Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 27 (1994)

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Cite as: 511 U. S. 661 (1994)

Scalia, J., concurring in judgment

announced in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964). See, e. g., Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485 (1984); Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767 (1986); Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U. S. 496 (1991). These cases deal with alleged governmental deprivation of the freedom of speech specifically through the judicial process, in which context procedures are necessarily central to the discussion.* Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 (1958), also involved judicial (and pre-judicial adjudicative) process, holding that a state tax deduction could not be denied for a speech-related reason (advocacy of overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State by unlawful means) by placing the burden of disproving that speech-related reason upon the taxpayer. Moreover, although the existence of a First Amendment right was central to the Court's reasoning, the decision was squarely rested on the Due Process Clause, see id., at 529, and not on the First Amendment, see id., at 517, n. 3. The last case cited by Justice O'Connor, Freedman, supra, was, as I described earlier, a prior restraint case; review and requirement of procedures were to be expected.

In today's opinion by Justice O'Connor, our previous parsimony is abandoned, in favor of a general principle that "it is important to ensure not only that the substantive First Amendment standards are sound, but also that they are applied through reliable procedures," ante, at 669. Although we are assured that "not every procedure that may safeguard protected speech is constitutionally mandated," ante, at 670, the implication of that assurance is that many are. We never are informed how to tell mandated speech-safeguarding procedures from nonmandated ones, except for the clue that "each procedure involves a different mix of administrative burden, risk of erroneous punishment of

*Moreover, the remedy in that context is self-evident: remand for re-adjudication pursuant to the proper procedures. In the present context, by contrast, the remedy is not all clear, see infra, at 693-694.

687

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