## Facts

- Members of the National States Rights Party held a public rally near a courthouse in Princess Anne, Maryland, on August 6, 1966.
- The speeches were loudly amplified and described as aggressively racist, using derogatory and threatening language directed mainly at Black people and also at Jews.
- A crowd grew to about 150 people, including Black attendees; police were present due to a tense atmosphere.
- Organizers announced a second rally for the next night, August 7, 1966.
- On August 7, local officials obtained a 10-day restraining order barring petitioners from holding rallies or meetings in the county that would “tend to disturb and endanger” county residents.
- The restraining order was issued ex parte without formal or informal notice to petitioners and without a showing that notice was impracticable; the planned August 7 rally did not occur.

## Issues

1. Whether the challenge to the 10-day restraining order was moot because the order expired before Supreme Court review.
2. Whether an ex parte restraining order prohibiting a public meeting is an unconstitutional prior restraint when issued without notice and an opportunity to be heard absent a showing that notice could not be given or should not be required.

## Decision

- The case was not moot because the state court’s approval of the 10-day order continued to affect officials’ responses to petitioners’ efforts to hold future events.
- The Supreme Court set aside the 10-day ex parte restraining order as inconsistent with First Amendment protections.
- The Court did not reach the validity of the longer injunction because the state’s highest court had already reversed it.

## Legal Principles

- Prior restraints on speech and assembly require strict procedural protections.
- When First Amendment rights are at stake, courts generally may not impose an ex parte order restraining speech without notice and an opportunity for an adversary hearing.
- An ex parte prior restraint may be permissible only upon a concrete showing that notice is impossible (e.g., the opposing party cannot be served) or that notice itself would trigger the threatened harm.
- The government bears the burden to show efforts to provide notice and specific reasons why notice and participation should not be required before a public meeting is prohibited.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a temporary order preemptively barring a public rally was an unconstitutional prior restraint because it was issued ex parte without notice or an opportunity to be heard and without a showing that exceptional circumstances justified dispensing with those procedures.


Carroll v. President & Comm’rs of Princess Anne, 393 U.S. 175 (1968)