Former Alabama Basketball Player Wins Defamation Suit Against NY Times

An Alabama jury ruled on Aug. 20 that The New York Times defamed ex-college basketball player Kai Spears when the newspaper falsely reported in 2023 that he was present during a fatal shooting in Tuscaloosa.

Spears, who was then a walk-on basketball player for the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide, filed a defamation suit against the newspaper in May 2023 after it falsely reported that he was one of the passengers in a car involved in the Jan. 15, 2023, shooting that killed 23-year-old mother Jamea Harris.

After a nine-day trial, the eight-person jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama sided with Spears and awarded him $9.25 million in damages.

Spears’s attorney Matt Glover welcomed the ruling in a statement, saying he believed it would help improve journalism across the country.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the NY Times, said the company was disappointed by the jury’s decision to hold it liable for he called “an honest mistake” and will review its legal options.

“We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The case stemmed from a 2023 article that identified Spears as being present during the shooting, citing an anonymous source.

Spears said in his complaint that the newspaper’s false reporting had affected his education and his ability to advance in basketball. He also said the false statements would permanently associate him with the murder.

The newspaper later issued an editor’s note, saying that its article “misidentified the person who was in the car with Brandon Miller when the shooting occurred” and that it regretted the error.

“Based on information from a person familiar with the case, the article erroneously identified that person as Kai Spears, a freshman basketball player. After the article was initially published, Alabama’s athletic director and Spears’s father denied that Spears was present,” the editor’s note said.

The newspaper “included those responses and reviewed its reporting, but did not conclude that any other change to the article was warranted at that time,” it added.

The newspaper said its editors assigned further reporting after Spears filed the suit, which “determined that the other person at the scene was not Spears.”

A NY Times article reporting on the verdict Thursday said the newspaper “had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than 50 years.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.