Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz’s case alleging CNN defamed him with its coverage of remarks made during President Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial.
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The dispute presented the high court with the chance to revisit its landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which set a high bar for public figures to win defamation lawsuits against media companies. That case requires a public official claiming defamation to prove the defendant knew their statement was false at the time or demonstrated reckless disregard of its falsity, a standard known as actual malice.
Two of the justices, Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have criticized that decades-old decision, but no other member of the high court has shown an appetite to reconsider it. Thomas and Gorsuch dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case.
In rejecting Dershowitz’s appeal, the Supreme Court left untouched a lower court decision in favor of CNN.
Dershowitz’s lawsuit
Dershowitz’s suit against CNN dates back to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, which involved claims Mr. Trump abused his power and obstructed a congressional investigation. The proceedings involved the president’s alleged efforts during his first term to withhold military funds to Ukraine to pressure its government to pursue investigations that would benefit him politically.
Dershowitz served as a member of the president’s legal team during the Senate trial, and made remarks about the constitutional standards for impeachment on the Senate floor. In response to his comments, CNN published an online commentary criticizing Dershowitz’s argument, and others appearing on the network also condemned his statements.
Amid the backlash, Dershowitz appeared on CNN twice to explain and defend his argument, and the network aired his remarks in full.
Still, Dershowitz filed a $300 million against CNN, alleging that the network intentionally omitted a key portion of his remarks and engaged in “a deliberate scheme to defraud its own audience” at his expense.
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A federal district court in Florida ruled in favor of CNN in 2023, finding that Dershowitz could not show that CNN had acted with actual malice. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed that ruling last year.
CNN, the court , offered “unrefuted evidence” that its commentators believed their statements about Dershowitz were “fair and accurate,” while Dershowitz “provided no evidence that CNN’s commentators or producers acted with actual malice.”
Dershowitz appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, arguing in a that in the six decades since New York Times v. Sullivan was decided, its protections have left the media nearly “untouchable.”
The precedent, he said, “has morphed into an impregnable fortress that protects media irresponsibility while denying public figures any remedy for egregious misrepresentations.”
Lawyers for CNN the Supreme Court to reject Dershowitz’s appeal. They told the justices that Dershowitz’s lawsuit targeted protected opinions or at least commentators’ interpretations of his arguments.
They also warned that New York Times v. Sullivan is a “cornerstone of modern constitutional law,” and overruling it would do lasting damage.
“The actual-malice standard is a pillar of modern First Amendment jurisprudence that safeguards the free speech necessary for self-determination in a democratic society while still ensuring effective recourse for public-official and public-figure plaintiffs,” CNN’s lawyers wrote.
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