Thomas, Gorsuch say Supreme Court should revisit landmark libel ruling

Court Battles Thomas, Gorsuch say Supreme Court should revisit landmark libel ruling by Zach Schonfeld - 06/29/26 9:51 AM ET Link copied by Zach Schonfeld - 06/29/26 9:51 AM ET Link copied

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Justice Clarence Thomas renewed his calls for the Supreme Court to revisit its 1964 landmark decision that makes it difficult to bring defamation suits against public figures.

The conservative justice’s urging came as his colleagues declined to take up an appeal from longtime Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Monday.

Dershowitz petitioned the Supreme Court to revive his defamation lawsuit against CNN, which concerned the network’s coverage of President Trump’s first impeachment trial, hoping it would prompt a watershed moment on libel law.

The justices declined to take it up, leaving in place lower rulings tossing his lawsuit.

Thomas, joined by fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, publicly dissented. They would’ve heard the case to consider making it easier to sue public figures for defamation.

“Instead, the founding generation believed that, if anything, public figures had stronger claims for damages when they were defamed,” Thomas wrote.

Dershowitz, a longtime Harvard law professor known for taking high-profile clients like O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein, sued CNN in 2020 for $300 million over allegations it deliberately distorted comments he made on the Senate floor defending Trump at his first impeachment trial.

Lower courts sided with CNN, agreeing that Dershowitz hadn’t proven actual malice.

That’s the high standard required for public figures to be held liable for defamation under the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 decision, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

“CNN has offered unrefuted evidence that its commentators believed in the truth of their statements about Dershowitz; all of the journalists testified that they believed their statements were fair and accurate. And Dershowitz did not counter that evidence,” an appeals court wrote in its ruling last year.

Dershowitz’s Supreme Court petition urged the justices to re-examine the standard.

“I and others have thus called for reconsideration of the actual-malice standard for public figures,” Thomas noted on Monday.

In 2019, Thomas said so as the court declined an appeal from one of actor Bill Cosby’s accusers.

“We did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified. The States are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm,” Thomas wrote at the time.

He did so again in 2023, when the court turned away a former Senate candidate’s defamation lawsuit against various media outlets.

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