Editorial: First Amendment victory in Trenton – NorthJersey.com – NorthJersey.com

NorthJersey 1:56 p.m. ET March 31, 2017

Visitors walk around the Liberty Bell at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia in this file photo.(Photo: JESSICA GRIFFIN/AP)

Press freedom in this country dates back to its founding. It is one of the bedrocks of democracy, and in these days it is as critically important as it has ever been.

Thats why it was refreshing news this week when Superior Court Judge Lawrence DeBello ruled in favor of The Trentonian newspaper, and ordered that a previous censorship order against the publication be thrown out. DeBellos order is a reaffirmation for those who care about the First Amendment, and a victory for news organizations everywhere who remain committed to getting to the truth. DeBello had agreed to hear the case in January, saying he wished to weigh the propriety of the order.

We want to thank Judge DeBello for affirming and protecting important First Amendment values today, said David Bralow, an attorney for The Trentonian. From the time that the Trentonian learned of the unfortunate order, it has expended significant effort to protect its and its reporters' First Amendment rights. We are vindicated today.

The newspaper was hit with the highly unusual prior restraint order last October when, at the request of the state Attorney Generals Office, another judge, Craig Corson, issued a temporary injunction that prohibited The Trentonian from publishing articles based on a confidential child-abuse complaint obtained by one of its reporters, Isaac Avilucea.

Among other sensitive details, the document lays out how a 5-year-old boy from Trenton went to school carrying 30 packets of heroin in his lunchbox one day and crack cocaine in his school folder six weeks later. The newspaper has continued to publish stories about the case, questioning why the boy was allowed to remain with his family after the first incident was reported to authorities. The boy is now in foster care.

Some legal perspective is needed to realize how important this case was, not only for press freedom in New Jersey, but for journalists everywhere. Judicial orders imposing a prior restraint on a news organization prohibiting it from publishing information on a specific topic are extremely rare in the United States. Attorneys forTheTrentonianand one of its reporters argued in January that Corson did not take into account some oftheU.S. Supreme Court's most important rulings ontheFirstAmendment, which guaranteesthefreedom ofthepress.

One of the most famous of those cases is the landmark 1971 decision, New York Times Co. v. United States,where theU.S. Supreme Court declined a request from President Richard Nixons administration to prohibitTheNew York Times andTheWashington Post from publishing stories based onthePentagon Papers, a classified study oftheVietnam War.

Eli Segal, another attorney who argued the case for The Trentonian, argued back in January that censoring the press is more serious than a criminal penalty because it doesnt just chill speech; it freezes it altogether. Segal also citedthePentagon Papers case duringthehearing and argued thattheTrenton child-abuse case continued to be worththe publics attention. New Jersey state officials had not clearedthevery high bar required bytheU.S. Supreme Court for censorship ofthepress, he said.

Courts have allowed prior restraints on news organizations to prevent the publication of troop movements during wartime and when a magazine attempted to publish the secret to building a hydrogen bomb. Clearly, the case involving the Trentonian did not rise to that level.

Press censorship is serious business. History is littered with examples of how the censorship of the press leads, sooner or later, to the stifling of speech for all, and the limiting of basic freedoms of citizens.

We dont need to go down that road. We have come too far, and value our liberty too dearly, to start surrendering First Amendment rights now.

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