On this day in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of the press to satirize public figures. The 8-0 decision overturned a $200,000 judgment awarded to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority advocacy group, on the grounds that he had suffered emotional distress after being parodied in Hustler.
In 1983, the magazine ran a piece portraying Falwell’s first sexual experience as a drunken childhood encounter with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued Hustler and its publisher, Larry Flynt. A federal district court in Virginia granted Flynt’s motion for summary judgment on Falwell’s invasion of privacy claim, since Falwell was arguably a public figure. The two remaining charges were then tried before a jury. While the jury cleared Flynt of libel, it found in Falwell’s favor on the charge of Flynt’s having intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
In an opinion that reversed the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that “at the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty — and thus a good unto itself — but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.”
The high tribunal further found that, while the false statements in Hustler were in poor taste and lacked inherent value, the “breathing space” that freedom of expression requires in order to flourish must nevertheless tolerate such occasional statements in order to prevent an intolerable chilling effect on speech.
