If neither factual error nor defamatory content suffices to remove the constitutional shield from
criticism of official conduct, the combination of the two elements is no less inadequate. This is the
lesson to be drawn from the great controversy over the Sedition Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 596, which first
crystallized a national awareness of the central meaning of the First Amendment. See Levy, Legacy of Suppression
(1960). . . .
Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the
day in the court of history. Fines levied in its prosecution were repaid by Act of Congress on the ground
that it was unconstitutional. . . .
There is no force in respondent’s argument that the constitutional limitations implicit in the history
of the Sedition Act apply only to Congress and not to the States. . . . [T]his distinction was eliminated
with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment and the application to the States of the First Amendment’s
restrictions. See, e.g., Gitlow v. New York. . . .
. . . A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions
—and to do so on pain of libel judgments virtually unlimited in amount—leads to a comparable "self-censorship."
Allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, does not mean that
only false speech will be deterred. . . .
The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from
recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the
statement was made with "actual malice"—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless
disregard of whether it was false or not.
Such a privilege for criticism of official conduct is appropriately analogous to the protection accorded
a public official when he is sued for libel by a private citizen. In Barr v. Matteo,
this Court held the utterance of a federal official to be absolutely privileged if made "within
the outer perimeter" of his duties. The States accord the same immunity to statements of their highest
officers, although some differentiate their lesser officials and qualify the privilege they enjoy. But
all hold that all officials are protected unless actual malice can be proved. . . .
We hold today that the Constitution delimits a State’s power to award damages for libel in actions brought
by public officials against critics of their official conduct. Since this is such an action, the rule
requiring proof of actual malice is applicable. . . .
Applying these standards, we consider that the proof presented to show actual malice lacks the convincing
clarity which the constitutional standard demands, and hence that it would not constitutionally sustain
the judgment for respondent under the proper rule of law. . . .
. . . There is no legal alchemy by which a State may thus create the cause of action that would otherwise
be denied for a publication which, as respon- dent himself said of the advertisement, "reflects not
only on me but on the other Commissioners and the community." Raising as it does the possibility
that a goodfaith critic of government will be penalized for his criticism, the proposition relied on by
the Alabama courts strikes at the very center of the constitutionally protected area of free expression.
We hold that such a proposition may not constitutionally be utilized to establish that an otherwise impersonal
attack on governmental operations was a libel of an official responsible for those operations. . . .
Reversed and remanded. |
