Planning Legal Research

Planning Legal Research

Introduction

The case selected for this assignment hold high significance in the history of law, mainly because of the fact that it was based on one of the most famous and essential changes in the history of American constitution: the First Amendment. The details as well as essential clauses, combined with the evaluation of the New York Times v/s United States case are described in the following paragraphs:

Discussion

Citation and description of the case (138)

New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) has been selected for this assignment. The case was filled in 1971, when President Richard Nixon made claim for executive authority over the Times in order to ensure suspension of the publication of classified information that was present in its possession (New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971). The filing of this case raised a basic as well as essential question: whether the freedom of speech, allowed by the First Amendment, is in accordance with the demand made by the government or the demand can be declined? In addition, the court has to decide if the First Amendment allowed the newspaper to print freely or is it obliged to comply surrender to the demand of the executive branch of the government that was demanding the maintenance of secrecy of information. The decision made by the court proved to be a benchmark for the future media cases and is regarded as a major event in the history of media cases and law suits.

Evaluation of the opinions issued by the Attorney General and personal opinion in that regard

The Attorney General for the case, John N. Mitchell quoted section 793 for defending the case, which stated that no individual or organization is allowed to use information regarding the defense of the state. The same clause also stated that if any person succeeds in getting hold of any such document, he is obliged to return that to the right person: any of the government official who are entitled to receive it. The clause thus implies that the newspaper should not print any such document, that deals with state defense and if any such document is found by any person or organization, it should be safely returned.

In my opinion, the opinion presented by the Attorney General should not be accepted as the clause mainly deals with the matters of importance that deal with national security. It should be noted that all the documents that are somehow linked to the state are not actually involved in the matters of national security. In this case, the material published in the newspaper was not specifically linked to the matter of national; security and thus there was no harm in publishing that. In addition, the term used in the clause quoted above are not particularly defined and contain a variety of meanings, and thus cannot be sued to provide judgment for any particular case of publishing of material. As the clause has not exactly defined the meaning of national ...