Libel And Slander

The civil liberties that the American people have are inalienable rights. The most important of these is the freedom of speech. Yet freedom of speech is not entirely protected; using hurtful, false, or damaging speech is not allowed. But how can the American government control something as basic as speech? There are laws against libel and slander but how are they perpetrated? This presentation will explain how the court cases and laws have evolved and been clarified throughout America’s history up to present day.

The meaning of libel is a false and malicious publication printed for the purpose of defaming a living person. Now there have been hundreds of cases of libel in the United States. Some significant court cases are ones like New York Times Co. v Sullivan 376 U.S. 254 (1964). This case was about the alleged libel of Montgomery, Alabama. Commissioner L. B. Sullivan in the New York Times Magazine. The New York times supported Martin Luther King Jr. and his innocence in an alleged perjusry charge, Dr. king was accused of lieing under oath. This court case was one of the first major cases that established the principle of Actual Malice. Now Actual malice is the legal principle that the person printing the article had full knowledge that the statement was false or that the publisher acted recklessly in their disregard of finding if the statement was true or false. But the problem with this it is extremely hard to prove what is in a person’s head. This case was also a landmark case because before it, many news companies would not report on civil rights issues for fear of being sued for libel, but after this case companies were free to report on these issues. It allowed free speech to prevail in the United States. The case was seen as a major victory for the news companies, because unless one could prove you were thinking of printing false information on purpose, you have no libel suit.

The second major cas in that helped to clarify the meaning of libel was the court case of Crutis Publishing Co. v Butts. The case helped to clarify the meaning of defamation claims brought by private individuals. The case held that news organizations were protected from liability when printing allegations about public officials, although they may still be sued by public figures if the information they printed was recklessly gathered or if it was left unchecked. Again because it is difficult to prove either of theses, the press ended up with more freedom to print political corruption and scandal.

The meaning of libel was clarified in other such court cases as Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974). This case is about the murder of young man by police officer, Mr Nuccio. The victim’s family appointed lawyer Elmer Gertz to represent them in court. The lawyer Gertz was later in an article Robert Welch’s magazine, American Opinion, about communism and how the murder was a setup to try to create a communist government in america and discredit police officers. The article also said falsely that Mr Gertz was a crimminal and that he was a communist. Gertz filed a lawsuit stating that he was wrongly accused of being a communist and that the other statements made in the article were false. He used the court cases of New York Times v Sullivian and the other case Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts to prove his case. The restult of this case was that Actual malice is not necessary for defamation of private person if negligence is present, and negligence was present. Also because Gertz was not a public figure the court helped to protect privite individuals from libel.thus if negligence in collecting or checking facts can be proven, then the press cannot print defamatory remarks about an individual.

The above were three court cases on libel the next case will be about slander and how the court has shown that slander is also extermly hard to prove in court. The first case that is about slander is a case that is on right now with nationally known news corporation CBS and their news show, “60 Minutes”. Trusted news figure Dan Rather was accused