# Garrison v. Louisiana

> Supreme Court of the United States · November 23, 1964 · 379 U.S. 64

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422886

## Case

- **Full name:** Garrison v. Louisiana
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** November 23, 1964
- **Citations:** 379 U.S. 64; 1 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1548; 85 S. Ct. 209; 13 L. Ed. 2d 125; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 150
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Goldberg
- **Judges:** Brennan, Goldberg, Douglas, Black
- **Cited by:** 1,526 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Reported overruled on other grounds by Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967) — not on the Supreme Court's list.
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422886

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that because the New York Times test “protects the paramount public interest in a free flow of information to the people concerning public officials, their servants . . . , anything which might touch on an official’s fitness for office is relevant. Few personal attr…
- holding that reporter's negligence in failing to investigate a source's background and in writing the article could not establish actual malice
- concluding, in criminal libel context, that criminal libel prosecutions are permissible so long as the malice standard of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964) — a civil libel case — is met
- holding that otherwise unprotected speech sometimes must be insulated from liability where the target is a public official “if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need to survive”
- holding that Louisiana’s criminal libel law was not “narrowly drawn” because it did not require a finding of “clear and present danger” and was not limited “to speech calculated to cause breaches of the peace”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Goldberg,
concurring.
I agree with the Court that there is “no difficulty in bringing the appellant’s statement within the purview of criticism of the official conduct of public officials . . . .” Ante, at 76. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 297 , I expressed my conviction “that the Constitution accords citizens and press an unconditional freedom to criticize official conduct.” Id., at 305 . New York Times was a civil libel case; this is a criminal libel prosecution. In my view, “ [i] f the rule that libel on government has.no place in our Constitution is to have real meaning, then libel [criminal or civil] on the official conduct of the governors likewise can have no place in our Constitution.” Id., at 299 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422886. Public record. Not legal advice.