Parties: McDonald v. Smith
Date: 1985-06-19
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Paragraph: 6 - The First Amendment guarantees "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The right to petition is cut from the same cloth as the other guarantees of that Amendment, and is an assurance of a particular freedom of expression. In
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Phrase match: particular freedom of expression. In
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Paragraph: 18 - New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-280, 84 S.Ct. 710, 725-726, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), held that a public official may recover damages for a false statement concerning his official conduct only where the statement was "made with 'actual malice'—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." This standard, explicitly directed toward protection of "freedom of speech and of the press," id., at 264, 84 S.Ct., at 717, reflects our "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,"
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Paragraph: 26 - "The right of freedom of speech is secured; the liberty of the press is expressly declared to be beyond the reach of this Government; the people may therefore publicly address their representatives, may privately advise them, or declare their sentiments by petition to the whole body; in all these ways they may communicate their will."
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Phrase match: of freedom of speech is secured
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Paragraph: 22 - N182* "Although honest utterance, even if inaccurate, may further the fruitful exercise of the right of free speech, it does not follow that the lie, knowingly and deliberately published about a public official, should enjoy a like immunity."
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Phrase match: the right of free speech, it
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Paragraph: 26 - N183* "The right of freedom of speech is secured; the liberty of the press is expressly declared to be beyond the reach of this Government; the people may therefore publicly address their representatives, may privately advise them, or declare their sentiments by petition to the whole body; in all these ways they may communicate their will."
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Phrase match: "The right of freedom of speech
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Paragraph: 6 - The First Amendment guarantees "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The right to petition is cut from the same cloth as the other guarantees of that Amendment, and is an assurance of a particular freedom of expression.
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Phrase match: The right to petition is cut
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Paragraph: 20 - As with the freedoms of speech and press, exercise of the right to petition N177* "may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials," and the occasionally N178* "erroneous statement is inevitable."
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Paragraph: 24 - Second, McDonald argues that criticism of public officials under the Petition Clause is functionally different from, and therefore entitled to greater protection than, criticism of officials falling within the protection of the First Amendment's Speech and Press Clauses. Specifically, he contends that "[u]nlike the more general freedoms of speech and press, the right to petition was understood by the Framers of the Constitution and the First Amendment to be a necessary right of a self-governing people," and that "when the citizen is not speaking to the public at large, but is directly exercising his right to petition, [he] is thus performing a self-governmental function." Brief for Petitioner 7, 30 (emphasis added). Such a distinction is untenable. The Speech and Press Clauses, every bit as much as the Petition Clause, were included in the First Amendment to ensure the growth and preservation of democratic self-governance. A citizen who criticizes a public official is shielded by the Speech and Press Clauses because "[i]t is as much his duty to criticize as it is the official's duty to administer." New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S., at 282, 84 S.Ct., at 727 (emphasis added). "[S]peech concerning public affairs is more than self-expression; it is the essence of self-government."
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Phrase match: the right to petition was understood
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Paragraph: 29 - And although we have not previously addressed the precise issue before us today, we have recurrently treated the right to petition similarly to, and frequently as overlapping with, the First Amendment's other guarantees of free expression.
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Paragraph: 26 - N78* "The right of freedom of speech is secured; the liberty of the press is expressly declared to be beyond the reach of this Government; the people may therefore publicly address their representatives, may privately advise them, or declare their sentiments by petition to the whole body; in all these ways they may communicate their will."
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Phrase match: freedom of speech is secured; the
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Paragraph: 30 - There is no persuasive reason for according greater or lesser protection to expression on matters of public importance depending on whether the expression consists of speaking to neighbors across the backyard fence, publishing an editorial in the local newspaper, or sending a letter to the President of the United States. It necessarily follows that expression falling within the scope of the Petition Clause, while fully protected by the actual-malice standard set forth in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, is not shielded by an absolute privilege.
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