Times Film Corp. v. City of Chicago
1961 U.S. LEXIS 2042, 5 L. Ed. 2d 403, 365 U.S. 43 (1961)
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Rule of Law:
A municipal ordinance requiring motion pictures to be submitted for examination by city officials as a precondition to obtaining a public exhibition license is not a facially unconstitutional prior restraint under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. States and cities retain a constitutional power to establish systems of prior review for films to prevent the public exhibition of unprotected speech, such as obscenity.
Facts:
- The City of Chicago had a municipal ordinance (§ 155-4) that required a permit for the public exhibition of any motion picture.
- The ordinance stipulated that a permit would only be granted after the film was submitted to the commissioner of police for examination.
- Times Film Corp., a New York corporation, owned the exclusive right to publicly exhibit the film "Don Juan" in Chicago.
- Times Film Corp. applied for a permit to show "Don Juan" and tendered the required license fee.
- Times Film Corp. refused to submit the film "Don Juan" for examination as required by the ordinance.
- As a result of this refusal, the appropriate city official denied the permit application, and the Mayor later made this denial final.
Procedural Posture:
- Times Film Corp. sued city officials in the U.S. District Court, seeking an injunction to compel the issuance of the permit without the required film submission.
- The District Court dismissed the complaint.
- Times Film Corp., as appellant, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's dismissal.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Court of Appeals' decision.
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Issue:
Does a municipal ordinance that requires a film to be submitted for examination by city officials before a public exhibition permit can be issued constitute a facially unconstitutional prior restraint under the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Clark
No. A municipal ordinance requiring the submission of films for examination prior to their public exhibition is not, on its face, a void prior restraint under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. While the ordinance imposes a prior restraint, the liberty of speech is not absolute, and prior restraints are not universally invalid. Citing Near v. Minnesota, the Court recognizes 'exceptional cases' where prior restraints may be permissible, including the enforcement of decency standards against obscene publications. Because obscenity is not constitutionally protected speech (Roth v. United States), and because motion pictures have a unique 'capacity for evil,' a state has the power to protect its people from obscenity through a system of prior review. The petitioner's 'broadside attack,' which claims an absolute right to exhibit any film at least once regardless of content, lacks sanction in the Court's precedents.
Dissenting - Mr. Chief Justice Warren
Yes. The Chicago ordinance, which requires all films to be submitted to an administrative official for censorship prior to exhibition, is an unconstitutional prior restraint. This decision gives official license to a classic system of censorship that the First Amendment was designed to prevent, as established in cases like Near v. Minnesota. The majority endangers all forms of communication by carving out an exception for motion pictures without a valid constitutional principle. The proper remedy for unprotected speech like obscenity is subsequent criminal punishment, which includes procedural safeguards, not a system of prior administrative censorship that grants unchecked power to an official and creates a chilling effect on expression.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Douglas
Yes. Censorship of movies is unconstitutional because it is a prior restraint and violative of the First Amendment. Censorship is an ancient and dangerous tool used by authoritarian regimes to suppress ideas and has no place in a free society. The 'chief purpose' of the First Amendment is to prevent such prior restraints. The censor's regime is 'deadening,' encourages conformity, and operates in secret without the procedural protections of a judicial proceeding, such as the presumption of innocence and a jury trial. The First Amendment was designed to 'unlock all ideas for argument, debate, and dissemination,' and censorship is a potent force in defeating that freedom.
Analysis:
This decision marked a significant moment in First Amendment jurisprudence by upholding a municipal film censorship board against a facial challenge. The Court departed from its strong presumption against prior restraints by creating a specific exception for motion pictures, treating them as a unique medium with a greater 'capacity for evil' than print. This ruling validated the existence of pre-screening censorship systems for films, but it left open future challenges to the specific standards used by censors and the procedural safeguards of such systems. This case set the stage for later decisions, like Freedman v. Maryland, which did not strike down such schemes but imposed strict procedural requirements on them to mitigate the dangers of censorship.
