Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A crucial and compelling account of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark Supreme Court case that redefined libel, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning legal journalist Anthony Lewis.
The First Amendment puts it this way: Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Yet, in 1960, a city official in Montgomery, Alabama, sued
The New York Times for libel--and was awarded $500,000 by a local jury--because the paper had published an ad critical of Montgomery's brutal response to civil rights protests.
The centuries of legal precedent behind the Sullivan case and the U.S. Supreme Court's historic reversal of the original verdict are expertly chronicled in this gripping and wonderfully readable book by the Pulitzer Prize Pulitzer Prize-winning legal journalist Anthony Lewis. It is our best account yet of a case that redefined what newspapers--and ordinary citizens--can print or say.
Description
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of Contents
1. Heed Their Rising Voices
2. Reaction in Montgomery
3. Separate and Unequal
4. The Trial
5. Silencing the Press
6. The Meaning of Freedom
7. The Sedition Act
8. World War I
9. Holmes and Brandeis, Dissenting
10. “The Vitalizing Liberties”
11. To the Supreme Court
12. “There Never Is a Time”
13. May It Please the Court
14. “The Central Meaning of the First Amendment”
15. What It Meant
16. Inside the Court
17. Public and Private
18. “The Dancing Has Stopped”
19. Back to the Drawing Board
20. Envoi
Appendix 1: First Draft of Justice Brennans Opinion in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
Appendix 2: Opinions in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan by Justices Brennan, Black, and Goldberg