Facts
- West Virginia criminalized newspaper publication of the name of any youth charged as a juvenile offender without written approval from juvenile court.
- After a 15-year-old student was shot and killed at school, local newspapers monitored police radio traffic and sent reporters to the scene.
- Using routine reporting methods—speaking with witnesses, police, and an assistant prosecutor—the newspapers learned the alleged juvenile assailant’s name.
- The Charleston Gazette published the juvenile’s name and photograph; radio stations also broadcast the name, and the Daily Mail later printed it.
- State officials indicted the newspapers for violating the statute.
Issues
- Whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments permit a state to criminally punish a newspaper for publishing a juvenile offender’s name when the information was truthfully and lawfully obtained.
Decision
- The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the state high court’s judgment barring prosecution.
- The Court held the state could not punish the truthful publication of an alleged juvenile delinquent’s name lawfully obtained by a newspaper.
- The Court concluded the statute was unconstitutional as applied to the newspapers’ conduct.
Legal Principles
- When a newspaper publishes truthful information it has lawfully obtained about a matter of public significance, punishment is permissible, if at all, only when narrowly tailored to a state interest of the highest order.
- The distinction between prior restraint and post-publication punishment did not control; even subsequent criminal sanctions for lawful, truthful reporting require the state to show necessity to advance the asserted interest.
- A significant interest in juvenile anonymity and rehabilitation did not justify criminal sanctions for publishing a lawfully obtained name under these facts.
- Underinclusive restrictions that single out one medium (newspapers) while leaving other outlets (such as broadcast media) free to publish undermine any claim that punishment is necessary or narrowly tailored.
Conclusion
The Court held that West Virginia could not constitutionally impose criminal penalties on newspapers for truthfully publishing a juvenile suspect’s name obtained through lawful reporting, absent a narrowly tailored law serving a state interest of the highest order.