New York Times Co. v. United States

New York Times Co. v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued June 26, 1971 Decided June 30, 1971
Full case name	New York Times Company v. United States; United States v. The Washington Post Company et al.
Citations	403 U.S. 713 (more) 91 S. Ct. 2140; 29 L. Ed. 2d 822; 1971 U.S. LEXIS 100
Case history
Prior	United States v. New York Times Co., 328 F. Supp. 324 (S.D.N.Y. 1971) United States v. New York Times Co., 444 F.2d 544 (2d Cir. 1971) United States v. Washington Post Co., 446 F.2d 1322, 1327 (D.C. Cir. 1971)
Holding
To exercise prior restraint, the Government must show sufficient evidence that the publication would have caused a "grave and irreparable" danger.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun
Case opinions
Per curiam
Concurrence	Black, joined by Douglas
Concurrence	Douglas, joined by Black
Concurrence	Brennan
Concurrence	Stewart, joined by White
Concurrence	White, joined by Stewart
Concurrence	Marshall
Dissent	Burger
Dissent	Harlan, joined by Burger, Blackmun
Dissent	Blackmun
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The ruling made it possible for The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment.^[1]

President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of The New York Times to print the materials.^[1]