New York Times Co. v. United States (Pentagon Papers)

New York Times Co. v. United States (Pentagon Papers), 403 U.S. 713 (1971), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court.

The New York Times and Washington Post obtained and published excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, a classified Department of Defense study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam. The Nixon administration sought a prior restraint (injunction) to stop publication, arguing that it would harm national security. The newspapers argued that the First Amendment barred prior restraint.

Significance

In a 6-3 per curiam decision, the Court rejected the government’s request for an injunction. Each justice wrote separately. The controlling principle was that the government bears a ‘heavy burden’ of justification for any prior restraint, and the government had not met that burden. While the concurring opinions varied in reasoning, the decision strongly reaffirmed the Near v. Minnesota principle that prior restraints are presumptively unconstitutional. The Pentagon Papers case is a landmark in press freedom.

Category

US Federal Case Law