Now that Roy Moore has lost, he can demand his day in court
After weeks of intense and bitter debate, Alabama voters finally rendered a verdict on the political ambitions of Roy Moore, one of the most divisive figures in the history of U.S. politics. Accused by nine women of assaulting or pursuing them when they were girls as young as fourteen, Moore provided a defining moment for voters who had to choose between the moral high ground and the political base. It is now time for a different verdict. As alleged victims began to come forward in the campaign, the former Alabama Chief Justice announced that he would sue The Washington Post for defamation. Now that the campaign is over, Moore can finally prove that he was not lying about either his past or this intent to clear his name.
However, if he sues as promised, he will collide with an infamous case from Alabama from 1964 involving an equally divisive and odious political figure.
For full disclosure, I have been a long-standing critic of Moore — years before any allegations of sexual abuse. Moore was removed from the bench for defying the most basic principles of constitutional law. However, Moore did not take particular offense to being called vehemently anti-homosexual or anti-Muslim. He virtually ran on those labels. Instead he attacked all of these women and witnesses as liars and insisted that he never dated young girls, let alone assaulted them.
Moore’s pledge to sue however seemed less and less believable over the course of the campaign. Such a lawsuit would subject Moore to discovery and depositions on these allegations. Yet, after the women came forward, Moore virtually disappeared from the campaign trail and only sat for a few, low-risk interviews like his interview with a 12-year-old girl. Moore knows that, if he sues, he will not have a starry-eyed middle schooler asking about the job of a Senator, but steely eye litgtators asking about specific allegations of his pursuing young girls when he was a prosecutor in his thirties.
If he sues, Moore would be the latest chapter in a dark history of Alabama defamation actions. Roughly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, where the Court laid out the standard for public officials (and later extended to public figures) in suing critics. In reality, not only would Moore face a daunting challenge in suing The Washington Post under this standard, but the standard was created precisely for this type of politically motivated threat of litigation.
The case focused on an advertisement that appeared in the New York Times referring to the abuses of civil rights marchers and claimed that Martin Luther King had been arrested seven times. (He had been arrested four times.) Although not mentioned, Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan sued for defamation and punitive damages. His lawsuit was part of a pattern of such actions by segregationists to use state courts to bleed Northern media to deter their coverage of the Freedom Marchers. Sullivan won under Alabama law in a highly dubious state preceding that awarded $500,000.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/now-that-roy-moore-has-lost-he-can-demand-his-day-in-court/ar-BBGFvtI?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
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