Cite as: 512 U. S. 753 (1994)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
doing was in concert with the—I gather the pro-life position of the other, of the named Defendants." Id., at 148 (emphasis added).
These colloquies leave no doubt that the revised injunction here is tailored to restrain persons distinguished, not by proscribable conduct, but by proscribable views.2
B
I have discussed, in the prior subsection, the policy reasons for giving speech-restricting injunctions, even content-neutral ones, strict scrutiny. There are reasons of precedent as well, which are essentially ignored by the Court.
To begin with, an injunction against speech is the very prototype of the greatest threat to First Amendment values, the prior restraint. As The Chief Justice wrote for the Court last Term: "The term prior restraint is used 'to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur.' . . . [P]ermanent injunctions, i. e.,—court orders that actually forbid speech activities—are classic examples of prior restraints." Alexander v. United States, 509 U. S. 544, 550 (1993) (quoting M. Nimmer, Nimmer on Freedom of Speech § 4.03, p. 4-14 (1984) (emphasis added in Alexander)).3 See also 509 U. S., at 572 ("[T]he
2 Justice Souter seeks to contradict this, saying that "the trial judge made reasonably clear that the issue of who was acting 'in concert' with the named defendants was . . . not to be decided on the basis of protesters' viewpoints. See Tr. 40, 43, 93, 115, 119-120 (Apr. 12, 1993, Hearing)." Ante, at 776-777. The only way to respond to this scattershot assertion is to refer the reader to the cited pages, plus one more (page 116) which clarifies what might have been ambiguous on page 115. These pages are reproduced verbatim in the Appendix to this opinion. As the reader will observe, they do not remotely support Justice Souter's assertion that the injunction does not distinguish on the basis of viewpoint.
3 This statement should be compared with today's opinion, which says, ante, at 763, n. 2, that injunctions are not prior restraints (or at least not the nasty kind) if they only restrain speech in a certain area, or if the
797
Page: Index Previous 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007