WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz’s defamation suit against CNN, refusing to reconsider the high bar for press freedom set in the New York Times vs. Sullivan case.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.
The no-comment decision may signal the justices are not anxious to revisit another civil rights-era landmark.
But the Dershowitz lawsuit may have been a less than ideal test case.
He sued CNN for $300 million, alleging its commentators distorted his arguments during President Trump’s first impeachment trial before the Senate.
He lost before a federal district judge and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Judges said he had presented no evidence of “actual malice” or knowing falsehoods, citing the doctrine set in the landmark decision.
Dershowitz’s appeal urged the Supreme Court to reconsider and discard the “actual malice” rule or to limit its use against private citizens who are treated as public figures.
In 1964, a unanimous Supreme Court said the 1st Amendment’s protection for the freedom of speech and the press limited state libel verdicts.
An all-white Alabama jury had awarded a $500-million judgment to Montgomery city commissioner L.B. Sullivan over a fundraising ad for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had appeared in the New York Times.
The ad did not mention Sullivan by name, but he said he was defamed by the ad’s criticism of the police.
Reversing that verdict, the court’s opinion said the 1st Amendment was intended to protect debate and criticism of public officials.
With that goal in mind, the justices barred defamation suits over minor or honest mistakes and said plaintiffs must show the defendants displayed “actual malice” by making statements they knew were false or showed a “reckless disregard” for the truth.
The decision was later extended to include public figures like Dershowitz.
In 2020, he defended President Trump’s conduct and told senators it fell short of an impeachable offense.
The House had accused Trump of threatening to withhold military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
In response to a question about an alleged quid pro quo, Dershowitz said a president can make deals that are in the public interest or his political interest, but not for a corrupt personal benefit.
“If a president does something which he believes will help get him elected — in the public interest — that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he said.
That statement drew sharp and immediate criticism on CNN.
Commentator Paul Begala asserted the “the Dershowitz doctrine would make presidents immune from every criminal act.”
CNN aired the full video of Dershowitz’s testimony and invited him to appear twice in the next two days to clarify his comments.
Months later, he filed a lawsuit alleging defamation and said CNN had perpetrated “a deliberate scheme to defraud its own audience.”
His suit was dismissed by judges who said he did not have enough evidence to send the case to a trial.
“In his zealous and highly scrutinized representation, Dershowitz made a spontaneous series of remarks before Congress that, he says, were misinterpreted by pundits,” Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee, wrote for the 11th Circuit Court.
“If anything, the evidence shows that they believed in the truth of their reporting, and that they formed their opinions independently. Without evidence of actual malice Dershowitz’s defamation claim cannot go forward,” she said.
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