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From: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: The press and the law (was: Re: Musing on Constitutionality)
Message-ID: <37081@ut-emx>
Date: 11 Sep 90 22:40:16 GMT
References: <11645@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Sender: news@ut-emx
Reply-To: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
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In article <11645@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) write
s:
>
>Thus, I                                                          
>asked if there is anyone with definitive knowledge of the material.
>An informed reply is yet to appear.                                  
                                  
I posted the following
Supreme Court references in a previous posting, but Spaf apparently 
missed them.

"The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals.
It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets.... The press in its
historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords
a vehicle of information and opinion."
                          --Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938)

Moreover, says the Court, freedom of the press includes "the right
of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph as much
as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest          
photocomposition methods."  --Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665,704 (1972).

In his book NIMMER ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH, law professor Melville Nimmer
also notes Tucker v. Texas, 326 U.S. 517 (1946), "in which a statute
punishing door-to-door distribution of literature was held invalid as
an abridgement of freedom of the press."



--Mike


Mike Godwin, UT Law School  |"If the doors of perception were cleansed
mnemonic@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | every thing would appear to man as it is,
(512) 346-4190              | infinite."
                            |                 --Blake