NYT CO. V.
SULLIVAN
Chloe Cameron 1st
Facts of the case
The case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan began as a
lawsuit against the newspaper for errors about how many
times Rev Dr. Martin Luther King had been arrested in AL
in a full-page civil rights fundraising editorial
advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices" published
in 1960.
The advertisement, which protested Alabama law
enforcement's treatment of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,
featured the names of prominent civil rights activists,
including actors, writers, ministers, and other prominent
Americans. L. B. Sullivan, an elected city commissioner in
Montgomery, Alabama, who was in charge of the local
police, filed the lawsuit. Sullivan only needed to prove that
there were mistakes and that they likely harmed his
reputation under Alabama law. A jury awarded him
$500,000 in damages, which was a large sum at the time.
RULING / LEGAL
PRINCIPLE
Court ruling
Legal principle
Reversal
1st amendment
The damage award was
unanimously reversed and
dismissed by the Supreme Court.
Justice William J. Brennan Jr.,
writing for the majority, stated that
"debate on public issues should be
uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,"
and that fervent criticism and even
mistakes were part of the price a
democratic society must pay for
freedom.
The Court established the "de
novo" review principle for free
speech issues in New York Times
Co. v. Sullivan. This means that the
Supreme Court itself decides how
the principles of law apply to the
issue. Sullivan, defamation and
defamation were governed solely
by state law, with various
restrictions on when people could
seek compensation for damage to
their reputation.
MEDIA
The ruling gave more power to the
media as the court essentially held
that First Amendment freedom of
speech protections limit the ability of
public officials to sue for defamation
by forcing them to prove it was done
with actual malice.