Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege....
Every citizen shall be at liberty to speak, write, or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege. No law shall ever be passed to curtail the liberty of speech or of the press; and in all prosecutions for libels, the truth may be given in evidence, and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and fact, under the direction of the court.
Let it at once be admitted that courts may arrogate the authority of deciding what the individual may say and may not say, what he may write and may not write, and by an injunction writ require him to adapt the expression of his sentiments to only what some judge may deem fitting and proper, and there may be readily brought about the very condition against which the constitutional guaranty was intended as a permanent protection. Liberty of speech will end where such control begins.
[A] state is entirely free to read its own State's constitution more broadly than this Court reads the Federal Constitution, or to reject the mode of analysis used by this Court in favor of a different analysis of its corresponding constitutional guarantee.
[T]he new constitution declares, not as does the old one, that ... the perpetuity of our free institutions depends upon the preservation unimpaired of the right of local self-government to all the States. The reassertion of these great principles of government, and the expulsion from our organic law of that insult to the intelligence of the people of Texas, which denies them the right of self-government, their heritage and birthright ... and declares them [mere] vassals and serfs of [the federal government], is worth a thousand fold the cost and effort expended in making the new constitution, even if no other changes had been made.
Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege; and no law shall ever be passed curtailing the liberty of speech or of the press.
The free communication of thoughts and opinion, is one of the inviolable rights of man; and every person may freely speak, write, print, and publish, on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty....
The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
The experience of the English nation and some of the American colonies under the tyranny of such systems is the reason this provision in the Bill of Rights [article I, section 8] is one common to the Constitutions of the American States, and for its incorporation, in like words, in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
a gag order in civil judicial proceedings will withstand constitutional scrutiny only where there are specific findings supported by evidence that (1) an imminent and irreparable harm to the judicial process will deprive litigants of a just resolution of their dispute, and (2) the judicial action represents the least restrictive means to prevent that harm.
Rejecting our careful and detailed analysis of the development and interpretation of article one, section eight, the concurrence advances an alternative—Texas judges should follow, but never lead, federal jurisprudence.... [T]he Texas judge should never diverge from the path taken by the federal judiciary.... [Nothing] should obscure the obligation of adherence to federal authority.
There are good reasons for the state courts to look to federal law for guidance in the first amendment area, an area in which the issues now being addressed are intricate and difficult. The state courts are wrestling with essentially the same questions as the federal courts, and all approach those issues without a clear constitutional mandate. The states would therefore be foolish to ignore the convenient resource presented by the federal experience; an argument is no less persuasive because it relies upon or quotes an argument made elsewhere. Commentators who condemn state judiciaries for referring to federal doctrine when interpreting their own charters would force an irrational chauvinism on the state courts.
“The gag order goes far beyond any of the well established principles established by this Court under article I, section 8 of the Texas Constitution, and the First Amendment, and the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court implementing it.”
“And what the First Amendment teaches us and what the Texas Constitution says even more for us is you let the speaker speak at his or her peril.”
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