New York Times was rendered in November, 1960. Write a news story for the next day's Montomgery paper reporting on the verdict, the main events of the trial, and the contentions of the parties at the trial. .
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STATE LIBEL LAW DISSES NEW YORK TIMES: TOP COP WINS .
The mighty have fallen! Yesterday afternoon, in a little over two hours, unanimous jurors found that The New York Times did not have First Amendment constitutional protection from libel suits when it printed statements that contained factual errors that damaged the official's reputation. The jurors awarded the police commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, $500,000 in damages.
The March 29, 1960 edition of the New York Times ran a full-page advertisement entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices", paid by followers of the civil rights movement and four Negro clergymen. The ad asked for donations to support three causes: the student movement, the voting-rights movement and the legal defense of the Negro Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the head of the campaign to remove segregation from our classrooms and public publics.
The ad referred to police crackdowns in Montgomery, saying that the students at the State College Campus were "being met by an unprecedented wave of terror." The ad described the alleged "ringing" by police at the campus after a student protest, that students were unfairly treated and were "starved into submission" when the police padlocked the college dinning hall. The students were ordered by the police to sang "My Country "Tis of Thee" (in actuality they sang the "Star-Spangled Banner"). .
Sullivan claimed that the mention of police conduct, including the "starving the students into submission" reflected badly on him ("of and concerning" him --in the words of the Alabama libel statute) in light of his connection to the police force. Moreover, he claimed that the factual inaccuracies were committed with malice and were defamatory and asked for a retraction.
