Parties: KINGSLEY v. REGENTS OF THE UNIV. OF NEW YORK
Date: 1959-06-29
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Paragraph: 23 - It is not our province to meet these recalcitrant problems of legislative drafting. Ours is the vital but very limited task of scrutinizing the work of the draftsmen in order to determine whether they have kept within the narrow limits of the kind of censorship which even D. H. Lawrence deemed necessary. The legislation must not be so vague, the language so loose, as to leave to those who have to apply it too wide a discretion for sweeping within its condemnation what is permissible expression as well as what society may permissibly prohibit. Always remembering that the widest scope of freedom is to be given to the adventurous and imaginative exercise of the human spirit, we have struck down legislation phrased in language intrinsically vague, unless it be responsive to the common understanding of men even though not susceptible of explicit definition. The ultimate reason for invalidating such laws is that they lead to timidity and inertia and thereby discourage the boldness of expression indispensable for a progressive society.
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Paragraph: 12 - My view is that stated by Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, that prior censorship of moving pictures like prior censorship of newspapers and books violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. If despite the Constitution, however, this Nation is to embark on the dangerous road of censorship, my belief is that this Court is about the most inappropriate Supreme Board of Censors that could be found.
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Paragraph: 27 - While I join in the opinion of the Court, I adhere to the views I expressed in Superior Films Inc. v. Department of Education, 346 U.S. 587, 588—589, 74 S.Ct. 286, 98 L.Ed. 329, that censorship of movies is unconstitutional, since it is a form of 'previous restraint' that is as much at war with the First Amendment, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth, as the censorship struck down in Near v. State of Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357. If a particular movie violates a valid law, the exhibitor can be prosecuted in the usual way. I can find in the First Amendment no room for any censor whether he is scanning an editorial, reading a news broadcast, editing a novel or a play, or previewing a movie.
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Paragraph: 28 - But its N26* language, in terms that are absolute, is utterly at war with censorship. Different questions may arise as to censorship of some news when the Nation is actually at war. But any possible exceptions are extremely limited.
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Paragraph: 29 - Even in these areas, censorship of movies shown on television gives way by reason of the Federal Communications Act, 47 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. See Allen B. Dumont Laboratories v. Carroll, 3 Cir., 184 F.2d 153. And from what information is available, movie censors do not seem to be very active. Deletion of the residual part of censorship that remains would constitute the elimination of an institution that intrudes on First Amendment rights.
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Paragraph: 16 - Since the denial of a license by the Board of Regents was confirmed by the highest court of the State, I have no choice but to agree with this Court's judgment in holding that the State exceeded the bounds of free expression protected by the 'liberty' of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Paragraph: 21 - It is not surprising, therefore, that the pertinacious, eloquent and free-spirited promoters of the liberalizing legislation in Great Britain did not conceive the needs of a civilized society, in assuring the utmost freedom to those who make literature and art possible—authors, artists, publishers, producers, book sellers—easily attainable by sounding abstract and unqualified dogmas about freedom. They had a keen awareness that freedom, of expression is no more an absolute than any other freedom, an awareness that is reflected in the opinions of Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandeis, to whom we predominantly owe the present constitutional safeguards on behalf of freedom of expression. And see Near v. State of Minnesota, ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 715—716, 51 S.Ct. 625, 630 631, 75 L.Ed. 1357, for limitations on constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
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