State v. Guilford | Cases | Westlaw

Appeal from an order overruling a demurrer to the complaint, the question involved being certified to this court as doubtful and important.

Action to abate and enjoin a nuisance based upon Laws 1925, c. 285, which in part reads as follows: **771

The complaint specifically alleges a violation of the statute in nine issues of the paper between September 24, 1927, and November 19, *459 1927, inclusive, in which such attacks were made upon one Charles G. Davis, the mayor of Minneapolis, the chief of police of Minneapolis, the county attorney of Hennepin county, the Jewish race, and the members of the grand jury of Hennepin county. For present purposes we must consider the allegations of the complaint to be true. Defendants challenge the validity of this statute.

Under modern authorities there can be no doubt that the police power includes all regulations designed to promote public convenience, happiness, general welfare, and prosperity, an orderly state of society, the comfort of the people, and peace, and that it extends to all great public needs as well as to regulations designed to promote public health, morals, or safety. It is the prerogative of the Legislature to determine not only what the public interests require but also the measures necessary to protect such interests. It has no right arbitrarily to declare something to be a nuisance which is clearly not one. But in that regard a great deal must be left to its discretion, and if the object to be accomplished is conductive to public interests, as it is here, it may exercise a large liberty of choice in the means employed. Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 140, 14 S. Ct. 499, 38 L. Ed. 385; State ex rel. Wilcox v. Gilbert, supra. The determination of the Legislature is ordinarily final, presumptively valid; but the presumption is not conclusive. Grisim v. So. St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, supra. For our purposes it is sufficient that a state of facts could exist which would justify this legislation. Our inquiry relates to the power, not to the expediency. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 24 L. Ed. 77. Every reasonable presumption must be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute. Unless its invalidity clearly appears it must be sustained. The courts will interfere only where the regulations adopted are arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable. Home Tel., etc., v. Los Angeles, 211 U. S. 265, 29 S. Ct. 50, 53 L. Ed. 176; *461 Peole v. Weiner, 271 Ill. 74, 110 N. E. 870; L. R. A. 1916C, 775, Ann. Cas. 1917C, 1065; State v. Morse, 84 Vt. 387, 80 A. 189, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 190, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 218; State ex rel. McBride v. Superior Court, 103 Wash. 409, 174 P. 973; People ex rel. Barmore v. Robertson, 302 Ill. 422, 134 N. E. 815, 22 A. L. R. 835; Town of Kinghurst et al. v. International Lbr. Co. et al. (Minn.) 219 N. W. 172 (filed April 20, 1928). It must be remembered that the police power is a governmental right in the state which authorizes it to prohibit all things harmful to the comfort, safety, **772 and welfare of society. It is to the public what the law of necessity is to the individual. State v. Mountain Timber Co., 75 Wash. 581, 135 P. 645, L. R. A. 1917D, 10. The constituent elements of the declared nuisance are the customary and regular dissemination by means of a newspaper, which finds its way into families, reaching the young as well as the mature, of a selection of scandalous and defamatory articles treated in such a way as to excite attention and interest so as to command circulation.

In State v. Pioneer, Press Co., 100 Minn. 173, 110 N. W. 867, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 480, 117 Am. St. Rep. 684, 10 Ann. Cas. 351, a statute forbidding publication of details of execution of criminals, was sustained as a valid police measure.

In State v. Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 166 N. W. 181, L. R. A. 1918C, 304, it was held that the state may deny the right to publish and teach things injurious to society.

In the development and growth of the law and our institutions the tendency is to extend rather than to restrict the police power. State ex rel. City of Minneapolis v. St. P., M. & M. Ry. Co., 98 Minn. 380, 108 N. W. 261, 28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 298, 120 Am. St. Rep. 581, 8 Ann. Cas. 1047; C., M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. City of Minneapolis, 115 Minn. 460, 133 N. W. 169, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 236, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 1029; State ex rel. Twin City B. & I. Co. v. Houghton, 144 Minn. 1, 174 N. W. 885, 176 N. W. 159, 8 A. L. R. 585.

The business at which the statute is directed involves more than libel. Mere libel under the statute does not constitute the nuisance. The statute is not directed at threatened libel but at an existing business which, generally speaking, involves more than libel. The distribution of scandalous matter is detrimental to public morals *462 and to the general welfare. It tends to disturb the peace of the community. Being defamatory and malicious, it tends to provoke assaults and the commission of crime. It has no concern with the publication of the truth, with good motives, and for justifiable ends. There is no constitutional right to publish a fact merely because it is true. It is a matter of common knowledge that prosecutions under the criminal libel statutes do not result in efficient repression or suppression of the evils of scandal. Men who are the victims of such assaults seldom resort to the courts. This is especially true if their sins are exposed and the only question relates to whether it was done with good motive and for justifiable ends. This law is not for the protection of the person attacked nor to punish the wrongdoer. It is for the protection of the public welfare. The courts have uniformly sustained the constitutionality of statutes conferring upon courts of equity power to restrain public nuisances although the acts constitute crime and the plaintiff's property rights are not involved. Ann. 5 A. L. R. 1476, and cases cited. The inherent nature of the business bears such a relation to the social and moral welfare that we hold that the Legislature was in the legitimate exercise of the police power when it declared such business to be a public nuisance. The right to do this was forced upon the state in the exercise of its functions, or rather duty, to preserve that equilibrium of relative right which must be preserved in organized society.

