ernie Boy" Abbamonte and "Joe Crow" Delvecchio, Vinnie Aloi, Frank Cotroni.
"We had the best food smuggled into our dorm from the kitchen. Steaks, veal cutlets, shrimp, red snapper. Whatever the hacks could buy, we ate. It cost me two, three hundred a week. Guys like Paulie spent five hundred to a thousand bucks a week. Scotch cost thirty dollars a pint. The hacks used to bring it inside the walls in their lunch pails. We never ran out of booze, because we had six hacks bringing it in six days a week. Depending on what you wanted and how much you were willing to spend, life could be almost bearable. Wiseguy 150-151.
On January 31, the Board notified Simon Schuster: "It has come to our attention that you may have contracted with a person accused or convicted of a crime for the payment of monies to such person." App. 86. The Board ordered Simon Schuster to furnish copies of any contracts it had entered into with Hill, to provide the dollar amounts and dates of all payments it had made to Hill, and to suspend all payments to Hill in the future. Simon Schuster complied with this order. By that time, Simon Schuster had paid Hill's literary agent $96,250 in advances and royalties on Hill's behalf, and was holding $27,958 for eventual payment to Hill.
The Board reviewed the book and the contract, and on May 21, 1987, issued a Proposed Determination and Order. The Board determined that Wiseguy was covered by § 632-a of the Executive Law, that Simon Schuster had violated the law by failing to turn over its contract with Hill to the Board and by making payments to Hill, and that all money owed to Hill under the contract had to be turned over to the Board to be held in escrow for the victims of Hill's crimes. The Board ordered Hill to turn over the payments he had already received, and ordered Simon Schuster to turn over all money payable to Hill at the time or in the future.
Simon Schuster brought suit in August, 1987, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking a declaration that the Son of Sam law violates the First Amendment and an injunction barring the statute's enforcement. After the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court found the statute consistent with the First Amendment. 724 F. Supp. 170 (SDNY 1989). A divided Court of Appeals affirmed; Simon Schuster, Inc. v. Fischetti, 916 F.2d 777 (CA2 1990).
Because the Federal Government and most of the States have enacted statutes with similar objectives, see 18 U.S.C. § 3681; Note, Simon Schuster, Inc. v. Fischetti: Can New York's Son of Sam Law Survive First Amendment Challenge?, 66 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1075, 1075, n. 6 (1991) (listing state statutes), the issue is significant and likely to recur. We accordingly granted certiorari, 498 U.S. 1081 (1991), and we now reverse.
A statute is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech. Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 447 (1991). As we emphasized in invalidating a content-based magazine tax, "official scrutiny of the content of publications as the basis for imposing a tax is entirely incompatible with the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press." Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 230 (1987).
This is a notion so engrained in our First Amendment jurisprudence that last Term we found it so "obvious" as to not require explanation. Leathers, supra, at 447. It is but one manifestation of a far broader principle: "Regulations which permit the Government to discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment." Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 648-649 (1984). See also Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972). In the context of financial regulation, it bears repeating, as we did in Leathers, that the Government's ability to impose content-based burdens on speech raises the specter that the Government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace. 499 U.S., at 448-449. The First Amendment presumptively places this sort of discrimination beyond the power of the Government. As we reiterated in Leathers, "The constitutional right of free expression is . . . intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us . . . in the belief that no other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests." Id., at 448-449 (quoting Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971)).
The Son of Sam law is such a content-based statute. It singles out income derived from expressive activity for a burden the State places on no other income, and it is directed only at works with a specified content. Whether the First Amendment "speaker" is considered to be Henry Hill, whose income the statute places in escrow because of the story he has told, or Simon Schuster, which can publish books about crime with the assistance of only those criminals willing to forgo remuneration for at least five years, the statute plainly imposes a financial disincentive only on speech of a particular content.
