## Facts

- A documentary filmmaker received permission from Massachusetts correctional officials to film at a state correctional institution for persons committed as mentally ill offenders or “defective delinquents.”
- Permission was conditioned on protecting inmates’ and patients’ rights, using only images of persons competent to sign releases, obtaining written releases, and obtaining approval from specified state officials before release.
- The filmmaker filmed extensively inside the institution, capturing inmates and patients in situations later characterized as highly personal and humiliating (including nudity, psychiatric examinations, and force-feeding).
- Written releases were obtained from only a small number of individuals, and there was serious doubt about the competence of some signers.
- The filmmaker contracted for commercial distribution and the film was publicly shown, including at festivals.
- The Commonwealth sued in equity to stop exhibition and sought surrender and destruction of prints, negatives, and sound materials.
- After a lengthy trial, the Superior Court permanently enjoined any showing to any audience and ordered delivery of materials to the Attorney General for destruction.
- The filmmaker and production company appealed; the Commonwealth cross-appealed seeking additional relief regarding profits.

## Issues

1. Whether equity could restrain exhibition of a documentary to protect the privacy and dignity of institutionalized inmates and patients depicted in intimate and identifiable circumstances.
2. Whether an injunction barring exhibition and ordering destruction of film materials constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment and state constitutional protections.
3. What scope of injunctive relief appropriately balanced privacy interests against free-expression interests.

## Decision

- The court affirmed that equitable relief could be used to protect the privacy of the inmates and patients depicted.
- The court modified the trial decree as overly broad.
- The court maintained a core prohibition against general public exhibition, particularly commercial showings, to prevent ongoing invasions of privacy.
- The court permitted limited showings for bona fide educational, professional, or governmental purposes under controlled conditions.
- The court eliminated the requirement that all film materials be surrendered for destruction.
- The court did not expand relief on the Commonwealth’s cross-appeal for profits beyond the modified injunctive remedy.

## Legal Principles

- Institutionalized persons retain strong privacy and dignitary interests against public dissemination of images depicting intimate bodily exposure, medical/psychiatric encounters, or other humiliating conditions.
- Consent in custodial mental-health or correctional settings warrants heightened scrutiny; releases may be ineffective where competence or voluntariness is in serious doubt.
- Although prior restraints are presumptively disfavored, narrowly tailored equitable relief may be permissible where exhibition functions as a continuing invasion of privacy causing specific, concrete injury, rather than as suppression of ideas or criticism of government.
- Remedies restricting expression must be limited to what is necessary to protect the threatened interests; tailored access (e.g., controlled educational or governmental screenings) may better balance privacy and free-expression concerns than an absolute ban or destruction order.

## Conclusion

The court held that the Commonwealth could obtain privacy-based injunctive relief restricting public exhibition of a documentary depicting vulnerable institutionalized individuals in intimate, identifiable circumstances, but it narrowed the injunction to allow controlled nonpublic showings for legitimate purposes and rejected destruction of the film materials.


Commonwealth v. Wiseman, 356 Mass. 251, 249 N.E.2d 610 (Mass. 1969)