Bill Of Rights Case Summary

The court case of New York Times vs Sullivan was a case that involved public officials and how they were libeled in the press in the year of nineteen sixty four. L.B. Sullivan was one of three elected commissioners of Alabama. The respondent was L. B. Sullivan was a public official from Alabama and brought a lawsuit against an clergymen, a negro and against a petitioner of the New York Times Company. L.B. Sullivan sued all of these people because he felt that he was libeled in a advertisement of the New York Times. The case had to deal with if the constitutional protections of speech and press limit the states power to award damages for the libel action brought by a public official against the critics of his official conduct.

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, lawful case in which, on March 9, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court governed consistently (9–0) that, for a slander suit to be effective, the complainant must demonstrate that the guilty proclamation was made with " 'genuine perniciousness', with learning that it was false or with neglectful failure of whether it was the truth or not." Specifically, the case included a notice that showed up in The New York Times in March 1960 that sketched out how African Americans had been persecuted and that requested that perusers contribute cash to the battle to end racial isolation in the South.

The case New York Times Co. Vs United States in summary was a first amendment battle between the United States government and the prominent newspaper cooperation New York Times in 1971. The premises of this legal battle was based on the New York Times reporter Daniel Ellsberg publishing in excerpts illegally leaked, classified documents containing the United States involvement in the Vietnam War specifically on the anticipated death counts (Institution, 2015, p. n .p). However, The United States government finding out about leakage placed a prior restraint also known as “government action that prohibits speech or other expression before it can take place” on New York Times cooperation based on National Security grounds (Prior Restraint, 2015). The case, despite the over powering strength of the nation and the accusations against the New York Times Cooperation the case was ruled in favor of the New York Times by the Supreme Court (Curry, Riley, & Battistoni, 2015, p. 458).

Garrison v. Louisiana was argued on April 22, 1964 and was decided on November 23, 1964. In the case the plaintiff was Jim Garrison and the responder was Louisiana. Garrison accused the judges of their inadequate management and was charged violating the Louisiana Criminal Defamation Statute. The main issue was the right to freedom of expression. The question asked was, “Does the Louisiana Criminal Defamation Statute unconstitutionally infringe on the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of speech?”(Oyez). The amendment that was being violated in the trial was the First Amendment.

American citizens were not pleased with the fact their rights were being violated. The Sedition Acts made it illegal for newspaper editors to criticize the government. The government imposed punishments for editors who violated this law. This act violated the freedom of the press, which is under the First Amendment. Stated in Document F, “the liberty of conscience and the press cannot be canceled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States.” By even appointing these acts, it meant the federal government was exercising a power that was never given to them in the first place. Document F states, “Alien and Seditions Acts, passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the federal government”. The administration’s foreign policy was not protecting Americans, rather violating their

The main question that probably arose was whether the president’s executive order surpassed the First Amendment. First, the District Court for the Southern District of New York judged the Times case and decided the government had not “show[ed] justification for the enforcement of such a [prior] restraint,” for it simply deemed the publication of the Pentagon Papers detrimental to the nation. Likewise, the District Court for the D.C. and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the courts that judged the Washington Post case, came to the same verdict (New York Times Co. v. United States).

To sum, the case is about an advertising the newspaper included some inaccurate story about the civic leaders, civil right events, and Sullivan. Sullivan (a public official) believed that the defamatory comments that were made of him were making a negative impact on his life, thus he sued the New York times. The court in Alabama at the time ruled “The law … implies legal injury from bare facts of publication itself, falsity and malice are presumed, general damages no need to presume.” Thus, the court from Alabama gave Sullivan a compensation of five hundred thousand dollars. New York times decided to take this case to the supreme court because they believe their 1st amendment rights were being violated. Therefore, a new question arose whether the first amendment protects defamatory, false statements concerning public officials? The court ruled that the 1st amendment does protect the publication of all statements, even false ones, concerning the conduct of a public official except when the statement was made with actual malice. Once again, we notice the irony of freedom of speech the issue is citizens are not informed that under the 1st amendment there is sufficient rights guarantee. It is not solely having the right to express our emotions towards the government, it is to expose information to citizens and have the citizens decided for themselves. Democracy does not work if the government or public official try to hide information from its citizens. Democracy function when there is a clear majority of press that expose the truth and allow people to determine what the issue is. Press must be able to protect us against an overreaching government. Sometimes executive power tries to control the press because they do not want to inform the truth about that for example the Watergates scandal, Edward Snowden, Wiki leaks and

