SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas Believes It Should Be Easier To Sue Media For Defamation
June 27, 2022 11:35AM EDT
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 21: Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Clarence Thomas has now served on the Supreme Court for 30 years. He was nominated by former President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and is the second African-American to serve on the high court, following Justice Thurgood Marshall. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas thinks it should be easier to sue media outlets for defamation.
On Monday, the Court declined to hear a case from a Christian nonprofit group that sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for listing it as a ‘hate group’ in their online database.
Thomas disagreed with turning down the case – writing in his dissent that the Court should revisit the legal standards for defamation, which are based on ‘actual malice’.
He says the current laws allow media groups to “cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity”.
Do you think it should be easier to sue the media for defamation? Is it important to have a media that can say what it wants without fear of being shut down by the state?
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