Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn

In 1971 a 17-year--old Georgia high school student named Cynthia Leslie Cohn died of suffocation after being sexually assaulted by six teenaged boys in Sandy Springs. Because of the shocking nature of the crime, intense media coverage was given to the criminal proceedings. When five of the defendants went to trial in April of 1972, Atlanta television station WSB-TV assigned Thomas Wassell to cover the trial. During a court recess, Wassell approached the court clerk, asked to see the indictment against the defendants, and was handed the documents, "in open court," as Wassell noted in his testimony. "Moreover, no attempt was made by the clerk or anyone else to withhold the name and identity of the victim from me or anyone else and the said indictments apparently were available for public inspection upon request." Later that night, on the WSB evening news, Cohn's identity was made public.

In May of 1972, the deceased victim's father, Martin Cohn, brought suit against WSB and its owner, the Cox Broadcasting Corp. At the time, a Georgia law existed that made it a misdemeanor to broadcast or print the name of a rape victim. Other states, mostly in the South, also shielded victims of sexual assault through similar statutes, but most news organizations followed their own code of conduct and did not print or broadcast such information. This was in deference to the trauma the victim had already undergone--with the underlying assumption that to make the victim's identity known might further stigmatize her, and to do so in print or on television served no purpose other than sensationalism.

In his suit against Cox, Martin Cohn claimed that when WSB aired his murdered daughter's name, his family's right to privacy was violated. He requested criminal prosecution of the company on misdemeanor charges and the awarding of damages in compensation for the ensuing emotional trauma. A trial court ruled in Cohn's favor, but postponed the damages segment of the case until a jury trial at a later date. Lawyers for Cox Broadcasting appealed the decision, but the Georgia Supreme Court upheld lower court's decision. In turn, Cox Broadcasting brought legal action challenging the law. It petitioned the U. S. Supreme Court to review the legality of the Georgia statute. The case was argued before the High Court in November of 1974, and the decision was rendered on 3 March 1975.