Brattle Appeals Censorship Decision To Supreme Court of Massachusetts

The Brattle Theatre will again contest the constitutionality of the Massachusetts movie censorship law when it appeals its case to the State Supreme Court at 10:30 this morning.

Defeated once in the lower courts, Cyrus Harvey, Jr. '47 and Bryant Halliday '49, managers of Brattle Films Inc., will continue to protest the constitutionality of the Public Safety Commissioner's banning powers. Massachusetts law permits the Commissioner to refuse Sunday licenses to films "inconsistent with the Sabbath's due observance."

The plaintiffs claim that the law is contrary to the free speech clauses of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution and to Article 16 of the State Constitution which provides for freedom of the press. They also feel that the law does not provide the Commissioner with sufficient legal standards on which to base his decision.

Halliday indicated yesterday that the Brattle should have no trouble winning its case on constitutional grounds. The danger, he said, is that the Massachusetts courts, which try to avoid constitutional issues, might side-track the case in questions of procedure. In the lower courts, the Brattle was defeated on procedural grounds.

If the Brattle loses on the state level, Halliday plans to appeal to the Supreme Court in Washington, where he is confident of winning because of a recent court decision reversing a ban in a New York case.