First Amendment Library

Bigelow v. Virginia (docket #: 73-1309) (1975) [Findlaw]
Secondary Link	Bigelow v. Virginia [Legal Information Institute]
Argument Date	12/18/1974
Decided	06/16/1975
Supreme Court Vote	7-2
Supreme Court Ruling	First Amendment claim sustained.

Issue	An advertisement carried in appellant’s newspaper led to his conviction for a violation of a Virginia statute that made it a misdemeanor, by the sale or circulation of any publication, to encourage or prompt the procuring of an abortion. The issue is whether the editor-appellant's First Amendment rights were unconstitutionally abridged by the statute.

Case Summary & Additional Resources

Majority Opinion

Blackmun, J.

Dissenting Opinion

Rehnquist, J.

Lower Court

Virginia Supreme Court

Lower Court Ruling

First Amendment claim denied

Oral Arguments

Oral Arguments [Oyez]

Lawyers

For Petitioner

Melvin L. Wulf & John C. Lowe

For Respondent

D. Patrick Lacy, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Virginia

For Amicus

Michael M. Kearney, brief for Virginia Right to Life, Inc

Raymond T. Bonner & Alan B. Morrison filed a brief for Public Citizen

News Stories & Commentary

Tony Mauro, "Justice Blackmun's legacy lives on in church-state, commercial-speech decisions"

Other

Baker, C. Edwin, "Commercial Speech," 62 Iowa Law Review 1 (1976)

Baker, C. Edwin, "HUMAN LIBERTY AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH (1989) 194-224

Brody, Steven G. & Johnson, Bruce E.H., ADVERTISING AND COMMERCIAL SPEECH: A FIRST AMENDMENT GUIDE (2nd ed., 2006) §3:4

Bruce Johnson, Overview, "Advertising & the First Amendment"

Chemerinsky, Erwin, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: PRINCIPLES & POLICIES (2nd ed., 2002), sect. 11.3.7.1

Coase, R. H., "Advertising and Free Speech," 6 Journal of Legal Studies 1 (1977)

Collins, Ronald & Skover, David, THE DEATH OF DISCOURSE (1996) 67-135, 229-241

Greenhouse, Linda, BECOMING JUSTICE BLACKMUN: HARRY BLACKMUN'S SUPREME COURT JOURNEY (2005), pp. 116-121

Jackson & Jefferies, "Commercial Speech: Economic Due Process & the First Amendment," 65 Virginia Law Review 1 (1979)

Kozinski, Alex & Banner, Stuart, "Who's Afraid of Commercial Speech?," 76 Virginia law Review 627 (1990)

Redish, Martin, "The First Amendment in the Marketplace:Commercial Speech and the Values of Free Expression," 39 George Washington Law Review 429 (1971)

Shiffrin, Steven, "The First Amendment and Economic Regulation: Away from a Genral Theory of the First Amendment," 78 Northwestern University Law Review 1213 (1983)

Sunstein, Cass, DEMOCRACY AND THE PROBLEM OF FREE SPEECH 130-144 (1993)

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