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Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (docket #: 73-797) (1974)  [Findlaw]

Secondary Link Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo  [Legal Information Institute]
Argument Date 04/17/1974
Decided 06/25/1974
Supreme Court Vote 9-0
Note In his 2005 memoir, Floyd Abrams, who filed an amicus brief, noted that "even though voters might have had more information as a result of the statute, the Court concluded that this was simply not an area in which a state legislature could" act.
Supreme Court Ruling First Amendment claim sustained.
 
IssueWhether a Florida statute that afforded a right to reply to personal attacks on political candidates by newspapers violated the First Amendment.
 
Case Summary & Additional Resources
Majority Opinion Burger, C.J.
Concurring Opinion Brennan, J. (joined by Rehnquist, J.), & White, J.
Lower Court Florida Supreme Court
Lower Court Ruling First Amendment claim denied.
Lawyers
For Petitioner
Daniel P. S. Paul (for Appellant)

For Respondent
Jerome A. Barron (for Appellee)

Briefs
For Amicus
Albert H. Kramer and Thomas R. Asher for the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting (supporting Appellee)

Arthur B. Hanson, W. Frank Stickle, Jr. & Ralph N. Albright, Jr., for the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. (supporting Appellant)

Don H. Reuben & Lawrence Gunnels for Chicago Tribune Co. et al. (supporting Appellant)

Donald U. Sessions pro se

Floyd Abrams, Corydon B. Dunham, and Howard Monderer for National Broadcasting Co., Inc. (supporting Appellant)

Harold B. Wahl for Florida Publishing Co. (supporting Appellant)

Harry A. Inman & D. Robert Owen for Dow Jones & Co., Inc., et al. (supporting Appellant)

J. Laurent Scharff for Radio Television News Directors Assn. (supporting Appellant)

James W. Rodgers for New York News Inc. (supporting Appellant)

John B. Summers for the National Association of Broadcasters (supporting Appellant)

Jonathan L. Alpert, Irma Robbins Feder & Richard Yale Feder for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (supporting Appellant)

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., and Richard M. Cooper for Washington Post Co. (supporting Appellant)

Lawrence E. Walsh and Guy Miller Struve for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Legal Defense & Research Fund et al. (supporting Appellant)

Leonard H. Marks for the American Society of Newspaper Editors et al. (supporting Appellant)

Robert C. Lobdell & Robert S. Warren for Times Mirror Co. (supporting Appellant)

Spessard Lindsey Holland, Jr., for Gannett Florida Corp. et al. (supporting Appellant)

William C. Ballard for Times Publishing Co. (supporting Appellant)

William G. Mullen for the National Newspaper Assn. (supporting Appellant)

Powe, Lucas, "Tornillo," 1987 Supreme Court Review 345
Opinion - Lower Court
Tornillo v. Miami Herald Publishing Co., 287 So. 2d 78 (Fla., 1978) (per curiam, 8-1)
Other
"The Supreme Court, 1973 Term," 88 Harvard Law Review 41, 179-180 (1973)
Abrams, Floyd, "In Defense of Tornillo," 86 Yale Law Journal 361 (1976)
Abrams, Floyd, SPEAKING FREELY: TRIALS OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT (2005), pp. 233, 272-273, 279
Baker, C. Edwin, "Press Rights & Government Power to Structure the Press," 34 University of Miami Law Review 819 (1980)
Barron, Jerome & Dienes, C. Thomas, FIRST AMENDMENT LAW (3rd ed., 2004), pp. 421-434
Barron, Jerome A., FREEDOM OF THE PRESS FOR WHOM? THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO THE MEDIA (1973)
Barron, Jerome A., PUBLIC RIGHTS AND THE PRIVATE PRESS (Butterworths, Toronto, 1981)
Barron, Jerome, "Access to the Press -- A New First Amendment Right," 80 Harvard Law Review 1641 (1967)
Barron, Jerome, "Creating a New First Amendment Right: Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo and the Story of Access to the Media," in Joseph Russomano, editor, DEFENDING THE FIRST: COMMENTARY ON FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES AND CASES (2005), pp. 1-22
Bollinger, Lee, "Freedom of the Press & Public Access: Toward a Theory of Partial Regulation of the Mass Media," 75 Michigan Law Review 1 (1976)
Bollinger, Lee, IMAGES OF A FREE PRESS (1991), pp. 11, 37, 53, 56, 91, 96, 109, 113, 116
Friendly, Fred, THE GOOD GUYS, THE BAD GUYS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (1975), pp. 192-198, 201
Lang, David, "The Role of the Access Doctrine in the Regulation of the Mass Media: A Critical Review & Assessment," 52 North Carolina Law Review 1 (1973)
Levi, Lili, "Challenging the Autonomous Press," 78 Cornell Law Review 665 (1993)
Lewis, Anthony, "A Preferred Position for Journalism?," 7 Hofstra Law Review 595 (1979)
Nimmer, Melville, "Is Freedomof the Press a Redundancy? What Does it Add to Freedom of Speech?," 26 Hastings Law Journal 639 (1975)
Powe, Lucas, THE FOURTH ESTATE AND THE CONSTITUTION: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN AMERICA (1991), pp. 234, 248, 249, 261, 271, 280-286
Schmidt, Beno, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VS. PUBLIC ACCESS (1976)
Smolla, Rodney, FREE SPEECH IN AN OPEN SOCIETY (1992), pp. 298-299, 366-367, 395
Smolla, Rodney, SMOLLA & NIMMER ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH (1994), sect. 13.06
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