Supreme Court Declines to Hear Alan Dershowitz’s $300 Million CNN Defamation Case

Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP

The Supreme Court declined to hear lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s bid to revive his $300 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, leaving intact lower court rulings in the network’s favor.

The case stemmed from CNN’s coverage of remarks made by the former Harvard Law professor while serving on President Donald Trump’s legal team during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. Dershowitz claimed the network selectively edited his comments and falsely portrayed his constitutional argument.

A federal judge first dismissed Dershowitz’s claims in 2023, finding he had produced no evidence that CNN acted with “actual malice” required for public figures to prevail in defamation cases under the 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. The 11th Circuit later affirmed that ruling.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, both of whom have previously questioned whether New York Times v. Sullivan should remain the governing standard for defamation suits involving public officials and public figures, dissented from the court’s refusal to hear the case.

In his filing, Dershowitz had urged the court to reconsider the decades-old precedent, arguing that media organizations have become nearly “untouchable” under its protections and wrote that the ruling “has morphed into an impregnable fortress that protects media irresponsibility while denying public figures any remedy for egregious misrepresentations.”

CNN countered that the precedent was a “cornerstone of modern constitutional law.”

“The actual-malice standard is a pillar of modern First Amendment jurisprudence that safeguards the free speech necessary for self-determination in a democratic society while still ensuring effective recourse for public-official and public-figure plaintiffs,” CNN’s lawyers wrote.

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