Prior restraint

The popular website Gawker partially complied with a Florida judge’s order to take down a clip of a Hulk Hogan sex tape but refused to delete the accompanying article, citing the restraint as a violation of the gossip-news outlet's First Amendment rights.

Pinellas County Circuit Judge Pamela A.M. Campbell on Wednesday ordered Gawker to take down the video, the 1,400-word accompanying article and the 466 user-submitted comments at the famous professional wrestler’s request.

A federal judge in Miami today dismissed the defamation suit against a U.S.-based Haitian journalist and retracted a previous court order prohibiting him from ever publishing anything about the Haitian prime minister and a Florida businessman.

A federal judge in Miami ordered a Haitian-American journalist to never again publish anything about the prime minister of Haiti or a Florida businessman, as part of a defamation judgment.

Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and businessman Patrice Baker sued Leo Joseph and the Haiti-Observateur, a New York City-based, bi-language Haitian newspaper managed by Joseph.

A federal judge Wednesday banned the enforcement of a century-old statute that prevents North Dakota citizens from campaigning on Election Day, calling the law “archaic” and “unconstitutional.”

OpenCourt, a Massachusetts courtroom transparency program can begin streaming video of jury trials at a local district court, a judge from the state’s highest court ruled on Tuesday.

A Massachusetts district judge ordered a blogger to remove from his website all references to a woman who faced criminal charges related to a car accident that seriously injured a pedestrian. A hearing Monday will bring into question the constitutionality of the order, which some argue violates the First Amendment.

Ordering lawyers to comply with rules of professional conduct was a less restrictive alternative to issuing a gag order during a high-profile politically charged Alabama gambling-corruption retrial, the presiding judge said in an opinion explaining the rationale for his decision yesterday.

A judicial order that a news organization redact material presented during open court is an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled today.

The state’s Supreme Judicial Court also directed its Judiciary-Media Committee to develop guidelines for the live online streaming pilot project of the National Public Radio station in Boston at the heart of the legal dispute.

A federal appeals court recently upheld the constitutionality of a controversial law that criminalizes lying about the receipt of military honors, just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a case that struck down the statute.

A Texas district judge unhappy about media coverage has loosened -- but not completely eliminated -- a court order that severely limited news gathering in a murder trial in Fort Worth after a newspaper requested her to reconsider.