Time out for kids
The Times appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed it. After the judge ruled the advertisement's inaccuracies were defamatory per se, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages. Sullivan sued the Times in the local county court for defamation. Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. The ad had several inaccuracies regarding facts such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating. that criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for their mistreatment of civil rights protesters. The underlying case began in 1960 when The New York Times published a full-page advertisement by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or person running for public office, not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation-publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party-they must also prove that the statement was made with " actual malice", meaning that the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false. Constitution restrict the ability of American public officials to sue for defamation. Supreme Court ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark decision of the U.S. 946 (1963).Ī newspaper cannot be held liable for making false defamatory statements about the official conduct of a public official unless the statements were made with actual malice.Ĭhief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black īrennan, joined by Warren, Clark, Harlan, Stewart, White
Time out for kids trial#
Judgment for plaintiff, Circuit Court, Montgomery County, Alabama motion for new trial denied, Circuit Court, Montgomery County affirmed, 144 So.