The Board tries unsuccessfully to distinguish the Son of Sam law from the discriminatory tax at issue in Arkansas Writers' Project. While the Son of Sam law escrows all of the speaker's speech-derived income for at least five years, rather than taxing a percentage of it outright, this difference can hardly serve as the basis for disparate treatment under the First Amendment. Both forms of financial burden operate as disincentives to speak; indeed, in many cases, it will be impossible to discern in advance which type of regulation will be more costly to the speaker.
The Board next argues that discriminatory financial treatment is suspect under the First Amendment only when the legislature intends to suppress certain ideas. This assertion is incorrect; our cases have consistently held that "[i]llicit legislative intent is not the sine qua non of a violation of the First Amendment." Minneapolis Star Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575, 592 (1983). Simon Schuster need adduce "no evidence of an improper censorial motive." Arkansas Writers' Project, supra, at 228. As we concluded in Minneapolis Star, "[w]e have long recognized that even regulation aimed at proper governmental concerns can restrict unduly the exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment. 460 U.S., at 592.
Finally, the Board claims that, even if the First Amendment prohibits content-based financial regulation specifically of the media, the Son of Sam law is different, because it imposes a general burden on any "entity" contracting with a convicted person to transmit that person's speech. Cf. Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 670 (1991) ("[E]nforcement of . . . general laws against the press is not subject to stricter scrutiny than would be applied to enforcement against other persons or organizations"). This argument falters on both semantic and constitutional grounds. Any "entity" that enters into such a contract becomes by definition a medium of communication, if it was not one already. In any event, the characterization of an entity as a member of the "media" is irrelevant for these purposes. The Government's power to impose content-based financial disincentives on speech surely does not vary with the identity of the speaker.
The Son of Sam law establishes a financial disincentive to create or publish works with a particular content. In order to justify such differential treatment, "the State must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest, and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end. Arkansas Writers' Project, 481 U.S., at 231.
The Board disclaims, as it must, any state interest in suppressing descriptions of crime out of solicitude for the sensibilities of readers. See Brief for Respondents 38, n. 38. As we have often had occasion to repeat, "[T]he fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker's opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection." Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 55 (1988) (quoting FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 745 (1978)). "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310, 319 (1990) (quoting Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989)). The Board thus does not assert any interest in limiting whatever anguish Henry Hill's victims may suffer from reliving their victimization.
There can be little doubt, on the other hand, that the State has a compelling interest in ensuring that victims of crime are compensated by those who harm them. Every State has a body of tort law serving exactly this interest. The State's interest in preventing wrongdoers from dissipating their assets before victims can recover explains the existence of the State's statutory provisions for prejudgment remedies and orders of restitution. See N.Y.Civ.Prac. Law §§ 6201- 6226 (McKinney 1980 and Supp. 1991); N.Y. Penal Law § 60.27 (McKinney 1987). We have recognized the importance of this interest before, in the Sixth Amendment context. See Caplin Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 629 (1989).
The State likewise has an undisputed compelling interest in ensuring that criminals do not profit from their crimes. Like most if not all States, New York has long recognized the "fundamental equitable principle," Children of Bedford v. Petromelis, 77 N.Y.2d, at 727, 573 N.E.2d, at 548, that "[n]o one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime." Riggs v. Palmer, 115 N.Y. 506, 511-512, 22 N.E. 188, 190 (1889). The force of this interest is evidenced by the State's statutory provisions for the forfeiture of the proceeds and instrumentalities of crime. See N.Y.Civ.Prac. Law §§ 1310- 1352 (McKinney Supp. 1991).
The Board attempts to define the State's interest more narrowly, as ensuring that criminals do not profit from story telling about their crimes before their victims have a meaningful opportunity to be compensated for their injuries. Brief for Respondents 46. Here the Board is on far shakier ground. The Board cannot explain why the State should have any greater interest in compensating victims from the proceeds of such "storytelling" than from any of the criminal's other assets. Nor can the Board offer any justification for a distinction between this expressive activity and any other activity in connection with its interest in transferring the fruits of crime from criminals to their victims. Thus, even if the State can be said to have an interest in classifying a criminal's assets in this manner, that interest is hardly compelling.
