NEW YORK TIMES CO. V. SULLIVAN (1964) (amicus)

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan emerged during a tense chapter in American history. By 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had galvanized America into grappling with its racism, past and present. Attempting to tamp down this threat to the status quo, Southern officials and law enforcement filed perjury charges against Dr. King.

To back King, civil rights supporters purchased a full page of the New York Times’s March 29 issue. Their ad primarily solicited donations to fund King’s legal defense, but also detailed some of Southern law enforcement’s excesses, such as the penchant for using dogs, fire hoses, and tear gas on nonviolent black protesters.

L. B. Sullivan was the Montgomery safety commissioner at the time, whose duties included supervising law enforcement. Although he was not named in the ad, Sullivan claimed the ad defamed him by inaccurately reporting that he criticized the police, which in turn impugned his competence as the police’s watchdog.

After several unfortunate decisions in Alabama state courts, the Times’s appeal reached the Supreme Court. The ACLU filed a thorough amicus brief on behalf of the Times and was pleased to see Justice William Brennan protect freedom of the press against de facto censorship. At its core, Sullivan creates a two-tiered system of libel law. To prove libel, private citizens must simply show that the statements were false and damaging to their interests. Conversely, public figures must prove that the statements were false and damaging, and that the speaker knew the statements were false. This higher standard forms the bedrock of freedom of the press and government accountability.