In Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 98 S.Ct. 1535, 56 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), the Supreme Court invalidated a Virginia statute which made it a crime to divulge information regarding proceedings before a state judicial review commission authorized to hear complaints of judges' alleged misconduct. The Court concluded that neither preventing injury to the reputations of judges nor maintaining the institutional integrity of the judiciary constituted sufficiently compelling state interests to justify the infringement upon First Amendment rights. 435 U.S. at 841. The Court further found that any risk posed by the disclosure of information did not constitute a clear and present danger to justify a curtailment of the First Amendment's guarantees. Id. at 845. The Supreme Court stated that "'the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished'." Id., quoting Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 263, 62 S.Ct. 190, 86 L.Ed. 192 (1941) (publication of "warnings" as to how judges should decide pending cases insufficient to justify contempt convictions) . See New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (rejecting prior restraint on publication of "Pentagon Papers").
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