Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson

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Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued April 24, 1952
Decided May 26, 1952


Full case name:	Joseph Burstyn, Incorporated v. Wilson, Commissioner of Education of New York, et al.

Citations:	343 U.S. 495; 72 S. Ct. 777; 96 L. Ed. 1098; 1952 U.S. LEXIS 2796; 1 Media L. Rep. 1357

Prior history:	Appeal from the Court of Appeals of New York

Holding

The Court determined that certain provisions of the New York Education Law allowing a censor to forbid the commercial showing of any non-licensed motion picture film, or revoke or deny the license of a film deemed to be "sacrilegious," was a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Fred M. Vinson
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Hitz Burton, Tom C. Clark, Sherman Minton

Case opinions

Majority by: Clark
Joined by: Vinson, Black, Douglas, Burton, Minton
Concurrence by: Reed
Concurrence by: Frankfurter
Joined by: Jackson, Burton

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. I
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952)^[1], was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court which largely marked the decline of motion picture censorship in the United States.^[1] It determined that certain provisions of the New York Education Law allowing a censor to forbid the commercial showing of any non-licensed motion picture film, or revoke or deny the license of a film deemed to be "sacrilegious," was a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the First Amendment. By way of this, the decision defined film as an artistic medium protected by the Constitution's guarantee of free speech. In so doing, the Court overturned its previous decision in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915), which found that movies were not an art form worthy of First Amendment protection, but merely a business.

1 Background
2 Relevant statute provisions
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Background

The case was invoked to the Supreme Court by Joseph Burstyn following the rescindment of the license allowing the exhibition of the short film The Miracle. Burstyn was the (subtitled) English version's distributor, and the movie was the work of Italian neorealist film director Roberto Rossellini. The film's plot centered around a man, "Saint Joseph", who villainously impregnates "Nanni", a disturbed peasant who believes herself to be the Virgin Mary.

The Miracle was first shown in New York in November 1950 with two other films, all presented as a trilogy entitled Ways of Love, using English subtitles. In December, Ways of Love was voted the best foreign-language film of 1950.

The Miracle sparked widespread moral outrage, and was criticized as "vile, harmful and blasphemous."^[2] Protesters in Paris picketed the film with vitriolic signs carrying messages like "This Picture Is an Insult to Every Decent Woman and Her Mother," "Don't Be a Communist," and "Don't Enter the Cesspool." ^[3]

After its American release, The New York State Board of Regents reportedly received "hundreds of letters, telegrams, post cards, affidavits and other communications" contrastingly protesting and defending the exhibition of the film. Three members of the Board were subsequently ordered to examine it; they concluded that The Miracle was "sacrilegious" and directed the appellants to show otherwise at a hearing. The hearing determined that it was indeed sacrilegious and the Commissioner of Education was ordered to rescind the picture's license.

The Appellant brought this decision to the New York courts for review, on the grounds that the statute "violates the Fourteenth Amendment as a prior restraint upon freedom of speech and of the press," "that it is invalid under the same Amendment as a violation of the guaranty of separate church and state and as a prohibition of the free exercise of religion," and "that the term 'sacrilegious' is so vague and indefinite as to offend due process."

[edit] Relevant statute provisions

The part of the statute (N. Y. Education Law, §122) in question that forbade the exhibition of unlicensed films read:

"[It is unlawful] to exhibit, or to sell, lease or lend for exhibition at any place of amusement for pay or in connection with any business in the state of New York, any motion picture film or reel [with specified exceptions not relevant here], unless there is at the time in full force and effect a valid license or permit therefor of the education department . . ."

The paragraph allowing the repeal of "sacrilegious" films' license read:

"The director of the [motion picture] division [of the education department] or, when authorized by the regents, the officers of a local office or bureau shall cause to be promptly examined every motion picture film submitted to them as herein required, and unless such film or a part thereof is obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or is of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime, shall issue a license therefor. If such director or, when so authorized, such officer shall not license any film submitted, he shall furnish to the applicant therefor a written report of the reasons for his refusal and a description of each rejected part of a film not rejected in toto."

[edit] Notes

^ Jowett, G. (1996). "A significant medium for the communication of ideas": The Miracle decision and the decline of motion picture censorship, 1952-1968. Movie censorship and American culture, 258-276. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
^ Kozlovic, Anton Karl (2003). Religious Film Fears 1: Satanic Infusion, Graven Images and Iconographic Perversion, 5 (2-3).
^ Black, G. D. (1998). The Catholic crusade against the movies, 1940-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.