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- The function of a legal system: To resolve disputes
- Criminal law: law of crimes against the state (public)
- Civil law: law of private rights
- Categories of law relevant to freedom of expression:
- Constitutional law: The law of the Constitution of the
United States
- Statutory law: acts of state (including federal, state and
local government law)
- Common law: the law developed from legal practice:
- what is the custom of a particular jurisdiction
- what has been decided by the courts within a particular
jurisdiction
- The law as a source of authority: Statutory law takes
precedence over common law, and constitutional law takes
precedence over both statutory and common law.
- The role of the courts:
- Can only decide cases or controversies brought to them for
adjudication.
- Can only decide cases within their jurisdiction.
- Rulings of courts subject to appeal:
- Issues of fact
- Issues of law:
- legal procedure
- substantive legal issues
- In most cases, courts can choose to hear or not to hear cases
appealed to them
- Courts issue written opinions (conclusions + justifications)
explaining their reasons for decision
- Legal systems
- State judicial systems
- The Federal judicial system
- mass communication law: law of newspapers, magazines,
television, radio, etc.
- Constitutional law of mass communication:
- The First Amendment: Part of the original Bill of Rights
ratified with the U.S. Constitution in 1791
- "Congress"
- "shall make no law"
- "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
- The Fourteenth Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States. . . .
- ratified in 1868
- Gitlow v. New York (1925): The Fourteenth Amendment
applies the First Amendment to the States (and to local
government).
- Pivotal cases in mass communication law: controversies that
establish or fundamentally alter what the law is.
- The process for resolving issues involving free expression in
pivotal cases [adapted from Douglas M. Fraleigh & Joseph S.
Tuman, Freedom of Speech in the Marketplace of Ideas (New York:
St. Martin's, 1997), pp. 16-20]:
- The communicator delivers a message
- The communicator's right to communicate is challenged
- A trial or hearing is held
- The initial ruling is appealed
- The Supreme Court (usually) hears and decides the case
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