We have rejected similar assertions of a compelling interest in the past. In Arkansas Writers' Project and Minneapolis Star, we observed that, while the State certainly has an important interest in raising revenue through taxation, that interest hardly justified selective taxation of the press, as it was completely unrelated to a press/non-press distinction. Arkansas Writers' Project, supra, at 231; Minneapolis Star, 460 U.S., at 586. Likewise, in Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 467-469 (1980), we recognized the State's interest in preserving privacy by prohibiting residential picketing, but refused to permit the State to ban only nonlabor picketing. This was because "nothing in the content-based labor-nonlabor distinction has any bearing whatsoever on privacy." Id., at 465. Much the same is true here. The distinction drawn by the Son of Sam law has nothing to do with the State's interest in transferring the proceeds of crime from criminals to their victims.
These two provisions combine to encompass a potentially very large number of works. Had the Son of Sam law been in effect at the time and place of publication, it would have escrowed payment for such works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which describes crimes committed by the civil rights leader before he became a public figure; Civil Disobedience, in which Thoreau acknowledges his refusal to pay taxes and recalls his experience in jail; and even the Confessions of Saint Augustine, in which the author laments "my past foulness and the carnal corruptions of my soul," one instance of which involved the theft of pears from a neighboring vineyard. See A. Haley Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X 108-12 (1964); H. Thoreau, Civil Disobedience 18-22 (1849, reprinted 1969); The Confessions of Saint Augustine 31, 36-37 (Franklin Library ed. 1980). Amicus Association of American Publishers, Inc., has submitted a sobering bibliography listing hundreds of works by American prisoners and ex-prisoners, many of which contain descriptions of the crimes for which the authors were incarcerated, including works by such authors as Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King, Jr. A list of prominent figures whose autobiographies would be subject to the statute if written is not difficult to construct: the list could include Sir Walter Raleigh, who was convicted of treason after a dubiously conducted 1603 trial; Jesse Jackson, who was arrested in 1963 for trespass and resisting arrest after attempting to be served at a lunch counter in North Carolina; and Bertrand Russell, who was jailed for seven days at the age of 89 for participating in a sit-down protest against nuclear weapons. The argument that a statute like the Son of Sam law would prevent publication of all of these works is hyperbole — some would have been written without compensation — but the Son of Sam law clearly reaches a wide range of literature that does not enable a criminal to profit from his crime while a victim remains uncompensated.
Because the Son of Sam law is so overinclusive, we need not address the Board's contention that the statute is content-neutral under our decisions in Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989), and Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41 (1986). In these cases, we determined that statutes were content-neutral where they were intended to serve purposes unrelated to the content of the regulated speech, despite their incidental effects on some speakers but not others. Even under Ward and Renton, however, regulations must be "narrowly tailored" to advance the interest asserted by the State. Ward, supra, at 798; Renton, supra, at 52. A regulation is not "narrowly tailored" — even under the more lenient tailoring standards applied in Ward and Renton — where, as here, "a substantial portion of the burden on speech does not serve to advance [the State's content-neutral] goals." Ward, supra, at 799. Thus, whether the Son of Sam is analyzed as content-neutral under Ward or content-based under Leathers, it is too overinclusive to satisfy the requirements of the First Amendment. And, in light of our conclusion in this case, we need not decide whether, as JUSTICE BLACKMUN suggests, the Son of Sam law is under-inclusive s well as over-inclusive. Nor does this case present a need to address JUSTICE KENNEDY's discussion of what is a longstanding debate, see G. Gunther, Constitutional Law 1069-1070 (12th ed. 1991), on an issue which the parties before us have neither briefed nor argued.
I am in general agreement with what the Court says in its opinion. I think, however, that the New York statute is under-inclusive well as overinclusive, and that we should say so. Most other States have similar legislation, and deserve from this Court all the guidance it can render in this very sensitive area.