The liberty of the press consists in the right to publish the truth with impunity, with good motives, and for justifiable ends; liberty to publish with complete immunity from legal censure and punishment for the publication, so long as it is not harmful in its character, when tested by such standards as the law affords. The constitutional protection meant the abolition of censorship and that governmental permission or license was not to be required; and, indeed, our Constitution, like the first amendment to the United *463 States Constitution, effectually struck down the ancient system or method of fettering the press by a licensor and gave the individual freedom to act-but to act properly or within legal rules of propriety. In fact such was the rule of common law when our Constitution was adopted. 12 C. J. 952, § 467. Our constitutional provisions intended to prevent the restraints upon publications which had been practiced by other governments. Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, 27 S. Ct. 556, 51 L. Ed. 879. In Minnesota no agency can hush the sincere and honest voice of the press, but our Constitution was never intended to protect malice, scandal, and defamation when untrue or published with bad motive or without justifiable ends. It is a shield for the honest, careful, and conscientious press. Liberty of the press does not mean that an evilminded person may publish just anything any more than the constitutional right of free assembly authorizes and legalizes unlawful assemblies and riots. There is a legal obligation on the part of all who write and publish to do so in such a manner as not to offend against public decency, public morals, and public laws. Otherwise our statute of criminal libel would not be valid. In making the publisher responsible for the abuse of the press the Legislature is authorized to make laws to bridle the appetites of those who thrive upon scandal and rejoice in its consequence.

It was never the intention of the Constitution to afford protection to a publication devoted to scandal and defamation. He who uses the press is responsible for its abuse. He may be required by legislation to have regard for the vital interests of society. Immunity **773 in the mischievous use of the press is as inconsistent with civil liberty as prohibition of its harmless use thereof. The constitutional rights of the individual are as sacred as the liberty of the press. Newspaper proprietors have no claims to indulgence. They have the same rights that the rest of the community has, and no more. It is the liberty of the press that is guaranteed-not the licentiousness. The press can be free and men can freely speak and write without indulging in malice, scandal, and defamation; and the great privilege of such liberty was never intended as a refuge for the defamer and *464 the scandalmonger. Defendants stand before us upon the record as being regularly and customarily engaged in a business of conducting a newspaper sending to the public malicious, scandalous, and defamatory printed matter. Obviously, indulgence in such publications would soon deprave the moral taste of society and render it miserable. A business that depends largely for its success upon malice, scandal, and defamation can be of no real service to society.

It is not a violation of the liberty of the press or of the freedom of speech for the Legislature to provide a remedy for their abuse. Robison v. H. & R. Employees, 35 Idaho, 418, 207 P. 132, 27 A. L. R. 642. Nor does the constitutional guaranty of the liberty of the press deprive the state of its police power to enact additional laws for the welfare of society such as hereinbefore stated. 12 C. J. 952, § 468.

The constitutional right of free speech is not violated by a law prohibiting public addresses on public grounds. Commonwealth v. Davis, 162 Mass. 510, 39 N. E. 113, 26 L. R. A. 712, 44 Am. St. Rep. 389.

A statute making a publication of a false report of the proceedings of any court a contempt does not violate such constitutional guaranty of liberty of the press. State v. Faulds, 17 Mont. 140, 42 P. 285; State ex inf. Crow v. Shepard, 177 Mo. 205, 76 S. W. 79, 99 Am. St. Rep. 624. Nor is a criminal libel statute in derogation of the freedom of the press. Morton v. State, 3 Tex. App. 510. A law making it a crime to publish an article inciting or encouraging crime is not violative of the freedom of the press. State v. Fox, 71 Wash. 185, 127 P. 1111; Id., 236 U. S. 273, 35 S. Ct. 383, 59 L. Ed. 573. The constitutional guaranty of a free press cannot be made a shield for the violation of criminal laws. Tyomies Pub. Co. v. United States (C. C. A.) 211 F. 385. The statute prohibiting the mailing of obscene matter is not in derogation of the liberty of the press. Id., Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 10 S. Ct. 299, 33 L. Ed. 637; Knowles v. United States (C. C. A.) 170 F. 409. The press cannot justify doing evil on the theory that good may result therefrom. McDougall v. Sheridan, 23 Idaho, 191, 128 P. 954. It is the use, and not the abuse, of the liberty of the press, that is *465 guarded by our fundamental law. Diener v. Star-Chronicle Pub. Co., 230 Mo. 613, 132 S. W. 1143, 33 L. R. A. (N. S.) 216. Liberty of the press and freedom of speech, under the Constitution do not mean the unrestrained privilege to write and say what one pleases at all times and under all circumstances. Warren v. United States (C. C. A.) 183 F. 718, 33 L. R. A. (N. S.) 800.

Affirmed.