Near v. Minnesota
Type
Case
Week
Week 4
Course
LA 50: Constitutional Law
Definition
A landmark decision of the US Supreme Court under which prior restraint on publication was found to violate freedom of the press as protected under the First Amendment. This principle was applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence. The Court ruled that a Minnesota law that targeted publishers of "malicious" or "scandalous" newspapers violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment). Called Near the Court's "first great press case". It was later a key precedent in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)