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Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan - United States Supreme Court
372 U.S. 58 (1963)

The term prior restraint refers to government efforts to suppress speech before it happens. Typical examples include injunctions and licensing schemes.

In Bantam Books Incorporated versus Sullivan, the Supreme Court considered a more informal prior restraint.

The Rhode Island legislature created a commission to encourage morality in youth. The commission's job was to educate the public about obscene or indecent publications that might tend to corrupt Rhode Island's youth, and to investigate and recommend prosecution of violations of state obscenity laws.

If a majority of its members determined that particular books were objectionable for sale, display, or distribution to youth, the commission would notify the distributors of those books. These notices were written on official commission stationery.

Typically, such a notice would solicit cooperation with the commission and remind the distributor that part of the commission's duty was to recommend prosecution of anyone distributing obscenity.

The notice also informed the distributor that the commission had circulated the list of objectionable books to the local police department.

Max Silverstein was a Rhode Island wholesale distributor for several New York publishers, including Bantam Books. Silverstein received at least thirty five notices from the commission.

Each time in response, he refused to fill pending orders for the books, retrieved all unsold copies from retailers, and returned them to the publisher.

Usually, a police officer would visit Silverstein shortly after he'd received a notice to find out what action Silverstein had taken. Silverstein cooperated with the commission to avoid prosecution.

The challenged books were never seized or banned, and no one was arrested for selling them. But the commission's actions effectively stopped their circulation in parts of the state and harmed the publisher's sales. Many of the books weren't legally obscene.

Phantom Books sued the commission's members, including Joseph Sullivan, seeking a declaration that the law creating the commission violated the first and fourteenth amendments, and an injunction against the commission's activities.

The trial court didn't declare the law unconstitutional, but issued the requested injunction.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed the injunction.

Bantam appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

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