Facts
- New York required a state license before any motion picture could be exhibited for pay, and authorized denial or revocation if a film was “obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious,” or otherwise harmful.
- Joseph Burstyn, Inc., held exclusive U.S. distribution rights to the Italian film The Miracle, shown in New York as part of Ways of Love.
- The Miracle depicted a disturbed woman who believes she is the Virgin Mary, is impregnated by a man she imagines to be St. Joseph, and believes her child is Christ.
- The State initially licensed the film, and it played in New York City for about eight weeks.
- After receiving substantial public complaints and defenses, the New York Board of Regents determined the film was “sacrilegious” and rescinded the license, barring further exhibition.
- Burstyn challenged the “sacrilegious” licensing standard as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Issues
- Whether motion pictures are expression protected by the First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether a film-licensing scheme that permits banning a film as “sacrilegious” imposes an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech and press.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed the New York Court of Appeals.
- The Court held that motion pictures are a protected medium of expression under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The Court held that New York’s “sacrilegious” licensing provision was unconstitutional because it authorized a prior restraint on expression.
- To the extent Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm’n denied First Amendment protection to motion pictures, it was overruled.
- Concurrences agreed the “sacrilegious” standard could not stand, while expressing caution about the scope of the Court’s broader statements on film licensing.
Legal Principles
- Motion pictures are within the First Amendment’s protections for speech and press, even when produced and distributed for profit.
- Prior restraints through licensing schemes are especially disfavored and require narrowly limited standards.
- A censorship standard allowing suppression of films deemed “sacrilegious” is impermissibly broad and grants officials excessive discretion, enabling content-based suppression tied to religious offense.
- The State may not exclude an entire medium from constitutional protection based on claims of a heightened “capacity for evil.”
Conclusion
The Court recognized films as protected speech and invalidated New York’s authority to deny or revoke exhibition licenses on the ground that a film is “sacrilegious,” holding that this content-based, discretionary licensing standard operated as an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.