New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · ¶62

This proposition has disquieting implications for criticism of governmental conduct. For good reason, “no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.” City of Chicago v. Tribune Co., 307 Ill. 595, 601,139 N. E. 86, 88 (1923). The present proposition would sidestep this obstacle by transmuting criticism of government, however impersonal it may seem on its face, into personal criticism, and hence potential libel, of the officials of whom the government is composed. 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 respondent 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…

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 376, at 254 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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