Can a newspaper be held liable for the publication of a rape victim's name which it obtained from a publicly released police report?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith v. Superior Court, 67 Cal.App.4th 1072, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 597 (Cal. App. 1998):

The Florida Star v. B.J.F., supra, 491 U.S. 524, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 105 L.Ed.2d 443, held that a newspaper could not be held liable for violating a state statute prohibiting the publishing of a rape victim's name which it had obtained from a publicly released police report. The court emphasized that its holding was limited to the situation in which the newspaper published truthful information that had been lawfully obtained. (Id. at p. 541, 109 S.Ct. 2603.) The court expressly noted it was not addressing the question of whether a newspaper may ever be punished for publishing information that had been unlawfully acquired. (Id. at p. 535, fn. 8, 109 S.Ct. 2603.)

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