New+York+Times+VS.+Sullivan

=__ Background __=
 * The Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Freedom in the South paid $4,800 to put a ten paragraph advertisement in the New York Times. It was titled "Heed Their Rising Voices".
 * It was considered a "wave of terror" by local officials against black students, who were trying to get their constitutional rights.
 * The New York Times printed an advertisement that had false statements that was related to Sullivan. He brought the suit for false accusation and the court favored him.
 * The message was to help raise money for the student movement and defend Martin Luther King Jr. in charge against perjury in the Montgomery circuit court
 * Sullivan, who supervised the police and the fire departments, sued the New York Times Company and the four civil right leaders, who also signed the advertisement. He thought the word police in the ad was a false statement against him, even though it never mentioned his name.
 * He asked the NYT to get rid of the advertisement due to the Alabama law that requires a written request for retraction before any public official can do anything about the libel lawsuit.
 * The NYT did publish a retraction for the request of Alabama governor, John Patterson.

=__Lower Court Decisions __=
 * The Alabama law said the person name must be cited in the libel case, but a public official can be liable by words that were directed at the agency that they are head of.
 * Defendant had to prove the statements were true in every respect, but they were not.
 * They had to find actual malice to get damages.
 * During the trial, six local residents testified believing the statements in the paragraphs three and six were referred to Sullivan.
 * The jury awarded Sullivan $500,000.
 * The NYT appealed the verdict and in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the case.

=__Supreme Court Decisions __= =__Reults of the Court Decisions __=
 * Determined how much power a state could have over the constitutional rights of free speech and free press in libel suits that involved public officials.
 * It rejected the Alabama Supreme Court's argument about the 14th amendment is concerned with state action rather than private action. Also that the constitutional guarantees freedom of speech and press doesn't apply when the message is part of a paid advertisement.
 * Inaccurate statements in the advertisement didn't deny the right to speech nor the press in favor of the claim in libel by public officials.
 * Criticized Alabama's civil libel law.
 * The court rejected the idea that citizens or entities that criticized public officials had to guarantee the whole truth of what they are saying.
 * Libel law that dampens the vigor and limits the public debate violates the first and fourteenth amendments.
 * Establishment of actual malice standard in determining libel in a press report.
 * Libel lawsuits of $300 million in damages that are filed against news organizations in the South.

By:Kayla Langer