With Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch calling for a review of the libel decision in N.Y. Times v Sullivan, it may be time to remind folks that the original case involves Montgomery, Alabama.
"The underlying case began in 1960, when The New York Times published a full-page advertisement by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. that criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for their treatment of civil rights movement protesters.[2] 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.[2] Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times for defamation in the local Alabama county court.[2] After the judge ruled that the advertisement's inaccuracies were defamatory per se, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages.[2] The Times appealed first to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed the verdict, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case." (Source: HERE.)
The ad in the NY Times that prompted the lawsuit...and the eventual Supreme Court decision.
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