Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is once again taking aim at a ruling that has shielded news outlets and others from defamation claims for six decades. In a dissent on Monday that was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Thomas disagreed with the court's decision not to take up Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz's failed defamation lawsuit against CNN, reports the Hill. Dershowitz wanted the court to revisit the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which requires public figures to prove a false statement was made knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth.
It's at least the third time since 2019 that Thomas has pushed for the court to reexamine the decision, which he argues got things backward. The ruling makes it harder for public figures to sue, but the "founding generation believed that, if anything, public figures had stronger claims for damages when they were defamed," he wrote in his dissent. In its brief order, the majority declined to hear Dershowitz's appeal, leaving intact lower-court decisions tossing his $300 million suit, per USA Today.
In his suit against CNN, Dershowitz said the outlet misrepresented his defense of Donald Trump during the first impeachment trial by airing incomplete snippets of his arguments. The upshot, he argued, was that CNN gave its viewers the incorrect impression that he believed presidents could bribe or extort people with impunity. Lower-court judges found Dershowitz hadn't shown "actual malice," the bar set in the 1964 case. Dershowitz complained that the standard "has devolved into near-absolute immunity for media defendants, even when they profoundly misrepresent verifiable public statements."
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