Court Limits State Power to Punish Media : Award Against Paper That Published Name of Rape Victim Voided

The Supreme Court, in a case stemming from publication of a rape victim’s name, today limited the power of states to punish the news media for reporting truthful, lawfully obtained information.

By a 6-3 vote, the court threw out a $97,500 award against a Florida weekly newspaper won by a rape victim whose identify was included in a published report about the crime.

The justices said the award violates free press rights protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment.

A Crime in Florida

Florida law makes it a crime to “print, publish or broadcast” the names of victims of sexual offenses.

“Our holding today is limited,” Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for the court.

“We do not hold that truthful publication is automatically constitutionally protected, or that there is no zone of privacy within which the state may protect the individual from intrusion by the press,” he said.

The decision also did not preclude the possibility of a state punishing publication of a sex offense victim’s name, Marshall said.

“We hold only that where a newspaper publishes truthful information which it has lawfully obtained, punishment may lawfully be imposed, if at all, only when narrowly tailored to a state interest of the highest order.”

That interest was not present in the Florida case, Marshall said.

The Florida Star, a newspaper that primarily serves the black community in Jacksonville, could have been put out of business if forced to pay the award, its lawyers had told the justices.

The Star obtained the rape victim’s name, identified in court documents only by the initials B.J.F., from a report posted in the Sheriff’s Department press room in the fall of 1983.

Most news organizations, including the Florida Star, have policies against publication of rape victim’s names. But publication of B.J.F.’s name occurred erroneously, the newpaper’s lawyers said.

In another case today, the court gave a partial victory to the Internal Revenue Service in its legal battles with the Church of Scientology.

The justices ruled 8 to 0 that judges can privately examine communications between lawyers and clients to determine whether such information should be turned over to the government.