Dissent

In this particular Supreme Court case there is no dissent to be spoken of the vote was actually a 9 to 0. Unanimously the decision was reached that “On appeal the U.S. Supreme Court reverse the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals.” (http://aclu.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=380#winorloss)

Your Own Argument

I believe that the court system really got it right in the trial Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, Commissioner of Education of New York. The Supreme Court saw to it that the most sensible decision was reach on that day. This trial was put to rest stating that the state of New York has the rights to censor and ban material they think to be of negative influence to the youth. However, the state of New York cannot simply deny an exhibition license to a motion picture under the terms that it is sacrilegious. The term sacrilegious was set forth by the court as “that no religion, as that word is understood by the ordinary, reasonable person, shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule” (http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/405160) this term I too thought was rather broad and balanced on that thin line between church and state. This is simply a term that can carry with it a heavy bias of one religion over the other. The court seeing this as the first issue addressed that the state would have to re-clarify the terms for a license. The court went on to explain how the earlier statements made that the motion picture not be protected under the amendments was ridiculous. That the first amendments specifically are for the freedom of expression and that with these changing times does now include motion pictures in with the other forms of media and expression. The judge’s final words are that“We hold only that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments a state may not ban a film on the basis of a censor's conclusion that it is 'sacrilegious.'” (http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/405160) It can be said that the judges made the right call, even if the film in question was completely in appropriate, it was not their job to decide whether or not the film should be viewed it was their job to decide if the film had had its rights revoked unjustly, which they had been.

Rule of Law

The ruling passed down by the Supreme Court in this case was that, a media such as a motion picture could not be censored under such broad terms as “sacrilegious.” The courts held that a state has the rights to censor or ban a motion picture from being sold, leased, or lent, for any purpose either for entertainment or for pay. The court also made the first amendments cover freedom of expression which does include motion pictures with the rest of the media types.

Reasoning of the court

The courts decisions regarding this case, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, Commissioner of Education of New York, ET AL appeal from the court of appeals of New York No 552, was that the motion picture which was given its license by the State to only have it later revoked after the investigation was strictly by the book. They saw that the black and white of the New York censorship standards which did in fact make this movie a questionable eligibility for the license. The Court of appeals sided in the state of New York’s favor. Taking this case, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, to the Supreme Court resulted with the court going much more in-depth into what it was that the state of New York had written as their terms to qualify for a license. The term sacrilegious which was preventing this particular motion picture from continuing its exhibition was put to the test, and deemed far too broad. They went on to say that “Under such a standard the most careful and tolerant censor would find it virtually impossible to avoid favoring one religion over another, and he would be subject to an inevitable tendency to ban the expression of unpopular sentiments sacred to a religious minority.” (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/343/495.html).

Decision of the Court

The court’s opinion was that under the first and fourteenth amendments this film had legitimate rights in and of its own. It was urged that since this is a corporation that the production for profit would make it ineligible for the protections it was asking for. The court could not see how the productions of this film company were any different from that of other media such as news papers, books, or magazines. Now with that decision clearly made they went on to state that their decisions towards this media would only be appropriate for motion pictures “Each method tends to present its own peculiar problems. But the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment's command, do not vary. Those principles, as they have frequently been enunciated by this Court, make freedom of expression the rule. There is no justification in this case for making an exception to that rule” (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/343/495.html). The State of New York being able to censor or ban the exhibition of films from their presentation was said to have gone wild with the usage of the term “sacrilegious” as it was deemed a very broad statement and completely unorthodox. The Court declared that New York could not use such unlimited constricting control over the motion pictures that they could censor, and possibly begin to favor one religion over another. The government is not the parental unit appointed to the censorship or suppression of any media’s real or imagined assaults on any particular religion. The courts final statements were that, the problem presented to them was not that if it was just or proper for any state to forbid the exhibition of a motion picture under a clearly defined term with complete reasoning. The issue the court was absolute on was that the term used in this case “sacrilegious” could not be used by any state to censor or a ban a motion picture.

Illicit Trade

Illicit trade can be argued as either positive or negative for the world globally, it can either create jobs and put food and the table, or it can promote the corruption of the highest government officials. I can understand both sides of the argument for the shutdown of the counterfeiters who may endanger people’s lives or for the production of jobs that sustain many people’s lives. The government works so hard to shut down these vendors and creators, though really some of it I believe is wasted efforts. Rather than spending 3 years searching for some Chinese citizen who makes a cheap purse in a low budget warehouse facility why not find those guys who are making the dangerous weapons or the fraudulent pharmaceutical medicines, or those running the slave trades, things that actually endanger the lives of the world’s people. Even after all the time, whether or not you consider it wasted, the person responsible for the simple fake accessory item is hardly even punished and most likely going to continue operations upon their release; that is, if they even stopped running the business while in prison. I admit though that never did I realize until today just how massive the operations of these people, small or large, are. And such it is my personal opinion that these problems should be dealt with from the largest most dangerous trades to the smaller more moral ones.

Issue of the Case

On November 30, 1950 the film “The Miracle” was issued a license by the New York Education Department and had begun exhibition to present their film. Several weeks after the opening of the film the Education Department received messages that both attacked and defended the film. As a result three agents were sent to view the movie; the report labeled the film as sacrilegious. On January 19, 1951 the Commissioner of Education, Wilson, revoked the previous license for the film held. The person holding the rights to the film, Joseph Burstyn, brought the case before the New York courts arguing that the decision was unconstitutional under the first and fourteenth amendments, and under the grounds which separate church from state. It was argued that motion pictures could not be covered under the amendments, reasons stating that “that motion pictures do not fall within the First Amendment's aegis because their production, distribution, and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit” (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/343/495.html).It was also argued that motion pictures contain harmful content, especially to the youth. A previous case that was very similar involving an Ohio statute of censorship, argued in the case Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm'n; which was resolved by the film owner’s eventual step down and refusal to continue to push the trail any further. This action resulted in the court’s decision that each state had its own rights to continue drawing up their own terms for the censorship of motion pictures. The film on trial, under the current terms, could also end with the court’s decision that the motion picture should be protected with the rights under the first and fourteenth amendments that there would still be a problem concerning that this media should be censored in an appropriate manor using more defined terms, which censorship would involve whether or not the film could be shown anywhere at any time to anyone. Which type of censor ship is appropriate by definition would be decided at that point by the individual state.