A Minnesota law that imposes prior restraints on the publication of "malicious, scandalous, and defamatory" content violates the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Decided June 1, 1931 (argued January 30, 1930). Opinion of the Court: Charles Evans Hughes → go there Dissenting: Butler. Applied: the First Amendment → go there Applied: the Fourteenth Amendment → go there Topic: Freedom of speech and of the press. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court under which prior restraint on publication was found to violate freedom of the press as protected under the First Amendment. This principle was applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence. The Court ruled that a Minnesota law that targeted publishers of "malicious" or "scandalous" newspapers violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Legal scholar and columnist Anthony Lewis called Near the Court's "first great press case". Wiki link