POLISCI 361 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Prior Restraint, Incorporation Of The Bill Of Rights, Reform School
22 Feb 2019
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As a court, the supreme court makes decisions within a legal framework. Congress writes new law, but the court interprets existing law. In this respect the court operates within a constraint from which legislators are free. What people really mean when they refer to courts as nonpolitical is that courts are separate from the political process and that their decisions are affected only by legal considerations. This too is impossible for courts in general and certainly for the supreme court. In a minneapolis newspaper near accused local officials of being involved with gangsters. Minnesota officials looked for a judicial order against the newspaper on the grounds that it violated the public nuisance law because it was malicious, scandalous, and defamatory. Law stated that any person that was engaged in the business of regularly publishing or circulating an "obscene, lewd, and lascivious" or a "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" newspaper or periodical was guilty of a nuisance.
