Parties: Gertz v. Robert Welch
Date: 1974-06-25
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Paragraph: 26 - Some tension necessarily exists between the need for a vigorous and uninhibited press and the legitimate interest in redressing wrongful injury. As Mr. Justice Harlan stated, 'some antithesis between freedom of speech and press and libel actions persists, for libel remains premised on the content of speech and limits the freedom of the publisher to express certain sentiments, at least without guaranteeing legal proof of their substantial accuracy.'
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Paragraph: 73 - Moreover, the argument that private persons should not be required to prove New York Times knowing-or-reckless falsity because they do not assume the risk of defamation by freely entering the public arena 'bears little relationship either to the values protected by the First Amendment or to the nature of our society.' Id., at 47, 91 S.Ct., at 1822. Social interaction exposes all of us to some degree of public view. This Court has observed that '(t)he risk of this exposure is an essential incident of life in a society which places a primary value on freedom of speech and of press.'
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Paragraph: 99 - N123* Contrary to some popular notions, freedom of the press was sharply curtailed in colonial America. Seditious libel was punished as a contempt by the colonial legislatures and as a criminal offense in the colonial courts.
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Paragraph: 103 - 'No one can doubt that, in any well-governed society, the legislature has both the right and the duty to prohibit certain forms of speech. Libelous assertions may be, and must be, forbidden and punished. So too must slander. . . . All these necessities that speech be limited are recognized and provided for under the Constitution. They were not unknown to the writers of the First Amendment. That amendment, then, we may take it for granted, does not forbid the abridging of speech. But, at the same time, it does forbid the abridging of the freedom of speech. It is to the solving of that paradox, that apparent self-contradiction, that we are summoned if, as free men, we wish to know what the right of freedom of speech is.'
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Paragraph: 60 - Unlike the right of privacy which, by the terms of the Fourth Amendment, must be accommodated with reasonable searches and seizures and warrants issued by magistrates, the rights of free speech and of a free press were protected by the Framers in verbiage whose prescription seems clear. I have stated before my view that the First Amendment would bar Congress from passing any libel law.
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Paragraph: 84 - For some 200 years—from the very founding of the Nation—the law of defamation and right of the ordinary citizen to recover for false publication injurious to his reputation have been almost exclusively the business of state courts and legislatures. Under typical state defamation law, the defamed private citizen had to prove only a false publication that would subject him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule. Given such publication, general damage to reputation was presumed, while punitive damages required proof of additional facts. The law governing the defamation of private citizens remained untouched by the First Amendment because until relatively recently, the consistent view of the Court was that libelous words constitute a class of speech wholly unprotected by the First Amendment, subject only to limited exceptions carved out since 1964.
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Paragraph: 103 - N132* 'No one can doubt that, in any well-governed society, the legislature has both the right and the duty to prohibit certain forms of speech. Libelous assertions may be, and must be, forbidden and punished. So too must slander. . . . All these necessities that speech be limited are recognized and provided for under the Constitution. They were not unknown to the writers of the First Amendment. That amendment, then, we may take it for granted, does not forbid the abridging of speech. But, at the same time, it does forbid the abridging of the freedom of speech. It is to the solving of that paradox, that apparent self-contradiction, that we are summoned if, as free men, we wish to know what the right of freedom of speech is.'
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Paragraph: 117 - The central meaning of New York Times, and for me the First Amendment as it relates to libel laws, is that seditious libel criticism of government and public officials—falls beyond the police power of the State. 376 U.S., at 273—276, 84 S.Ct., at 722 724. In a democratic society such as ours, the citizen has the privilege of criticizing his government and its officials. But neither New York Times nor its progeny suggests that the First Amendment intended in all circumstances to deprive the private citizen of his historic recourse to redress published falsehoods damaging to reputation or that, contrary to history and precedent, the Amendment should now be so interpreted. Simply put, the First Amendment did not confer a N133* 'license to defame the citizen.' W. Douglas, The Right of the People
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Paragraph: 62 - I can conceive of no privilege or immunity with a higher claim to recognition against state abridgment than the freedoms of speech and of the press.
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Paragraph: 22 - Our decisions recognize that a rule of strict liability that compels a publisher or broadcaster to guarantee the accuracy of his factual assertions may lead to intolerable self-censorship. Allowing the media to avoid liability only by proving the truth of all injurious statements does not accord adequate protection to First Amendment liberties. As the Court stated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, 376 U.S., at 279, 84 S.Ct., at 725: N72* 'Allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, does not mean that only false speech will be deterred.' The First Amendment requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.
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Paragraph: 76 - We recognized in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, 376 U.S. at 279, 84 S.Ct., at 725, that a rule requiring a critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all of his factual contentions would inevitably lead to self-censorship when publishers, fearful of being unable to prove truth or unable to bear the expense of attempting to do so, simply eschewed printing controversial articles.
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Paragraph: 60 - Unlike the right of privacy which, by the terms of the Fourth Amendment, must be accommodated with reasonable searches and seizures and warrants issued by magistrates, the rights of free speech and of a free press were protected by the Framers in verbiage whose prescription seems clear. I have stated before my view that the First Amendment would bar Congress from passing any libel law.
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Paragraph: 13 - There this Court defined a constitutional privilege intended to free criticism of public officials from the restraints imposed by the common law of defamation. The Times ran a political advertisement endorsing civil rights demonstrations by black students in Alabama and impliedly condemning the performance of local law-enforcement officials. A police commissioner established in state court that certain misstatements in the advertisement referred to him and that they constituted libel per se under Alabama law. This showing left the Times with the single defense of truth, for under Alabama law neither good faith nor reasonable care would protect the newspaper from liability. This Court concluded that a N86* 'rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions' would deter protected speech, id., at 279, 84 S.Ct., at 725, and announced the constitutional privilege designed to counter that effect
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Paragraph: 84 - The law governing the defamation of private citizens remained untouched by the First Amendment because until relatively recently, the consistent view of the Court was that libelous words constitute a class of speech wholly unprotected by the First Amendment, subject only to limited exceptions carved out since 1964.
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Paragraph: 115 - N87* 'In light of this history, it is apparent that the unconditional phrasing of the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance. This phrasing did not prevent this Court from concluding that libelous utterances are not within the area of constitutionally protected speech. Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 266, 72 S.Ct. 725, 735, 96 L.Ed. 919. At the time of the adoption of the First Amendment, obscenity law was not as fully developed as libel law, but there is sufficiently contemporaneous evidence to show that obscenity, too, was outside the protection intended for speech and press.'
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