Make no law
Subtitle: the Sullivan case and the First Amendment
By: Anthony Lewis.
Edition: 1st Vintage Books ed.
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 1992
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 356
Subjects: Sullivan, L. B. -- Trials, litigation, etc.; New York Times Company -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Libel and slander -- United States.; Freedom of the press -- United States.; Press law -- United States.
Description: Publisher's description: The First Amendment puts it this way: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Yet, in 1960, a city official in Montgomery, Alabama, sued The New York Times for libel -- and was awarded $500,000 by a local jury -- because the paper had published an ad critical of Montgomery's brutal response to civil rights protests. The centuries of legal precedent behind the Sullivan case and the U.S. Supreme Court's historic reversal of the original verdict are expertly chronicled in this gripping and wonderfully readable book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning legal journalist Anthony Lewis. It is our best account yet of a case that redefined what newspapers, and ordinary citizens, can print or say.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Originally published: New York : Random House, c1991.