# New York Times Co. v. Sullivan **376 U.S. 254 (1964) · argued January 6, 1964 · decided March 9, 1964 · 9–0 · opinion by [[William Brennan]]** The Supreme Court case that made American libel law part of the [[First Amendment]]. A public official suing over criticism of his official conduct must prove **"actual malice"**: that the statement was made "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." An honest mistake is not enough to win. The case arose because Southern officials were using state libel law to punish national press coverage of the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. Sixty years later it is the main legal barrier between powerful plaintiffs, [[Donald Trump]] first among them, and the newsrooms they sue. Two sitting justices want it overturned. > [!important] Status, October 2026 > **Sullivan is still good law.** On **June 29, 2026** the Court refused to hear *Dershowitz v. Cable News Network* (No. 25-770), the most recent direct request to overturn it. Only [[Clarence Thomas]], writing a dissent, and [[Neil Gorsuch]], joining it, voted to take the case. Granting review takes four votes, and since 2019 the challengers have never had more than these two in public. Every request to reconsider the case has been turned away, including *McKee* (2019), *Berisha* (2021), *Coral Ridge* (2022), *Blankenship* (2023), *Wynn* (2025), and *Dershowitz* (2026). ## The Case ### The advertisement On **March 29, 1960**, the [[New York Times]] ran a full-page advertisement titled **"Heed Their Rising Voices."** It was paid for (about $4,800) by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South, and it raised money for [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s legal defense and for the movement. It described a "wave of terror" against student protesters in Montgomery, Alabama. The ad contained errors. It said King had been arrested seven times (it was four), and it said police had "ringed" the Alabama State College campus (they had been deployed near it, and not in connection with the student demonstration at the state Capitol). ### The suit L. B. Sullivan, the Montgomery city commissioner who supervised the police, was **never named in the ad**. He argued that criticism of the police was criticism of him. He sued the *Times* and four Black Alabama ministers whose names appeared in the ad: Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, S. S. Seay Sr., and Joseph Lowery. Under Alabama law the defendants could escape liability only by proving every statement true in all its details. An Alabama jury awarded Sullivan **$500,000**, the full amount he asked for. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed on **August 30, 1962**. ### The strategy behind it Sullivan's suit was one of many. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, Southern officials had filed libel claims totaling about **$300 million** against news organizations covering the movement. The point was not to collect. It was to make covering the South too expensive. A national newspaper facing ruinous judgments in local courts, before local juries, could be pushed out of the region without any censorship law. This is the same mechanism the vault tracks today as [[SLAPP Lawsuits]] and [[Lawfare]]. ### The decision The Court reversed unanimously. Herbert Wechsler argued for the *Times*. Brennan wrote for six justices ([[Earl Warren]], Tom Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, [[Potter Stewart]], [[Byron White]], and himself). [[Hugo Black]] and Arthur Goldberg each wrote concurrences, both joined by [[William O. Douglas]], arguing that the First Amendment protects criticism of officials absolutely, with no actual-malice exception. The core of Brennan's opinion: - The case was decided "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." - Some false statements are inevitable in free debate, and a rule that punishes every error will lead speakers to stay silent even about things that are true. This is the [[Chilling Effect]] argument, and it is the doctrinal center of the case. - Brennan reached back to the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]] of 1798. Although the Sedition Act was never tested in the Supreme Court, "the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history." A libel judgment that punishes criticism of government officials works the same way as a sedition prosecution. - The plaintiff must prove actual malice with **"convincing clarity,"** a higher burden than in ordinary civil cases. - Appellate courts must review the evidence for themselves rather than defer to the jury, because otherwise a hostile local jury could decide the constitutional question. ## How the Rule Spread *Sullivan* covered public officials. Over the next 25 years the Court extended and qualified it: | Year | Case | What it did | |---|---|---| | 1964 | *Garrison v. Louisiana* | Applied the actual-malice rule to **criminal** libel. The defendant was New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who had criticized local judges. | | 1967 | *Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts* / *Associated Press v. Walker* | Extended protection to coverage of **public figures** who are not officials. The companion plaintiff was [[Edwin Walker]], the far-right former general, who lost. | | 1968 | *St. Amant v. Thompson* | Defined "reckless disregard": the defendant must have actually had "serious doubts" about the truth of what it published. Failing to investigate is not enough on its own. | | 1974 | *Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.