John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General v. American Civil Liberties Union et al. (542 U.S. 656)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 29, 2004 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 542 U.S. 656 · 124 S. Ct. 2783
- Decided
- June 29, 2004
- Term
- October Term 2003
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents a challenge to a statute enacted by Congress to protect minors from exposure to sexually explicit materials on the Internet, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), 112 Stat. 2681-736, codified at 47 U.'S. C. § 231. We must decide whether the Court of Appeals was correct to affirm a ruling by the District Court that enforcement of COPA should be enjoined because the statute likely violates the First Amendment. In enacting COPA, Congress gave consideration to our earlier decisions on this subject, in particular the decision in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844 (1997). For that reason, “the Judiciary must proceed with caution and... with care before invalidating the Act.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 592 (2002) (Ashcroft I) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). The imperative of according respect to the Congress, however, does not permit us to depart from well-established First Amendment principles. Instead, we must hold the Government to its constitutional burden of proof. Content-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people. To guard against that threat the Constitution demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid, R. A. V.…
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