'NY Times' Wins Libel Case in Ohio

By: Carl Sullivan The New York Times has been thrown for a few losses lately but one "defeat" has now been put in the win column.

Considerable confusion surrounded the outcome of an important libel case this week after some newspapers and their Web sites ran an Associated Press report under the headline "Jury Rules New York Times Libeled Judge." In fact, the Times won the May 23 verdict, as a second version of the wire story correctly stated. The AP issued a correction May 27.

A federal jury ruled last Friday against Ohio Supreme Court Justice Francis Sweeney in his $15 million libel suit against the Times.

The justice sued the newspaper and reporter Fox Butterfield in October 2000 over a story published April 13, 2000. Sweeney claimed the Times story was a defamatory report that falsely connected him to the prosecution of the second trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard in 1966 and suggested that he should have recused himself from a later civil suit filed by Sheppard's son, who wanted a court to declare his father's innocence.

Don Iler, a Cleveland attorney who represented Justice Sweeney in the case, said his client was an assistant prosecutor on juvenile cases in the 1960s who had nothing to do with the Sheppard retrial. Therefore, there was no need for him to recuse himself from the civil case filed by Sheppard's son -- which ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court.

The Times later admitted in an editor's note that the claim of Sweeney's involvement with the 1966 Sheppard case was inaccurate.

The jury found that the Times story did contain false and defamatory information, but wasn't published with "actual malice" -- a requirement for a public official such as Sweeney to win a libel case.

"Given that Justice Sweeney is a public official, he had to prove actual malice," said George Freeman, assistant general counsel for the New York Times Co. "The jury vindicates the work and testimony of our reporter, who made an honest mistake. ... The jury found that he acted honestly and professionally."

Iler is reviewing the verdict, which may be appealed. He said that the bar for proving "actual malice" may have been unfairly raised when the presiding judge, in responding to written questions from the jurors during the deliberation process, expanded the definition of "malice."