Times-Picayune Publishing Corp. v. Schulingkamp

Background

The applicant is a Louisiana company that publishes two daily newspapers. In April 1973 a young white nursing student was raped and murdered after visiting an elderly patient in a New Orleans public housing project. Two Black suspects were arrested and early coverage focused heavily on a 17-year-old defendant, reporting his juvenile arrests, a past psychiatric diagnosis, and other details that later proved inaccurate or incomplete. After initial banner coverage in April, reporting mostly subsided until pretrial motions in January 1974. In March the defense moved for restrictions, and on June 17, 1974 the state trial judge issued an order banning publication of testimony from pretrial hearings until after jury selection and imposing content-based limits on reporting throughout the trial; the order was to remain until the trial concluded and was not modified when the cases were later severed.

Reasoning

As a Circuit Justice, Mr. Justice Powell weighed the heavy presumption against prior restraints on the press against the need to protect a defendant’s fair trial. He noted the state court’s concerns but found the restraints were both broad and of uncertain duration. He pointed out alternative means available to protect fairness, such as careful juror questioning, sequestration, contempt powers, and limits on lawyers’ extra-trial statements. On the record before him he concluded there was a substantial possibility the order conflicted with this Court’s precedents and that continuing the order would cause irreparable harm to the press. He therefore granted a temporary stay of the portions of the order that directly limited media reporting while Supreme Court review is sought.

Real world impact

The stay lets newspapers report pretrial testimony and related matters while higher-court review proceeds. It does not change the trial court’s other restrictions on lawyers or its ban on electronic equipment in court. The stay is temporary and does not decide the final question of whether the original order was constitutional.