Legal Defense Fund Ask High Court Ruling in Police Defamation Case

Press Release
January 22, 1969

Cite this item

Legal Defense Fund Ask High Court Ruling in Police Defamation Case preview

Document text

The following text has been generated automatically during the document scanning process. It may contain errors, omissions, or incorrect formatting. Please refer to the PDF document if this text is not usable.

Download

By downloading, publishing, or reusing the Materials outside of the Website, you hereby confirm and attest that you have read and agree to the LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use linked below. We draw your attention to the following:

For those Materials owned by LDF, your use of the Material outside the Site is solely for one or more of the following (the “Permitted Purposes”):

Non-commercial research and private study;
Teaching, scholarship and instruction (including distance learning);
Non-commercial print and non-commercial online use;
Criticism, comment or news reporting; or
For people with visual disabilities (See Section 121 of the Copyright Act).
For those Materials not owned by LDF you understand that:
- It is your responsibility to determine whether the way you plan to use the materials falls within the copyright exception of Fair Use.
- For any use outside of Fair Use, it is your responsibility to seek and obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders.

LDF hereby grants you the right to use LDF owned Materials for the Permitted Purposes without seeking further permission from LDF.

If you publish or redistribute any Materials (including excerpts and quotes), you must include a credit line and/or proper citation to the source of the Material. However, you may not use the name of LDF in any manner which creates any false association between you and LDF or that incorrectly implies any sponsorship or endorsement of you by LDF.

NOTICE: Uses that do not comply with these Terms or that do not fall under Fair Use (or another exception) may make you liable for copyright infringement.

Read the full LDF Archival Collection Terms of Use Here.

I agree to the terms and conditions for use of this content.

If you would like to use this content in other ways, contact us at .

Police Defamation Case in Wilmington, Delaware

Collection
- Press Releases
Creator
- LDF
Taxonomy
Identifier
- 37b7a040-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

Cite this item

Press Releases, Volume 5. Legal Defense Fund Ask High Court Ruling in Police Defamation Case, 1969. 37b7a040-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/45546bff-650d-40f1-a515-a10795713307/legal-defense-fund-ask-high-court-ruling-in-police-defamation-case. Accessed December 04, 2025.

Copied!

    ide
, 

President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELE! Diecaeel 

egal efense jund 
Jack Greenberg 

Director, Public Relations 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 
J DeV 

NO Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 
pes geyabt RIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

FOR PRESS RELEASE 

January 22, 1969 

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND ASK HIGH COURT 

RULING IN POLICE DEFAMATION CASE 

--The U.S. Supreme Court today was asked to rule 

te citizen can be held liable 

rutality incident. 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 

on the question of whether 2 priva 

in a defamation suit for reporting 4 police b 

The question was raised in a petition filed by the NAACP Legal 

Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. on pehalf of a Negro, Joseph 

B. Jackson of Wilmington, Delaware, who made such a report. 

In a letter to the Delaware police commissioner and the FBI, 

Jackson reported that a police sargeant ordered him out of his 

car, painfully handcuffed him, and knocked him to the ground. 

The accused police officer, Joseph F- Filliben, thereupon 

_ filed a defamation suit against Jackson. 

Despite a lower court ruling that Filliben's charge was without 

sufficient evidence, the Delaware Supreme court ruled that Jackson 

could be held liable in the suit if the charges contained in the 

letter were proved false. 

LDF attorneys contend that Jackson's report was protected under 

the First amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

o submit to further lengthy and 

They say that to force him t 
of coerced settle- 

expensive litigation, with its inherent dangers 

ment would be to cast a chill on that Amendment. 

-30- 

NOTEL Though the LDF was once 4 part of the National Association 

for the advancement of Colored People (NAACP) it now is a 

separate organization, 
even though the initials are retained 

in its title. 

Eds

Copyright notice

This collection and the tools to navigate it (the “Collection”) are available to the public for general educational and research purposes, as well as to preserve and contextualize the history of the content and materials it contains (the “Materials”). Like other archival collections, such as those found in libraries, LDF owns the physical source Materials that have been digitized for the Collection; however, LDF does not own the underlying copyright or other rights in all items and there are limits on how you can use the Materials. By accessing and using the Material, you acknowledge your agreement to the Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Materials.

Additional info

To the extent that LDF includes information about the Materials’ origins or ownership or provides summaries or transcripts of original source Materials, LDF does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of such information, transcripts or summaries, and shall not be responsible for any inaccuracies.

Legal Defense Fund Ask High Court Ruling in Police Defamation Case

Collection

Creator

Taxonomy

Identifier

Cite this item

Copyright notice

Additional info

You may also be interested in