The New York statute we now consider imposes severe restrictions on authors and publishers, using as its sole criterion the content of what is written. The regulated content has the full protection of the First Amendment, and this, I submit, is itself a full and sufficient reason for holding the statute unconstitutional. In my view, it is both unnecessary and incorrect to ask whether the State can show that the statute "`is necessary to serve a compelling state interest, and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.'" Ante, at 118 (quoting Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 231 (1987)). That test or formulation derives from our equal protection jurisprudence, see, e.g., Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U.S. 267, 273-274 (1986) (opinion of POWELL, J.); Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 100 (1943), and has no real or legitimate place when the Court considers the straightforward question whether the State may enact a burdensome restriction of speech based on content only, apart from any considerations of time, place, and manner or the use of public forums.
This said, it must be acknowledged that the compelling interest inquiry has found its way into our First Amendment jurisprudence of late, even where the sole question is, or ought to be, whether the restriction is in fact content-based. Although the notion that protected speech may be restricted on the basis of content if the restriction survives what has sometimes been termed "`the most exacting scrutiny,'" Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 412 (1989), may seem familiar, the Court appears to have adopted this formulation in First Amendment cases by accident, rather than as the result of a considered judgment. In Johnson, for example, we cited Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 320 (1988), as support for the approach. Boos v. Barry, in turn, cited Perry Education Assn v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983), for the proposition that, to justify a content-based restriction on political speech in a public forum, the State must show that "the `regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.'" Boos v. Barry, supra, at 321. Turning to the appropriate page in Perry, we discover that the statement was supported with a citation of Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 461 (1980). Looking at last to Carey, it turns out the Court was making a statement about equal protection: "When government regulation discriminates among speech-related activities in a public forum, the Equal Protection Clause mandates that the legislation be finely tailored to serve substantial state interests, and the justifications offered for any distinctions it draws must be carefully scrutinized. Id., at 461-462. Thus was a principle of equal protection transformed into one about the government's power to regulate the content of speech in a public forum, and from this to a more general First Amendment statement about the government's power to regulate the content of speech.
The employment of the compelling interest test in the present context is in no way justified by my colleagues' citation of Arkansas Writers' Project v. Ragland. Ante, at 118. True, both Ragland and the case on which it relied, Minneapolis Star Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575 (1983), recite either the compelling interest test or a close variant, see Ragland, supra, at 231; Minneapolis Star, supra, at 585, but neither is a case in which the State regulates speech for its content.
There are, of course, other cases, some even predating the slow metamorphosis of Carey v. Brown's equal protection analysis into First Amendment law, which apply the compelling interest test, but these authorities also address issues other than content censorship. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 25 (1976) (upholding content-neutral limitations on financial contributions to campaigns for federal office and striking down content-neutral limitations on financial expenditures for such campaigns); Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 489 (1975) (content-neutral restriction on freedom of association); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438 (1963) (content-neutral prohibition on solicitation by lawyers); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 488 (1960) (content-neutral statute compelling teachers in state-supported schools or colleges to disclose all organizations to which they belonged or contributed).
The inapplicability of the compelling interest test to content-based restrictions on speech is demonstrated by our repeated statement that, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972). See also Ragland, 481 U.S., at 229-230 (citing Mosley); Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 648-649 (1984) ("Regulations which permit the Government to discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment"). These general statements about the government's lack of power to engage in content-discrimination reflect a surer basis for protecting speech than does the test used by the Court today.
There are a few legal categories in which content-based regulation has permitted or at least contemplated. These include obscenity, see, e.g., Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), defamation, see, e.g., Dun Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749 (1985), incitement, see, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), or situations presenting some grave and imminent danger the government has the power to prevent, see, e.g., Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 716 (1931). These are, however, historic and traditional categories long familiar to the bar, although, with respect to the last category, it is most difficult for the government to prevail. See New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971). While it cannot be said with certainty that the foregoing types of expression are or will remain the only ones that are without First Amendment protection, as evidenced by the proscription of some visual depictions of sexual conduct by children, see New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), the use of these traditional legal categories is preferable to the sort of ad hoc balancing that the Court henceforth must perform in every case if the analysis here used becomes our standard test.
