Mississippi Judge Orders Newspaper To Remove Editorial Criticizing City Council

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

There is a chilling case of censorship out of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where a court ordered a local newspaper to delete a publication that the city claimed was libelous. 

It is not clear that The Clarksdale Press Register editorial by publisher Floyd Ingram did constitute libel. Ultimately, the city backed down, but the actions of both the local officials and the court remain troubling.

Ingram’s article, “Secrecy, Deception Erode Public Trust,” criticized the mayor and city council of Clarksdale for the lack of public notice before it passed a resolution to establish a 2 percent tax on retailers selling alcohol, tobacco, hemp, and marijuana.

Ironically, Ingram supported the “sin tax” to support “public safety, crime prevention, and continuing economic growth in the city.” 

However, he objected that, before the government “sent [the] resolution to the Mississippi Legislature,” it “fail[ed] to go to the public with details about this idea.” 

He added,  “Maybe [city commissioners] just want a few nights in Jackson to lobby for this idea—at public expense.”

The city went ballistic. 

The city council voted unanimously to sue the Press-Register for libel. Mayor Chuck Espy declared “I would like for the record to reflect, even though I did not vote, I am in full support, and I am fully vested in the decisions that the four commissioners unanimously said.”

Of course, these politicians could set the record straight by simply responding publicly to the allegations. Interestingly, the clerk appeared to confirm that the public notice on the resolution was a snafu. During the litigation, the clerk confirmed that “I customarily e-mail the media any Notice of Special Meeting. However, I inadvertently failed to do so.”

So, the premise of the column was confirmed. While I understand the sensitivity over the suggestion of a desire to travel to Jackson, that line is clearly protected opinion.

On February 13, the city council voted unanimously to sue the Press-Register for libel over its editorial. “I would like for the record to reflect,” added Mayor Chuck Espy, “even though I did not vote, I am in full support, and I am fully vested in the decisions that the four commissioners unanimously said.”

Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Chancery Court of Hinds County ruled in favor of a temporary restraining order that required the paper to “remove the article…from their online portals and make it inaccessible to the public.”

Epsy celebrated the decision, posting “THANK GOD! The City of Clarksdale WON today! The judge ruled in our favor that a newspaper cannot tell a malicious lie and not be held liable….Thank You, God, for a judicial system.”

The role of the government in bringing a libel action is particularly controversial and chilling. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court observed that “for good reason, ‘no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.’”

The Court added that such a role “has disquieting implications for criticism of governmental conduct…A State cannot under the First and Fourteenth Amendments award damages to a public official for defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves ‘actual malice’—that the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false.”

The actions of both the city council and the court run counter to this precedent, and in my view, they could have been appealed successfully.

H/T: Joe Lancaster