Gertz Vs Welch Case Study

The Lexington Herald argued that the appellant was a public figure and would be required to prove actual malice in order to win his libel lawsuit. Appellees’ for The Lexington News Herald argued that the prominence of Pittsburgh’s Division I status in the NCAA labeled Warford as a public figure. Moreover, the appellees’ argued that Warford had to be a public figure because his position and recruiting activities voluntarily injected himself into the public controversy regarding the recruiting of college athletes.

Prior to this case there were two forms of gun control acts the first was that of 1968 which forbids gun sells to sell guns to people that have a felony charge that are mentally unstable and other things this was amended with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which included the need to have a background check. While working to make a system that could make the check fast it had to be done by state law enforcement. People however started to claim that this act was unconstitutional and it violated their rights given to them under the Constitution. The Petitioners filed separate actions challenging the constitutionality of the Brady Act’s interim provisions and in each case the District

The cases of Gratz/Grutter v. Bollinger are two cases alleging that the University of Michigan and the University of Michigan Law School discriminated against students who applied for admission because of their race(Tuttle, Kevin).The university of michigan receives a high volume of applicants each year(Tuttle, Kevin).to help the admissions decisions the university has a point system which is out of 100 points(O’Connor).a student that is from an underrepresented group automatically receives 20 points towards their overall score (O’Connor).the issue is Whether the School’s admission policy to automatically grant 20 out of 100 points to students of a minority ethnicity is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution(Boddie, Elise c.).The Bush administration had supported the plaintiffs in both cases, and critics regarded the verdicts as a defeat for its conservative agenda(Boddie, Elise c.).both of these cases are unique and different in there own way(Boddie, Elise c.).

In 1996, the state of California passed the Compassionate Use Act, which legalized the use of medical marijuana. California was one of the few states at the time to legalize the use of medical marijuana, while the federal law upholds its authority to restrict citizens from using marijuana. The Compassionate Use Act conflicts with the Controlled Substances Act, which is a law enacted by Congress to regulate the use of marijuana. Nine years later, the Supreme Court is presented the case of Gonzales v. Raich. Angela Raich, who suffered from a serious illness, decided to grow her own medical marijuana for personal use. Raich actions were legal in the eyes of California, while on a federal level the country did not approve of the idea or use of

Libel tort law is defamation to a person’s reputation by print, signs, effigies, pictures, writing or any communication. The California court decided that because this article was

Reasonable people will generally go a long distance to protect their loved-ones. However, most reasonable people would believe that killing someone in order to protect their loved ones would be immoral and harmful. In the case of R v. Buzizi [2013], a man killed another in a supposed effort to protect his cousin. On an early morning in Montréal, the accused’s cousin and the victim ensued in a brawl (Casey). The initial fight was broken up by a third party. A few moments later, the accused, Mr. Buzizi, who saw the initial assault from afar, intervened and pushed the victim (Casey). Then, Mr. Buzizi noticed that the victim had an exacto knife, and that his cousin had a serious wound on his neck (R v. Buzizi, para 24). For fear that the

The Plaintiff, Sullivan, was one of three Commissioners of Montgomery, Alabama who sued the Defendant, the New York Times, for printing and releasing an full page ad about the civil rights movement taking place in the south that defamed Sullivan. The ad was called "Heed Their Rising Voices" and it caused a "wave" of terror that had been directed against those who took place in the civil rights movement in the South. Some of the facts were false. The ad didn't single handily point out Sullivan, he claimed that it referred to him indirectly because he had oversight responsibility of the police. The Defendant stated that they didn't have any reason or proof to say the facts were false. No one put out the extra effort to see if the facts were false

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

to the story. Attorney general David Wilentz was the prosecutor for the trial. Wilentz suggested to the court that the ladder that was found on the Lindbergh property came from Mr. Hauptamnn’s attic (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). He also stated that the telephone number of Condon was found scrawled on a door frame inside a closet at Hauptmann’s home (FBI 2013). According to Wilentz a portion of the wood that was used to construct the ladder match the planks of wood found in Mr. Hauptmann’s home (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). Wood expert Arthur Koehler was called upon to examine the wood. According to his expertise in distinguishing wood, the ladder was constructed by a somewhat skilled carpenter (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). Koehler suggested that the ladder contained four different types of woods (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). One piece of wood appeared to be floor boarding that appeared to have two distinctive nail holes (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). Koehler also examined the floor board for manufacturing cutting marks. Koehler contacted a total of 1,6600 timber mills across the United

PROCEDURAL HISTORY: The District Court rejected the government’s demand for an initial injunction, but a Circuit Court judge extended the restraining order to offer the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ample time to deliberate on the government’s case. Soon after, the Circuit Court returned the case in question to the trial court for resolve of whether any of the forthcoming publications posed danger to the security of the nation. The New York Times requested the Circuit Court’s verdict be sent straight to the Supreme Court.

In his next paragraph, Rosenblatt chronicles the story of John Rocker, a relief pitcher who made an inflammatory and rather bigoted statement about not wishing to ride public transportation with those whom he feels are either a nuisance, or simply make him uncomfortable with their alternate lifestyles (such as “queers”). Rosenblatt notes that the courts did not interfere with their suspension as the first amendment merely grants one the right to speech, not total immunity. Rosenblatt however finds folly with this, and feels that Rocker possessed the right to spout his ignorant blather.

“Manslaughter - Recklessness or gross negligence - Assumption of duty of care for infirm person - Breach of duty amounting to recklessness - Negligence - Assumption of duty to care.”

In Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Supreme Court decided the First Amendment did not grant reportorial privilege in the court. This means journalists and other members of the press cannot use freedom of speech as a defense in order to not testify. This includes if a source was meant to be confidential.

Sullivan sued the New York Times and won in the state of Alabama. However the case was taken to the Supreme Court, where they ruled in favour of the New York Times. The newspaper was protected under the amendment and the court advised that Sullivan would have had to of proved what was said against him that was misrepresenting. Nonetheless, it was said that most of the things said about the Police department was true. (www.uscourts.gov). Similarly, after the New York Times printed excerpts from seven thousand pages of classified documents called “Pentagon Papers” in 1971. These documents were over the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Once again, the newspaper was protected by its amendments and the court ruled in their favour. The court said that “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government” meaning that the press has the right to inform the people of information such as these “Pentagon Papers”. (www.billofrightsinstitute.org) In the end, the highest level of government lost to a newspaper because of the freedom of speech and press, which is remarkable and very rare with many governments. These cases prove that with the United States System, our rights can and will be protected even when going up against the government. However, if your intentions are clear and threaten danger you can be convicted. There has also been Acts like the Sedation Act that violated Americans rights stating that the people couldn’t publically oppose the government. Thankfully, this act was repealed with many others after the war ended.

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