To forgo the compelling interest test in cases involving direct content-based burdens on speech would not, of course, eliminate the need for difficult judgments respecting First Amendment issues. Among the questions we cannot avoid the necessity of deciding are: whether the restricted expression falls within one of the unprotected categories discussed above, supra, at 127; whether some other constitutional right is impaired, see Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539 (1976); whether, in the case of a regulation of activity which combines expressive with nonexpressive elements, the regulation aims at the activity or the expression, compare United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), with Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S., at 406-410; whether the regulation restricts speech itself or only the time, place, or manner of speech, see Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989); and whether the regulation is, in fact, content-based or content-neutral. See Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S., at 319-321. However difficult the lines may be to draw in some cases, here the answer to each of these questions is clear.
holding that if a regulation were content-based, it would be presumptively invalid and subject to strict scrutiny
Summary of this case from 8131 Roosevelt Blvd. Corp. v. City of Philadelphia
holding that a statute is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech
holding that a statute regulating the income generated from books and other media by those accused or convicted of a crime constituted an impermissible regulation of speech
finding that a New York state law was not narrowly tailored due to its overinclusiveness
Summary of this case from Thomas v. Schroer
finding a similar regulation to be “overinclusive” when a person was neither accused nor convicted but admitted in written work to the crime
finding that laws which are "significantly overinclusive" are not narrowly tailored
finding that the popularity or offensiveness of speech does not impact its protected status
Summary of this case from Lytle v. Brewer
concluding that the disparate treatment of storytelling criminal speech was completely unrelated to the State's compelling interest in ensuring that crime victims were compensated from the fruits of the crimes committed against them and that any interest the State might have had in imposing such a content-based disincentive on speech was not compelling
rejecting argument that strict scrutiny applies “only when the legislature intends to suppress certain ideas”
Summary of this case from State v. Boehler
striking down New York law that sought to interfere with criminals' profiting from works describing their crimes
recognizing that states have an interest in preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes
requiring that “narrowly drawn” means further a “compelling state interest” by the least restrictive means
In Simon Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime VictintsBd., 502 U. S. 105 (1991), we held unconstitutional a state statute that appropriated the proceeds of criminals' biographies for payment to the victims.
In Simon Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N.Y. State Crime VictimsBd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991), we evaluated the constitutionality of New York's "Son of Sam" convicted criminal's receipt of income generated by works that described his crime.
Summary of this case from United States v. Treasury Employees
In Simon Schuster, my concurrence pointed out the seeming paradox that, notwithstanding "our repeated statement that `above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content,'" id., at 126 (quoting Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972)), we had fallen into the practice of suggesting that content-based limits on speech can be upheld if confined in a narrow way to serve a compelling state interest.
invalidating a statute where it was "directed to speech alone where the speech in question is ... not words tantamount to an act otherwise criminal"
In Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N.Y. State Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S. 105, 112 S.Ct. 501, 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991), the Supreme Court observed that "most if not all States... ha[ve] long recognized the fundamental equitable principle that ‘no one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud,’ " noting state statutes to that effect.
Summary of this case from Enron Nigeria Power Holding, Ltd. v. Fed. Republic of Nigeria
invalidating a state law requiring profits from books authored by criminals to be distributed to crime victims
Summary of this case from Kachalsky v. Cnty. of Westchester
discussing the overinclusiveness of a law preventing criminals from profiting by selling books describing their crimes
Summary of this case from Wersal v. Sexton
calling them “historic and traditional categories long familiar to the bar”
stating "broad[] principle [r]egulations which permit the Government to discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment"
listing "obscenity, defamation, incitement, or situations presenting some grave and imminent danger the government has the power to prevent"
addressing compelling interests
noting that, while challenged law at issue in that case "escrows all of the speaker's speech-derived income for at least five years, rather than taxing a percentage of it outright, this difference can hardly serve as the basis for disparate treatment under the First Amendment. Both forms of financial burden operate as disincentives to speak."