Freedom of the press was the point of the First Amendment, letting everyone have a right to their opinion that was not available before the Revolutionary War. However, this is not the first time that the government tried to counter act this right. President John Adams, signed the first Sedition Act into law which were repealed by President Jefferson in 1801. The American Government promised freedom of the press when we became a country, and I see no reason whatsoever to take it away. Absolutely, was this an unquestionable contravention of the First Amendment. Contributing classified military secrets to the enemy is one thing I can understand them trying to stop, but not taking away a right that blood was shed to achieve. Hence forth,

The New York Times declines and the Justice Department files a demand for an injunction in a federal district court in New York. Judge Gurfein grants a temporary restraining order halting more installments in the Pentagon Papers series and they schedule another hearing for the 17th but is rescheduled for the 18th. On June 18, 1971, a hearing is held to decide if the restraining order on the The New York Times should be lifted. It is later lifted but the order is left to give time for the government to appeal. Ten days later on June 28, 1971, Ellsberg surrenders to arrest at the federal courthouse in Boston. The court case between The New York Times and the United States goes to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 30, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the government had failed to prove harm to national security, and that publication of the papers was justified under the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of the press. (History.com) A court indicted Ellsberg and Russo on 15 counts of serious crimes. In April of 1973 the court learns that two individuals Howard E. Hunt (a government official) and G. Gordon Liddy (a lawyer) burglarized the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist on September 3, 1971 in an effort to secure information about Ellsberg’s mental health damaging to Ellsberg's defense. This

Ellsberg believed that Americans needed to know what was in the reports, and decided to make the Pentagon Papers public. Ellsberg broke several laws and gave copies to the New York Times, which began printing excerpts from the documents. The government immediately obtained a court order preventing the New York Times from printing more of the documents, arguing that publishing the material threatened national security. This was the first time in history that the government had successfully ordered a prior restraint on national security. Historically, prior restraint has been considered the most serious form of censorship.

In 1969 Daniel Ellsberg made 7000 photocopies of classified information that he had access to. He then gave these copies to The New York TImes, and on June 13th 1971 the New York Times began printing. After these documents were printed out the government quickly jumped to action by getting a court order which prevented them from printing any more copies.This case came to be known as The New York TImes v. The United States, this case was argued on June 26th, 1971 and decided four days later. There was much debate on whether the government's response was constitutional or not, but eventually the case ended with a decision. This decision was a six to three vote, with The New York Times winning the case. The reason this case went to the supreme court was because of the fact that the government had ignored the first amendment by getting a court order that stated that the New York TImes could not print the Pentagon Papers as they came to be known. The first amendment states that the government cannot not form any laws against many personal freedoms“or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” by any standards the United States preventing a newspaper company from printing

The background to New York Times v. Sullivan is pretty complex and has a lot to it. The

In the past, there has always been conflict between the free press and the government. This conflict was very evident in the Pentagon Papers case, also known as New York Times Co. v. United States. Historically, the Supreme Court has disagreed on the limitations that can be placed on the First Amendment. The Supreme Court faced these issues in the case of The New York Times. The newspaper obtained a copy of a Defense Department report that explained government deception in the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers emerged when the American people disagreed on the United States involvement in the war. Under the First Amendment, The New York Times argued

The New York Times sought their case on the support of protections entailed by the Constitution. This premise of protection was enveloped more specifically in the enumerated rights of the first amendment. In spite of the counter-arguments against the amendment being absolute, Justices argued the word “security” should not be manipulated “to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment” (“NEW YORK TIMES v.”). In the case the threats of security were defined as: "clearly result in great harm to the nation," and would culminate in "the death of soldiers, the destruction of alliances, the greatly increased difficulty of negotiation with our enemies, the inability of our diplomats to negotiate. . ." (“NEW YORK TIMES CO. v.”). The expressed exploitation of security lacked in argument. This was perceived by the absence of immediate harm suffered by American forces or American agenda. It was also noted by the court,” The most recent of the material, it is said, dates no later than 1968, already about three years ago, and the Times itself took three months to formulate its plan of procedure and, thus, deprived its public for that period” (“NEW YORK TIMES CO. v.”). With this preemptive plan the court recognized this publication as a radical call for national agenda

One case shows that how defamation laws protects speech that has no first amendment value. In the Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. case a United States Supreme Court case rejected the argument that separate opinion privilege existed against libel. The court had referred to the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and the Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.