SAMPLE CASE BRIEFFollow this format (except type double spaced). Your brief should be no more thantwo or three double-spaced pages.=============================================================
NEAR V. MINNESOTA, 283 U.S. 697 (1931) [complete name of case, citation, date]decision by Supreme Court of United States [name of court issuing the opinion]
FACTS: J. M. Near published the Saturday Press in Minneapolis. In a series of articles hecharged, in substance, that a Jewish gangster was in control of gambling, bootlegging andracketeering in the city, and that the city government and its law enforcement agencies andofficers were not energetically performing their duties.
A Minnesota statute (referred to as a “gag law” provided for the abatement, as a publicnuisance, of a “malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical.”
Near was cited as being in violating of this law and brought into court. An injunction wasissued by a district court that halted all activity of the Saturday Press. Near was prohibited fromever publishing the newspaper again unless he could convince the court that he could operate anewspaper free of objectionable material.
Near appealed this ruling. The Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of thelaw, holding that under its broad police power the state could regulate public nuisances, includingdefamatory and scandalous newspapers. The U. S. Supreme Court granted Near’s petition forcertiorari.
LEGAL QUESTION: Is the action by the state of Minnesota against the newspaper (aprior restraint) a violation of Near’s Fourteenth Amendment rights, which guarantees that “nostate shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law”?
DECISION: Yes. (5-4, Chief Justice Hughes wrote the majority opinion.)
COURT’S RATIONALE: The Minnesota statute is not designed to redress the wrongs ofthe individuals who have been attacked by Near. Instead, it is directed at suppression of theoffending newspaper or periodical and puts the publisher under an effective suppression. Theobject of the law is not punishment but suppression, and not only of the offending issue but of allfuture issues as well. The statute is not consistent with the conception of liberty of the press as ithas been historically conceived and guaranteed.
It is true that the principle as to immunity from previous restraint is stated too broadly; thisimmunity is not absolutely unlimited. But the limitation has been recognized only in exceptionalcases. These cases include (1) certain utterances during wartime, (2) the publication of obscenematter, (3) or material that incites acts of violence and the overthrow by force of orderlygovernment.
However, there are occasions in which limiting freedom of the press to only freedom ofprior restraint is not enough. Punishment after publication can impose a kind of prior restraintupon the individual. A citizen must have the right to criticize government — without fear ofpunishment.
DISSENTING OPINION: (written by Justice Butler, joined by Justices Van Devanter,McReynolds and Sutherland)
The dissent argued that the majority decision gave freedom of the press too broad a meaningand scope. Justice Butler argued that the Minnesota statute applied only to those engaged in thebusiness of regularly and customarily publishing “malicious, scandalous and defamatory
newspapers,” not to newspapers in general. The Minnesota statute was passed as part of thestate’s police powers, and there exists in the Minnesota a state of affairs that justifies this measurefor the preservation of peace and good order.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CASE: The case establishes the precedent that the press is tobe protected against prior restraint by the government except in exceptional situations. It was alsothe first case involving newspapers in which the Supreme Court applied the provisions of theFirst Amendment against states through the language of the Fourteenth Amendment(incorporation of free press guarantees into those liberties that states may not abridge without dueprocess of law).
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