Prior Restraints

The U.S. District Court in New York City ordered Gawker Media Saturday to remove excerpts of former U.S. vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book from its website pending a hearing next week regarding a lawsuit filed by the book’s publisher, HarperCollins, according to court documents.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a First Amendment battleground case testing whether a California law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors falls within the realm of unprotected speech and, if not, whether the harm California seeks to avoid is compelling enough to survive a constitutional challenge.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled last week that a court order preemptively prohibiting a private party from making purportedly defamatory comments is unconstitutional. In so ruling, however, the court declared that once a court makes a final determination that particular expression is defamatory, it may restrain future speech of the same character -- provided that the case does not involve a media defendant, a public figure or a matter of public interest.

The McDuffie (Ga.) Mirror reported that a Georgia trial judge issued an order prohibiting reporters and other attendees of a criminal court proceeding from publicly disclosing the testimony given at the hearing.

The California Court of Appeal threw out a lower court's order prohibiting the Los Angeles Times from publishing photographs of a defendant on trial for murder last week.

"[W]e conclude the superior court's order precluding publication of photographs lawfully taken unconstitutionally violates the prohibition against prior restraint of speech," wrote Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sanjay T. Kumar in an unanimous opinion.

A California state appellate court has ordered a judge to rescind her order banning a newspaper from publishing photographs taken of a murder defendant, unless she can demonstrate a compelling reason why the pictures should not be printed.

The Washington, D.C., judge who last week issued a prior restraint against The National Law Journal today withdrew that restraining order at the request of juice maker POM Wonderful, which had initially sought to keep the newspaper from publishing information obtained from a public court file that was supposed to have been sealed.

The National Law Journal has been prohibited by court order from publishing information it obtained legally.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff issued a temporary restraining order against the National Law Journal last Friday after she discovered the news organization was planning to publish a story regarding the fee dispute between District of Columbia-based law firm Hogan Lovells and one of its former clients, beverage maker POM Wonderful. POM had hired Hogan Lovells to represent the company during a regulatory investigation.