It should be easier to sue media organizations for defamation, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said on June 27 as he dissented from the court’s decision not to take up a defamation case. Former President Donald Trump has also said the legal bar is currently set too high in media defamation lawsuits.
Thomas’s comments came in response to the court’s decision not to accept an appeal brought by Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based D. James Kennedy Ministries, which sued the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for defamation for including it in its controversial public database of so-called hate groups. The SPLC is a well-heeled far-left public interest law firm and publisher of newsletters.
