ANALYSIS OF TWO CASES This essay analyzes two c

Parties. L. B. Sullivan, an elected Commissioner of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, who was responsible for its police, sued the New York Times and four black clergymen in Alabama state court.

Issues and Their Relationship to the Parties. The lawsuit alleged that an advertisement which appeared in the Times on March 29, 1960 and which contained a number of statements critical of the City of Montgomery, including the remark that a civil rights demonstration there had been met with "unprecedented wave of terror," constituted a civil libel of Sullivan by the four named defendants and the Times under Alabama law. The advertisement was sponsored by 64 civil rights leaders, including the four individual defendants. An Alabama jury found the defendants liable and awarded Sullivan $500,000 in general and punitive damages. The jury verdict was affirmed by the Alabama Supreme Court. The issue before the United States Supreme Court was whether this application of Alabama's libel laws violated the free speech provisions of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Holding. The Court held unanimously that the Alabama jury verdict and its affirmation by the Alabama Court violated the free speech rights of defendants which were

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st time speech criticizing public officials which was otherwise libellous under state law. Later using similar reasoning the Court would extend that protection to cover speech concerning celebrities and other public figures. Justice Black had an near absolutist view of the sweep of First Amendment protections, which has never been shared by a majority on the Court which has invariably held that the right of free speech is subject to various bounds, such as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' exception for speech which presents a clear and present danger to public order and other limits. Justice Brennan's analysis of the evidence at trial illustrates the dangers in permitting appellate judges who are far removed from the facts to second guess juries. The trial record indicated that the advertisement contained many false statements. And the Times might well have acted recklessly inasmuch as its own files based on its own coverage of civil rights demonstrations in Montgomery gainsaid the truth of many of those statements. It is often said that 'hard cases make bad law.' Millions of dollars in Southern state libel judgments were pending against the Times at the time the Sullivan case was heard. Several times in the majority opinions re
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