* | Set the line for **private figures**: states may let them recover on a lesser showing of fault, but not without any fault, and presumed or punitive damages still require actual malice. The defendant published *American Opinion*, the [[John Birch Society]] magazine. | | 1979 | [[Herbert v. Lando]] | Held that because the plaintiff must prove the defendant's state of mind, the plaintiff may question journalists in discovery about their editorial process and what they knew. This is how actual malice is actually proved. | | 1988 | [[Hustler Magazine v. Falwell]] | Unanimously barred [[Jerry Falwell]] from getting around the rule by suing a parody for emotional distress instead of libel. | | 1989 | *Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton* | Held that **purposeful avoidance of the truth** can be evidence of actual malice. | ## Actual Malice in Practice The standard is hard to meet, but not impossible. The cases that cleared it, or came close, show what it takes: proof of what the defendant actually knew. - **[[Fox-Dominion Settlement]] (2023).** The judge ruled before trial that Fox's statements about [[Dominion Voting Systems]] were false. Fox's own texts and emails, obtained in discovery under the [[Herbert v. Lando]] rule, showed hosts and executives privately disbelieving the fraud claims they aired. Fox settled for $787.5 million on the day the jury was seated. See also [[Newsmax-Smartmatic Settlement]] and [[Smartmatic v Fox News Lawsuit]]. - **Palin v. New York Times (2022 and 2025).** A 2017 *Times* editorial wrongly linked [[Sarah Palin]]'s campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. The paper called it an honest mistake and corrected it. A jury found for the *Times* in 2022. An appeals court ordered a retrial in 2024 because of trial errors, and a second jury again found the *Times* not liable in **April 2025**. A false and damaging statement, quickly corrected, did not amount to actual malice. - **[[Alex Jones Sandy Hook Judgments]].** Jones was hit with verdicts of nearly $1.5 billion (about $1.3 billion after a 2024 appellate reduction), but the Sandy Hook families were **private figures**, so they never had to meet the *Sullivan* standard at all. That shows what the rule does and does not protect. - **Trump v. Wall Street Journal (2026).** On **April 13, 2026**, Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed Trump's $10 billion suit over the *Journal*'s Epstein birthday-letter story. He wrote that the complaint "comes nowhere close" to pleading actual malice, because the reporters had contacted Trump and law enforcement and included his denial, and he added that "ill-will is insufficient to plead actual malice." Trump filed an amended complaint in the same case in late May 2026. See [[News Corp Timeline]]. - **Trump v. New York Times (2025–2026).** Trump sued the *Times* and Penguin Random House for $15 billion on September 15, 2025. Judge Steven Merryday struck the 85-page complaint four days later as improper and ordered a shorter one, which was filed October 16, 2025. On **July 27, 2026** the judge deferred the *Times*'s motion to dismiss and ordered another amended complaint by August 27. As of this update the case is pending; this page has not confirmed filings after that date. See [[New York Times Timeline]]. - **[[Macron v. Owens Defamation Lawsuit]].** The French president and his wife, as public figures, must prove actual malice against Candace Owens in a U.S. court. ## The Campaign to Overturn It | Date | Who | Vehicle | What happened | |---|---|---|---| | Feb 26, 2016 | [[Donald Trump]] | Campaign rally, Fort Worth | Promises to "open up our libel laws" so he can sue news organizations and "win lots of money." He has repeated the idea since, calling libel laws "a sham and a disgrace" in 2018. | | Feb 19, 2019 | [[Clarence Thomas]] | *McKee v. Cosby* (concurring in denial of review) | Writes that *Sullivan* and its successors were "policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law," and that if the Constitution doesn't require actual malice, "neither should we." | | Mar 19, 2021 | Judge Laurence Silberman (D.C. Circuit) | *Tah v. Global Witness* (dissent) | Calls for overruling *Sullivan* and attacks the *Times* and *Washington Post* as "virtually Democratic Party broadsheets." | | July 2, 2021 | Thomas and [[Neil Gorsuch]] | *Berisha v. Lawson* (separate dissents from denial) | Gorsuch adds a new argument: the media landscape has changed since 1964, the rule now protects disinformation online, and the expanding definition of "public figure" leaves ordinary people without recourse. Thomas cites how easily the [[Pizzagate]] conspiracy theory spread. | | June 27, 2022 | Thomas | *Coral Ridge Ministries v. Southern Poverty Law Center* (dissent from denial) | A Christian ministry listed on the SPLC's "hate map" asks the Court to reconsider. Denied. | | Spring 2023 | [[Ron DeSantis]] and Florida legislators | Florida HB 991 / SB 1220 | A bill designed to provoke a test case: it would have removed actual-malice protection in some cases and presumed anonymous-source reporting to be false. Conservative broadcasters and groups, including Americans for Prosperity, opposed it along with the mainstream press. It died in committee on April 20, 2023. | | Oct 10, 2023 | Thomas | *Blankenship v. NBCUniversal* (concurring in denial) | Calls the case a poor vehicle but urges the Court to take up the question soon. | | Mar 24, 2025 | Steve Wynn (Trump donor) | *Wynn v. Associated Press* | A petition that asked squarely for *Sullivan* to be overturned. Denied, with no recorded dissent. | | June 29, 2026 | Thomas, joined by Gorsuch | *Dershowitz v. CNN* (No. 25-770) | [[Alan Dershowitz]]'s petition from his loss to [[CNN]] over coverage of his 2020 impeachment-trial argument. It asked the Court to discard *Sullivan*, or at least not apply it to private citizens who become public figures. Denied. Thomas dissents that the standard has "no relation to the text, history, or structure of the Constitution" (quoting Silberman in *Tah*). | ### The arguments, as each side makes them **For overturning or narrowing it:** - **[[Originalism]].