POSC402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Warren E. Burger, Pentagon Papers, Prior Restraint
7 Oct 2018
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A nebraska state trial judge, presiding over a widely publicized murder trial, entered an order restraining members of the press from publishing or broadcasting accounts of confessions made by the accused to the police. The judge felt that this measure was necessary to guarantee a fair trial to the accused. The court agreed with the trial judge that the murder case would generate "intense and pervasive pretrial publicity. " However, the unanimous court held that the practical problems associated with implementing a prior restraint on the press in this case would not have served the accused"s rights. Chief justice burger reasoned that"a whole community cannot be restrained from discussing a subject intimately affecting life within it. " In what became known as the "pentagon papers case," the nixon administration attempted to prevent the new york times and washington post from publishing materials belonging to a classified defense department study regarding the history of.
