Trump pal Steve Wynn and perhaps even Trump himself (he’s got a whole lot on his plate today!) are butt-hurt tonight. Wynn (who wouldn’t be Trump’s pal except for all the huge donations to conservatives and Trump) didn’t like an article written about him in a Nevada newspaper. So he sued. And lost. Alas, he’s mega rich and pushed the matter all the way up to SCOTUS and given Trump’s own desire to see libel laws loosened so HE can win judgements Court watchers were quietly keeping an eye on Wynn’s case. Well, it’s official. SCOTUS has formally rejected Cert. In other words they said ‘Sorry dude but we aren’t going to revisit the Sullivan ruling and the lower court ruling stands. Deal with it.’
This is a bit of good news when we really need any good news we can get. I wonder if this will help major news outlets Trumpty is targeting grow back some spine and tell him to get stuffed instead of caving to his demands for money for ‘defaming’ him. We’ll see. In the meantime, the First Amendment has again held. This brief article from Axios lays out the basics of what’s gone down. Wynn faced allegations of sexual misconduct back in the 1970s. In 2018 the Associated Press published an article about the matter so Wynn filed a lawsuit demanding damages. Nevada’s Supreme Court dismissed the case so Wynn appealed to SCOTUS. And, as I said SCOTUS just nailed shut the coffin on Wynn. By declining Cert (refusing to hear the case which only takes four Justices voting to do so) the case is dismissed. Over and done.
Many conservatives, including and especially Trump don’t like the case law on this. However in a landmark 1964 ruling the then SCOTUS established the standard under which government officials and other famous people could win damages in court over defamation. The Sullivan ruling, NYT v Sullivan established the standard that actual Malice, a reckless disregard for facts and/or the truth was required. Honest factual mistakes, or opinions that someone didn’t like weren’t enough. One would have to prove a news outlet knew what they were reporting was wrong and defamatory when they reported it. It’s a high bar which many have tried and failed to clear. SCOTUS has left that high bar in place and while the Roberts Court doesn’t seem as enamored of precedent as prior courts on this one they seem to think Sullivan is still good law.
That doesn’t mean Trump and other conservatives won’t try again. The linked article quotes First Amendment activist Kerry Goldberg:
“The actual malice standard … exists to give even more breath when you’re talking about famous people, people with power in government, or people just with more power in society,”
“The bar is intentionally high to dissuade people from ever filing these lawsuits,” he added.
The linked Axios article notes their own Sam Baker pointing out a disquieting fact – that there exists with some Justices a desire to overturn Sullivan. However either the votes aren’t there or they haven’t (yet) been presented with the right case to do it. Let’s hope it’s the former – that the votes, despite a 6-3 conservative majority simply aren’t there. I take some hope from something I pointed out earlier, which that only four of the six conservatives would have had to vote to hear the case. It would seem there aren’t even four GOP Justices willing to go out on this particular limb. Baker also notes that SCOTUS has had multiple chances in recent years to take another look at the Sullivan ruling and is leaving it alone.
I mentioned earlier that Trump is having a bad day so this might fly completely under his radar. However at some point, probably in some late-night weekend rant during a golf trip to Mar a Lago he’ll cut loose on SCOTUS. He does after all have his own lawsuits in the works against media outlets that don’t afford him the unquestioned worship he believes to be his birthright.
For now though the system has held. Let’s celebrate good news when we can.
**********Zoomers, if you have any spare change between the cushions, we could use it. We’re in a rough season now with half the country depressed and a lot of people tuning out from politics. In all events, thank you for coming here to read. We’ll get through this together, I have complete faith. When I do not know. Ursula**********
“One would have to prove a news outlet knew what they were reporting was wrong and defamatory when they reported it.”
As was the case when FAUX lied about the 2020 election being stolen and defamed the companies who supplied the voting machines, I’m still a little upset with Dominion for settling, they had FAUX by their hangy down things. Think how much better a world without FAUX would be. Most of those who promoted Cheetos’ false election claims have been made to pay Smartmatic and/or Dominion for their lies, but the Smartmatic/FAUX lawsuit does still live.
