The U.S. Supreme Court case Smith, Judge, et al. v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., et al., 1978 dealt with the issue of freedom of press versus privacy rights in juvenile proceedings. The dispute arose when two West Virginia newspapers published the name of a 14-year-old boy charged with murder without obtaining court permission as required by state law at that time. The newspapers were subsequently indicted for violating this statute but challenged its constitutionality under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S Constitution which protect freedom of speech and press respectively. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Daily Mail Publishing Company stating that if a newspaper lawfully obtains truthful information about a matter of public significance then state officials may not constitutionally punish publication unless they can show that punishment is narrowly tailored to serve an overriding state interest.

In the dissenting opinion for Smith, Judge, et al. v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., Justice Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's view that prior restraint was not necessary in this case. He argued that there were compelling state interests at stake which justified a limited form of prior restraint on media outlets to prevent them from publishing certain information about juvenile offenders before they had been formally charged. These interests included protecting minors involved in criminal proceedings and maintaining the integrity of those proceedings by preventing potential prejudice against defendants due to pretrial publicity. In his view, these concerns outweighed First Amendment rights in this specific context and thus he believed it would be appropriate for states to impose some restrictions on what could be published about juveniles accused of crimes.