THE SULLIVAN

ANNALS OF LAW about the libel case, New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan. It began with an advertisement in the Times on March 29, 1960: a full page headed "HEED THEIR RISING VOICES." It sought support for the civil-rights movement in the South and for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, as a minister in Montgomery, Alabama, had been the movement's principal leader. The ad, accusing no one by name, said that "Southern violators" had arrested Dr. King seven times and had persecuted black students who sang OMy Country, 'Tis of TheeO on the steps of the State Capitol, locking them out of their dining hall "in an attempt to starve them into submission." At the bottom, as endorsers, appeared the names of twenty Southern supporters of the movement, including four black clergymen. Sullivan was L.B. Sullivan, an elected commissioner of Montgomery, whose functions included supervision of the police. Though he wasn't named in the ad, he claimed that its charge of police abuse was a reflection on him. He showed small mistakes in the ad and he and other Montgomery officials sued for a total of three million dollars in damages. The Times lawyer was T. Eric Embry and the jury favored Sullivan. The next move was an appeal to the Supreme Court of Alabama, with Herbert Wechsler as the lawyer. On August 30, 1962, that court affirmed the earlier decision. The case was then taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the central meaning of the First Amendment was used as defense. Justice Brennan disposed of the libel action because it was Owithout constitutional support.O The decision was hailed as a landmark in the law of free expression. Discusses the cast and its implications in detail and tells of other similar cases involving the media vs. public and private persons.

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