All articles tagged with #new york times v sullivan
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Alan Dershowitz’s bid to revive his defamation lawsuit against CNN over its coverage of his remarks during Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, leaving lower court rulings in place and reinforcing the New York Times v. Sullivan standard for public figures.
The Supreme Court declined to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, preserving the public-figure actual-malice standard for defamation and blocking Alan Dershowitz’s bid to overturn or narrow it in a CNN-related case tied to his impeachment remarks about Trump. Two conservative justices would have heard the case, but the majority kept the rule intact, with the 11th Circuit previously ruling for CNN and CNN arguing that Sullivan remains bedrock First Amendment law.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has called for the reconsideration of the landmark 1964 ruling, New York Times v. Sullivan, which made it more difficult for public officials to win libel suits. Thomas argues that the decision, which requires public figures to prove "actual malice" in defamation cases, allows media organizations to make false accusations against public figures with near impunity. He believes that the decision has no basis in the Constitution and is a policy-driven decision rather than constitutional law. Justice Thomas's latest opinion came in a case brought by Don Blankenship, a former coal company executive and Senate candidate, who sued news organizations for calling him a felon after being convicted of a misdemeanor.
The Supreme Court has declined to revisit the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which established a higher bar for public figures to claim libel in civil suits. The ruling requires public figures to show "actual malice" before succeeding in a libel dispute. Justice Clarence Thomas, however, expressed his desire to reconsider the Sullivan decision in an appropriate case. The case at hand involves Don Blankenship, a former coal baron who sued media outlets for erroneously reporting him as a convicted felon during his 2018 US Senate campaign. Blankenship's attorneys argued that the Sullivan decision poses a danger to democracy, while media organizations defended the standard as necessary for free debate.