Dan Paul | Press freedom lawyer, 85

Dan Paul, 85, a leading First Amendment and environmental lawyer who successfully argued a major press-freedom case before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Jan. 24 at his home in Miami.

The cause was Parkinson's disease, said a cousin, Barbara Hansen.

He was the chief lawyer representing the Miami Herald in 1974 when the Supreme Court ruled, 9-0, in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo. At issue was a Florida statute requiring papers to grant a "right of reply" to political candidates criticized in their pages.

The Herald said the law violated the First Amendment. The ruling, considered a landmark, declared that the government had no right to tell a newspaper what to print.

- N.Y. Times News Service