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456 Pa. 602

Commonwealth v. Mason

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 1, 1974

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1974-07-01

Relies on Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Commonwealth v. ARMAO

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1974-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 2013 · most notably Commonwealth v. Tilghman (1996), Quinby v. Plumsteadville Family Practice, Inc. (2006)

26 state decisions

8019741980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice Jones :

¶2I concur in that portion of the majority opinion affirming the order of the Superior Court reversing appellant’s conviction for anonymous publication. I must dissent, however, from the holding of the majority in reversing the criminal libel convictions.

¶3In Commonwealth v. Armao, 446 Pa. 325, 286 A.2d 626 (1972) (Jones, C. J. and O’Brien, J. dissenting), three of the five justices participating in the case were of the opinion that our criminal libel statute, Act of June 24, 1939, P. L. 872, §412, 18 P.S. §4412 (now repealed), was unconstitutional as violative of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I agree with the majority that our decision in Armaowas binding on the Court of Common Pleas of Mifflin County and that it was binding on the Superior Court. The decision, however, is not binding upon this Court. I did not feel in Armaothat our criminal libel statute unconstitutionally infringed upon the First Amendment; I am not persuaded to the contrary today. See, e.g., Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S. Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed. 2d 789 (1974).

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