Sullivan, served as one of three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. Finally, specific criticisms of the police were unwarranted for example, police did not, in fact, “padlock” the doors of a local college in order to repress protest and did not sit idly while MLK’s house was bombed, instead pursuing the perpetrators to the fullest extent. Some of the critical language was hyperbole. The events described in the full-page advertisement did not reflect how, in reality, the events played out. The advertisement was entitled “Heed Their Rising Voices” and also described how various governmental bodies, such as the police, had failed to respect the civil rights of southern African Americans, especially those in Montgomery, Alabama.Īs the court stated however, many of the statements in the advertisement were either false or, at the very least, misleading. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legal defense fund. Published in the New York Times, the advertisement covered a lot of ground: it voiced political grievances, named those who supported the committee’s cause, described recent oppressive events African Americans had endured, and attempted to raise money for Dr.

Finding that Alabama’s libel laws did not provide sufficient protection for freedom of the press, the Court extended constitutional protections to alleged libel by invoking the First and Fourteenth Amendments to prohibit elected officials from recovering damages for false statements made regarding their official conduct, unless they were made with “actual malice.” “Actual malice” created a different fault standard than ill-will, and required a plaintiff to prove with clear and convincing evidence that false or inaccurate statements were made with knowledge of its falsity, or with a reckless disregard for the truth.Īmidst all the turmoil of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, in 1960 the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South decided to take action in the form of a full-page newspaper advertisement. Sullivan, a Montgomery city commissioner, sued the Times for defamation on the basis that as a supervisor of the police, statements in the ad were personally defamatory.

Martin Luther King that included some inaccuracies and was critical of the Montgomery, Alabama police. The New York Times had published an advertisement created by supporters of Dr. New York Times, and established the “actual malice” standard to provide protection for erroneous statements made in the public interest.

Malice by Griffin Hayes