Denis, would you clarify something you wrote about SCOTUS refusing to hear this case?
You wrote: By declining Cert (refusing to hear the case which only takes four Justices voting to do so) the case is dismissed.
As I read the part in parentheses, you said: It only takes four Justices to refuse to hear the case.
I reordered the words from “Refusing to hear the case only takes four Justices.”
If that is what you meant, you have it backward. It only takes four Justices to vote to hear a case. If all nine Justices vote, it takes six Justices to refuse to hear the case.
Are we agreed that SCOTUS will take a case even if only four Justices wish to do so? If we are agreed, then I misread your parenthetical explanation of declining Cert.
Thank you for mentioning this – I didn’t communicate clearly and for that I apologize to readers. Only four Justices need to vote to grant Cert (have SCOTUS put the case on the docket then hear arguments and ultimately render a decision) which is something people often overlook. More bluntly, it shouldn’t be assumed that SCOTUS deciding to hear a case means a majority of the court thinks it should!
What matters in this case is that conservatives, despite there being SIX hard-core, Federalist Society groomed Justices couldn’t come up with even FOUR members that wanted to take up this case. Knowing that denying Cert would end it once and for all – in effect telling the conservatives who brought the case to “Suck it – you lose!” I find that instructive. As I said I have no doubt Thomas and Alito wanted to hear the case and create some new legal ‘la-la-land’ fantasy out of nothing but the empty parts of space. However they needed two more to at least vote to hear the damned thing. I wonder if they got even ONE to do so. We’ll never know of course but we DO know they needed two more for a total of four just to hear the case. And couldn’t get it.
For the record another surprising piece of news has come from SCOTUS today. The conservative majority has used every chance to expand gun goober’s rights for a couple of decades now. Hell, they even overturned a ban on bump-stocks that effectively turn semi-auto assault weapons into automatic ones that can empty a thirty round clip in three seconds. The Biden administration implemented a ban on “ghost guns/kits” which for those who don’t know are guns built out of parts that someone can acquire. Parts which have no serial numbers on anything and therefore can’t be traced. Frankly I expected SCOTUS to agree with the plaintiffs in their ruling but instead they backed the Biden administration ban, saying ghost guns fall under the classifcation of actual guns and can be regulated under the law like any other firearms.
That’s two things in one week that make me wonder if those on the Court not named Thomas and Alito are finally realizing the “Trumpty Monster” they created last year is out of fucking control. We all know the time is coming when they will issue a ruling and Trump tells them ‘I don’t care what YOU say – I’m gonna do what I want and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it!’ All that COULD have been avoided if they’d done their fucking jobs and followed their oaths of office and to the Constitution. They could have denied Cert on the kick-ass appellate court ruling by the DC Circuit and Trump would have gone on trial and been convicted on J6 felonies last spring. Cannon was always going to dismiss the National Security charges down in FL so it’s unlikely SCOTUS would have gotten to weigh in. Had the issue of the validity of the Special Counsel law gotten a ruling from the 4th Circuit Cannon would have gone ahead right then and dismissed the case rendering an apppeal to SCOTUS moot. Technically prosecutors could have tried but that case was decided (wrongly) the second it was put in Cannon’s hands.
I’ll bet that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett and especially Roberts are terrified that Thomas or Alito will either resign (or die – they’re both in their 70s) and CANNON is Trump’s pick! Talk about a gut-check for Senate Republicans. Most would be as horrified as the four Justices I cited but enough to defy Trump? I strongly doubt it and frankly Trump knows they won’t defy him.
So again, I think Trump will sometimes get favorable rulings from SCOTUS but not as often as everyone assumes. They will try to pick the right battles to carve pieces out of Trump to weaken him but something is going to come up where he simply defies them and then all bets are off. On everything!