swarb.co.uk - law index
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Media - From: 1800 To: 1849
This page lists 2 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Rex v Clement (1821) 4 B & Ald 218; (109 ER 918); (1822) 11 Price 68
1821
CEC
Abbott LCJ, Holroyd J, Baron Graham
Media
After the trial for high treason of those involved in the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, Clement, the editor of a newspaper was punished for contempt. There had been a series of trials, but the judge said they had to be treated as one set of proceedings and that he had power to prevent publication of prejudicial material until they had all finished. Held: "No person can rationally doubt that the publication which has been complained of manifestly tended to obstruct the course of public justice ... The mischievous tendency of such publications cannot, as I have already said, be doubted by any mind; the Court thought it right before the first trial was begun, to express in the strongest terms its opinion as to the impropriety of any such publication, and to admonish those who were concerned in the publication of the daily or weekly papers to abstain from such insertion ..." Holroyd J: "Now, I take it to be clear, that a Court of Record has a right to make orders for regulating their proceedings, and for the furtherance of justice in the proceedings before them, which are to continue in force during the time that such proceedings are pending." and Richards CB: "The publication was a gross and wretchedly wicked contempt and the court most properly fined him. ... [T]herefore, the publication cannot but be considered as a direct contempt, tending to obstruct and impede the due administration of justice, necessarily having the effect of prejudicing the case of the other prisoners ..."
1 Citers
Gregory v Duke Of Brunswick and Vallance [1843] EngR 859; (1843) 1 Car & K 24; (1843) 174 ER 696
21 Jun 1843
Media, Torts - Other, Litigation Practice
The public, who go to a theatre, have a right to express thelr free and unbiassed opinions of the merits of the performers who appear upon the stage, but parties have no right to go to a theatre, by a preconcerted plan to make such a noise that an actor, without any judgment being formed of his performance, should be driven from the stage, and if two persons are shewn to have laid a preconcerted plan to deprive a person who comes out as an actor of the benefits which he expected to result from his appearance on the stage, they are liable in an action for a conspiracy. In an action for a, conspiracy to hiss an actor, the defendants cannot, under the genera1 issue, give in evidence libels published by the plaintiff, with a view of shewing that the plaintiff was hissed on account of those libels, and not by reason of any conspiracy of the defendants. In an action for a conspiracy, the defendants pleaded the general issue, arid also a special plea of justification, which plea was demurred to, and held bad by the Court, who gave judgment on it for the plaintiff and the award of venire was as well to try the issue joined "as, to inquire what damages the said plaintiff hath sustained on occasion of the premises whereof the Court hath given judgment for the said plaintiff" Held, that on the trial at Nisi Prius, the defendant's counsel, in addressing the jury, had a right to refer to the allegatlons contained in the special plea, and to comment upon them.
[ Commonlii ]