Courts
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Sanders v. Harris (Virginia Supreme Court on libel)
Sanders, a professor at Virginia Western Community College, sued after a newspaper wrongly reported that she improperly withheld documents from her department head. Her employment contract with the university was not renewed after the article appeared, and she was unable to obtain another position with a university. The Court affirmed a circuit court’s ruling in…
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House v. Commonwealth
The Court reversed and dismissed an indictment for a gentleman who sold the “girlie” magazines KNIGHT and RAW. They were not proved beyond a reasonable doubt to be obscene and beyond the area of constitutionally protected expressions, the Court ruled. Determination of whether a particular work of expression is obscene is not merely a factual…
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Bigelow v. Commonwealth
Bigelow was tried, convicted, and fined for publishing an advertisement in the Virginia Weekly, a Charlottesville newspaper, that advertised abortion services in New York. The Court ruled that the statute, which forbid “encouraging or prompting” abortions in any way, was constitutional. The ruling distinguished the lawful regulation of advertisements from the unlawful abridgement of free…