Hustler Vs Falwell Case Study

The court held that the First Amendment protects a newspaper from libel claims for making defamatory statements about the conduct of a public officials if the statements were not made with reckless disregard of its truth or without knowing. In this case, Sullivan who was the city commissioner sued a newspaper for libel claiming that an advertisement run by the newspaper defamed him personally. The question before the court was whether failure to prove that Sullivan was personally harmed and dismissing the advertisement as untruthful as it contained errors infringed on the First Amendments freedom of speech and press protection (Burnett, 116).

Hustler v. Falwell was a Supreme Court case between Hustler Magazine and Jerry Flint (defendants) and Jerry Falwell (plaintiff.) Hustler Magazine is a popular nationwide publication and Larry Flint was the magazine’s publisher. Jerry Falwell was a well-known minister who often spoke on public and political topics. Hustler printed an article advertising Campari liquor that implied Falwell lost his virginity to his mother during a drunken experience in an outhouse. The parody advertisement also suggested that Falwell never preached while sober. At the bottom of the page, the magazine printed that it was satire and a parody that no one should take seriously.

Hustler Magazine, INC. The court found the defendant’s use of the copyrighted works in their magazine was fair. Hustler Magazine INC did not exploit the value of Haberman’s works in order to sell copies of its magazine. The court also found Hustler established evidence that it made fair use of the copyrighted work because it did not materially impair the marketability or value of the work. This issue, presented in 17 USC § 107, is undoubtedly the single most important element of fair use. My client’s use of the “photograph” would not serve as a suitable substitute for someone who wished to collect Bill Frymire’s work. The reproduction of the “photograph” was not intended to increase sales and improperly capitalize on Frymire’s work. It is unlikely my client received extra business as a result of a photograph posted on their social media

New Yorker Magazine it states that there must be clear intent to tarnish one’s reputation in order for libel tort law to come into effect. This case was very similar in regards that there was enough evidence that suggest there was intent to hurt the reputation of those mentioned in the articles. Also in the case Anderson v. Liberty Lobby it states the plaintiff must be able to prove that there was in fact damage done to one’s reputation and be able to proof to judges that there was actual malice. As with this case, the court of appeals must take in consideration if the ruling can be made in favor of the plaintiff and that if the summary judgement would go in favor of the plaintiff. The judges want to make sure that they are not wasting time and that there was actual damage done to the plaintiff which can be awarded for punitive

For example, one of Sotomayor’s more controversial cases was Pappas v. Giuliani (2002), a case in which an employee of the New York City Police Department, Thomas Pappas, was terminated from his desk job. The department had found that Pappas had anonymously circulated racist and bigoted material. On appeal, the majority of the panel held that the NYPD could terminate Pappas for his behavior without violating his First Amendment right to free speech. Sotomayor acknowledged that the speech was “patently offensive, hateful, and

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

“The Amendment is written in terms of “speech,” not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speakers, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals…Indeed, to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this speech to the public debate.”

Reviewing precedent of New York Times v. Sullivan about the right to make false statements. In this case, the Court ruled that states must prove that he or she had malice whining creating a false statement. This case is related to the United States v. Fields as it explains that speech is restricted for content reasons if and only malice can be proven. Another precedent is Texas v. Johnson as it demonstrates the right to disagreeable speech as he had the right to free speech when he burned his flag. The case related by the person’s speech as it would offends the doings by lying.

Thank you for your time. This trial is one of defamation, which means that the plaintiff had to prove Andy Rather and CAT News made false, factual statements with malice intent that were unfavorable to former governor Pat Justice and caused him/her to lose the election. While, throughout this trial, we have been able to understand that the published statements from CAT News were false, our witnesses, Cameron Carter and Reese Murphy have proved that these statements were not published with malice and caused no actual damages to Pat Justice’s Career. The Ohio Constitution protects freedom of speech, in cases of opinion. In Andy Rather’s interview with CAT News, it is very clear that he was simply stating his opinion on what had happened at Trillium,

“At what point do we take personal attacks, and permit those, as opposed to -- I fully accept you’re entitled, in some circumstances, to speak about any political issue you want. But where is the line between doing that, and creating hardship for an individual?” –Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the case of Snyder V. Phelps, Two very passionate sides debated just that. The Snyder family accused Phelps, or Westboro, of the tort claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, after Westboro picketed Phelps’ son’s funeral. Westboro disputed this, claiming their protests were protected under The First Amendment.

On the other side of the issue, individuals in favor of the ruling claim that the federal government was denying the 1st amendment rights of everyone’s political speech. An American Spectator article writes in favor of the court's ruling. Prior to the decision “an individual such as George Soros is free to spend $20 million to promote his favored candidates, but if two or more individuals get together to do the same thing, neither can contribute more than $5,000 to the effort” (Smith). Citizens United was simply fighting for their constitutional rights to freedom of speech. During the oral arguments of the court, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart was asked by Justice Samuel Alito if the government's current power over political campaigns would allow them to censor books made by corporations; he responded with the statement that aligned with the government’s position, yes they could. As a politically active group,

The following factors need to be found for there to be a public controversy: a real dispute that affects the general public; the dispute has to receive public attention because of the possible effects; and the court must be able to separate the controversy from the defamatory article in question. Thomas M. Cooley Law Sch. v. Kurzon Strauss, LLP, 759 F.3d 522, 530 (6th Cir. 2014).

NY Times was a case that revolved around the 1st Amendment and freedoms of speech and press. The NY Times sold advertising space to a coalition of civil rights leaders. These leaders described violent events that have happened in the South against African Americans. This was a tactic in order to gain supports for the violence. The court ruled 9-0 in favor of NY Times, saying that the first Amendment protects all lines of publication including false statements. This created actual malice, also known as the NY Times Standard. Actual malice is when you know a statement is false or when you just disregard if the statement’s truth or

As of today, the supreme court has interpreted the first amendment to say “The First Amendment provides no protection for obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes what has become widely known as “fighting words.” The First Amendment provides less than full protection to commercial speech, defamation (libel and slander), speech that may be harmful to children, speech broadcast on radio and television (as opposed to speech transmitted via cable or the Internet), and public employees’ speech.” with this loose definition in mind many people have begun to think whether freedom of speech should be further limited to several cases seen in recent years such as what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The cases Snyder v. Phelps, all started when Westbora Baptist Church members held signs that stated, “Thank God for dead solders” and “Fag Troops” at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder’s funeral. The family filed a lawsuit that first went to the lower court which they reserved $5 million in damages. But than the cases went to the Supreme Court and the First Amendment shields any protesters who stage a protest at a military funeral from liability. The Supreme Court had to rule in favor of the protesters because it is their job to protect religious expression under the First Amendment. [ "Snyder v. Phelps." Oyez, 23 Sep. 2017, www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-751.]The decision was 8-to-1 which means that one person did not want the protesters to win the case but in the end they