** Libel was not considered protected speech when the First Amendment was ratified in 1791 or the Fourteenth in 1868. Thomas argues the Court invented a federal rule where the Constitution left libel to the states. - **A different media world.** Gorsuch argues that a rule written for a few professional newspapers with editors and fact-checkers now protects anonymous accounts and viral falsehoods at internet scale. - **Who counts as a "public figure."** Courts have stretched the category to include people who become briefly famous or are pulled into a controversy, leaving them with almost no remedy. - **Support from the left as well.** Challengers regularly cite a 1993 law-review essay by then-Professor [[Elena Kagan]] questioning parts of the doctrine. (Kagan's critique was about specific effects, not a call to overturn it, and she has not joined any of the dissents.) **For keeping it:** - **Its origins.** The rule was written because state libel law was being used as a weapon by officials to silence the press, and that is how powerful plaintiffs still use it. Those most willing to sue over coverage are those with the most power and money. - **The [[Chilling Effect]].** Without it, publishers would have to prove every statement true in every detail, and they would stop publishing hard stories about people who can afford lawyers. - **It protects the right as well.** Conservative outlets such as [[Fox News]], Newsmax, and [[The Gateway Pundit]], and conservative commentators facing suits from public officials, rely on actual malice every day. That is part of why conservative broadcasters and groups opposed the Florida bill. - **It works as intended.** Plaintiffs with real evidence of knowing falsehood still win, as Dominion and Smartmatic did. ## Why It Matters for the RWKB **The doctrine constrains courts, not regulators.** The vault's most-reused synthesis applies here: *the institution does the work, not the proof*. Where *Sullivan* has been applied by a court, Trump's suits have lost or stalled: the WSJ suit was dismissed for failure to plead actual malice, and the *Times* suit has been sent back for rewriting twice without reaching the merits. But the two companies that **settled** paid without any ruling on the merits or any finding of actual malice: [[ABC News]] ($15 million, December 2024) and Paramount ($16 million, July 2025), both directed to the [[Donald J. Trump Presidential Library]]. Paramount's payment came while it needed the [[FCC]] to approve its merger. Where a media company depends on government approval, the pressure works through the regulator, and *Sullivan* has nothing to say about that. See [[CBS Timeline]], [[Disney Timeline]], and [[Media Capture]]. **The rule exists because of the civil rights movement.** The first great modern use of libel law as [[Lawfare]] was segregationist officials suing to keep the national press out of the South. That history is why defenders treat attacks on the rule as attacks on the press's ability to cover power at all, and why the ad at the center of the case was about Martin Luther King. **The fight is about votes, not arguments.** The arguments have been on the table since 2019 and have not moved anyone beyond Thomas and Gorsuch. The variable is the Court's membership: a third and fourth justice willing to grant review would change the picture overnight. Any future vacancy is also a vote on *Sullivan*. ## Timeline - **March 29, 1960** — "Heed Their Rising Voices" runs in the *Times*. - **1960** — An Alabama jury awards Sullivan $500,000. - **August 30, 1962** — The Alabama Supreme Court affirms. - **January 6, 1964** — Argued. **March 9, 1964** — Reversed, 9–0. - **1964–1989** — The rule is extended to criminal libel, public figures, and emotional-distress claims, and qualified for private figures (see table above). - **2016** — Trump promises to "open up our libel laws." - **2019–2026** — Repeated requests to reconsider are denied, including the six in the table above; Thomas writes separately in five of those; Gorsuch dissents separately in 2021 and joins Thomas in 2026. - **April 2023** — Florida's anti-*Sullivan* bill dies. - **April 2025** — The *Times* wins the Palin retrial. - **April 13, 2026** — Trump's WSJ suit is dismissed for failure to plead actual malice; he files an amended complaint in late May. - **June 29, 2026** — *Dershowitz v. CNN* denied; Thomas dissents, joined by Gorsuch. - **July 27, 2026** — Trump's *Times* suit survives a motion to dismiss for now, with another amended complaint ordered. ## See Also - [[First Amendment]] · [[Free Speech]] · [[Chilling Effect]] — the doctrine - [[SLAPP Lawsuits]] · [[Lawfare]] — the tactic *Sullivan* was written to stop - [[Alien and Sedition Acts]] — the 1798 precedent Brennan said history had condemned - [[Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC]] — the broadcast-era counterpart, decided five years later - [[Fox-Dominion Settlement]] · [[Newsmax-Smartmatic Settlement]] · [[Alex Jones Sandy Hook Judgments]] — the standard in practice - [[William Brennan]] · [[Clarence Thomas]] · [[Neil Gorsuch]] — author and challengers - [[New York Times]] · [[New York Times Timeline]] — the paper, then and now - [[Media Timeline]] — where the case sits in the history of media