Under the libel laws of most states, what you are saying would mitigate damages but would not eliminate them. It might take punitive damages off the table, but compensatory and actual damages would still be in play. The damage done to the plaintiff's reputation was amplified by its publication. That's why state libel laws make the publication liable for printing a false statement, even if they attribute it to a source. Again, Times turns this logic on its head, when it applies; all that I'm saying is that it likely does not apply in this case.

And, as I explained earlier, the prosecutor (if indeed his statement was false) is probably protected by the concept of absolute or at least qualified privilege. So, the plaintiff's only recourse would be against the paper.

This is probably all going to be academic, because I suspect that the A News will issue a retraction and that the potential plaintiff will not file suit. But, I'm explaining what could happen if a good libel lawyer was employed in this case. A retraction, by the way, does not eliminate liability under state libel laws, but it does serve to mitigate damages.

BTW, the courts have backed off the extreme application of Times in cases like Cantrell where all you had to do to become a "public figure" was to be involved in a newsworthy story. One Supreme Court justice later referred to this as "bootstrap logic."

Good, pithy summary, L.C. It took me a lot more words to say what you did. Thanks!

No, you are not reading what L.C. said correctly. If the statement was quoted correctly but is false in what it asserts, and if Drake is not a public figure, then the paper is potentially liable for printing it. The falseness of the statement is in what it asserts, not in whether it was quoted accurately. Now, again, if he was a public figure, this all changes and the assertion not only has to be false but the plaintiff has to prove that it was made either knowing it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity.

Absolutely correct, C Money. This hypothetical discussion is based on several premises. One is that Drake didn't plead guilty to stealing. Another is that the statement about "stealing" was made by prosecutor and that it is false. Obviously, if Drake pleaded guilty to theft, there is no defamation case. The issue being discussed is if Drake has a case against the paper if they quoted the prosecutor correctly and the prosecutor's statement was false. It would be a provably true statement if Drake had pleaded guilty to that charge. It's my understanding that he did not plead guilty of theft but to other charges.

There are four potential fact situations:
1. The paper quoted the prosecutor correctly, and the statement was true.
2. The paper quoted the prosecutor correctly, but the statement was not true.
3. The paper quoted the prosecutor incorrectly, and the resultung statement was not true.
4. The paper quoted the prosecutor incorrectly, but the resulting statement was true.

We can ignore 1 and 4 since truth is an absolute defense. In situation number 3, if Drake is a public figure, he would need to show actual malice to prevail. Since I don't believe he is, I don't think that is required. This is the fact situation where "actual malice" can come up.

Situation #2 raises other issues. Is the prosecutor liable? Probably not, if the statement was made on the course of his duties. Is the paper shielded because they reported the quote accurately? I'm outrunning my coverage, but I think it may depend on the exact wording. It also may depend on how they react when they learn that the statement was false.

In either #2 or #3, a quick retraction would mitigate any damages.

I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying here. It's my understanding, and I could be wrong about this, that Drake's guilty plea and the indictment did not include an allegation of theft and that this charge was sort of freelanced by the prosecutor.

These state libel laws have been in place since colonial times and the news media are still standing. Our libel laws were a major departure from English libel laws where the standard was "the greater the truth the greater libel." That's very curious to our way of thinking, The idea was that if you libeled the crown or a nobleman and he could prove the falsity of the statement his reputation would not suffer much damage but a true statement could damage his reputation irreversibly. In the colonies we decided the opposite: "Truth in all its particulars" was deemed a complete defense against libel.

I appreciate your perspective.

You might be right that privilege might not apply in these circumstances if it's a qualified privilege but not if it's an absolute privilege.

OCF, let's just wait until the civil court rules then, however you need to quit doubling down on your erroneous belief here. The sad part is you have professed to be a journalist! Under your line of thinking every paper in America would be bankrupt at the number of judgements they would have against them. Yet, many thousands are still in business.

Note that all reference to that has been removed from the article. Applying the same logic which you used to make the statement above, papers who report accurately, and which report verifiable facts do not retract them. The fact that they did retract them causes me to believe that either the reporter misunderstood the Prosecutor, or that the prosecutor misrepresented the situation, but at the end of the day, we really don't know.

I agree that Drake clearly pled guilty to something, and that having done so, he can't later deny it. What I don't know is exactly what he pled guilty to. The comments here show why a retraction does not eliminate liability for libel, and only mitigates them. It's a human trait to form opinions quickly based on initial information, and then to be slow to change them.

That's what I was trying to say. There's no way a newspaper can be held accountable for reporting something someone else said.

He did not plead guilty of stealing and the original article did not say he pled guilty of stealing. It was the prosecutors quote that mentioned stealing and the restitution was for the stealing. That was clearly printed in the article.

If they misquoted the prosecutor, it's a whole other story. They could be held liable for that, possibly both by the prosecutor and the defendant. Malice is not necessary except for public figures. But, proving that the an incorrect quote caused damage to the person's reputation, especially if it was corrected quickly, still could be difficult.