Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf
Page Number: 41.0

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

1 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 22–138 
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BILLY RAYMOND COUNTERMAN, PETITIONER v. 
COLORADO 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF 
COLORADO 

[June 27, 2023] 

JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting. 

  I  join  JUSTICE  BARRETT’s  dissent  in  full.    I  write  sepa-
rately  to  address  the  majority’s  surprising  and  misplaced 
reliance on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 
(1964).  In New York Times, this Court held that the First 
Amendment  bars  public  figures  from  recovering  damages
for defamation unless they can show that the statement at
issue  was  made  with  “ ‘actual  malice’—that  is,  with 
knowledge  that  it  was  false  or  with  reckless  disregard  of 
whether it was false or not.”  Id., at 280.  Like the majority’s 
decision today, “New York Times and the Court’s decisions 
extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as
constitutional  law.”  McKee  v.  Cosby,  586  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring in denial of certiorari) (slip 
op., at 2).  Instead of simply applying the First Amendment 
as it was understood at the time of the Founding, “the Court
fashioned its own ‘ “federal rule[s]” ’ by balancing the ‘com-
peting values at stake in defamation suits.’ ”  Ibid. (quoting 
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 334, 348 (1974)); 
see also Bose Corp. v.  Consumers  Union of United States, 
Inc.,  466  U. S.  485,  501–502  (1984)  (acknowledging  that
“the rule enunciated in the New York Times case” is “largely
a judge-made rule of law,” the “content” of which is “given 
meaning through the evolutionary process of common-law 
adjudication”).    “The  constitutional  libel  rules  adopted  by