Prior Restraints

Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling received a fair trial in Houston, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Skilling v. United States.

Heavy pretrial publicity does not create a presumption of juror bias that should lead to a change in venue, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the court's main opinion, and the trial court in this case was not required to move Skilling's trial from Houston.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that prohibits the “material support” of foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting claims from humanitarian aid groups that the law violated their First Amendment rights of free speech and association.

The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a federal law that prevents journalists from reporting on evidence presented at bail hearings.

In an 8-1 decision issued on June 10, 2010, the court rejected a constitutional challenge brought by multiple media organizations, including U.S.-based The Associated Press, to a section of the Canadian Criminal Code that states a judge must order a publication ban for a bail hearing if a defendant requests it.

Three news organizations have appealed last week's order from the Pentagon that bans four journalists from covering proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, The Miami Herald reports.

Four experienced journalists have been banned from reporting on the military commission proceedings at Guantanamo Bay because they published the name of a witness that was already in the public record, ABC News reported.

A Florida federal judge has struck down the law that resulted in the arrest of an individual who published the contact information of a police officer in a website critique.

The media will not be allowed to interview a prisoner slated to be executed by firing squad in Utah, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

The Utah Department of Corrections said in a letter to the media that allowing interviews of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was sentenced to death for fatally shooting an attorney during an attempted escape from custody, would shift the focus away from the victims of his crime.

One day after the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a 1999 law banning videos depicting animal cruelty, the congressman who originally wrote the statute announced his intention to introduce animal cruelty legislation that is more narrowly tailored, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a federal law that criminalized videos showing the torture and killing of animals after deciding that it violated First Amendment free speech rights.