Kennedy Rape Media Ban
- Description of the Art Work
- The Boca Raton tabloid published the name of Patricia Bowman shortly
after she accused William Kennedy Smith of rape in 1991.
- Description of incident
- A Florida State Appeals court ruled the tabloid could not be persecuted
for publishing the rape victim's name. The court ruled that a 1911 law
making it a crime to publish or broadcast the names of rape victims
violates the First Amendment.
The Fourth District Court of Appeals in West Palm Beach conceded that the
concerns about victims safety from retaliation and the need to encourage
the reporting of sex offenses were legitimate, but did not justify
censorship.
- Results of incident
- The ruling was based largely on a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision
involving the Florida Star, a Jacksonville newspaper that was sued for
libel after it inadvertently published a rape victim's name. The Supreme
Court threw out a $100,000 judgment against the paper, but left the rape
shield law intact.
The rape shield law was overturned
Source: Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association
Record no 43