Privacy v. Free Press

"I happen to like LIFE Magazine," said former Vice President Richard Nixon. "The fact that they're the most popular picture magazine in the country must prove that they're doing something right." Then, making his first appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court, Manhattan Lawyer Nixon spent the next hour politely attacking LIFE for invasion of privacy in a case that may produce one of the Supreme Court's major 1966 decisions.

In 1952 James Hill and his family were held captive for 19 hours by three escaped convicts in their suburban home near Philadelphia. In 1955 Playwright Joseph Hayes dramatized a similar ordeal of the "Hilliard" family in The Desperate Hours. When the play opened in Philadelphia, LIFE'S editors decided to photograph the cast re-enacting some of the play's scenes in the Hills's old home, which they had since left to move to Connecticut. The Hills were not consulted.

The Hills were upset by the story and charged LIFE with having "intentionally fictionalized" their experience to "serve commercial purposes." In the play, as LIFE reported, the Hilliards are mistreated. The Hills said that this was a distortion of their own experience, since they had never been mistreated. However sympathetic the LIFE story, they said, the magazine had "perpetrated a hoax on its readers."

Crucial Questions. Charging invasion of privacy, the Hills sued LIFE'S corporate parent, Time Inc., under an old, tough New York State civil rights law that requires the written consent of any living person when his name or picture is used "for the purposes of trade." Originally aimed at unscrupulous advertising, that law may conceivably conflict with freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment. As a result, New York courts have long construed the law as permitting the press truthfully to portray anyone without his consent as long as he is involved in news of public interest.

The Hills won a $30,000 judgment. By a vote of 5 to 2, New York's highest court upheld the verdict. In appealing to the Supreme Court, Time Inc. argued that the First Amendment permits the press to make honest mistakes in reporting legitimate news. The Hills answered that the mistake was so egregious as to be outside the protection of the First Amendment.

During last week's oral arguments, Lawyer Nixon readily agreed that LIFE has a reputation for checking its facts carefully. In this case, though, he charged the magazine with "reckless disregard for the plaintiff's rights" and "fictionalization for the purpose of profit." Time Inc. Lawyer Harold Medina Jr. pointed out the many similarities between the Hill incident and the Hilliard play, and argued: "This is a nondefamatory article. We said the family were heroes." Just how the court resolves this conflict between privacy and free expression may have important constitutional consequences.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.