The Pilot had reported on October 4, 1975, that Judge H. Warrington Sharp, who sat on the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, was under an investigation by a judicial fitness panel.

All states had confidentiality requirements to avoid use of the disciplinary inquiry as retribution against a judge, but only Virginia and Hawaii provided for criminal penalties for disclosure.

The court concluded that the "requirement of confidentiality in Commission proceedings" served three purposes: Abrams wrote that his primary argument was straightforward: the newspaper published a true account and had obtained the information legally, and the alleged offense was simply reporting a complaint about how a public official performed his civic role.

Assistant Attorney General James Kulp defended the Virginia Supreme Court opinion with the above-mentioned three reasons for the statute.

Justice Byron White questioned Kulp about whether the case was really about not criticizing public officials, a constitutional right, and whether he would defend a statute calling for confidentiality for protection of the judge.

Years later, when I saw Albert Brooks play a television journalist in Broadcast News who perspired so much when on the air that his shirt looked like he had just returned from a swim, I wondered if I had presented the same appearance after my Landmark argument."

The Court did not adopt Abrams's categorical approach (all truth reporting in reference to public duties was insulated from criminal sanctions by the First Amendment).