Liberty Counsel filed a reply brief to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the Dustin Inman Society (DIS) and its late founder and president, D.A. King, appealing a wrongly dismissed defamation lawsuit it brought against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

In King et al. v. Southern Poverty Law Center, DIS is suing the SPLC for improperly labeling it an “anti-immigrant hate group” in its annual Intelligence Reports published in 2018-2021, and for falsely stating that King focused “on vilifying all immigrants” because of his advocacy for legislative reform to curtail illegal immigration. A federal district court denied access to the SPLC’s internal editorial processes (emails, policies, methodologies) to see how it concluded DIS was a “hate group” and then dismissed the lawsuit faulting DIS for not having enough evidence to prove its claims.

Liberty Counsel requests the Eleventh Circuit reverse the lower court judgment and allow the case to proceed to the discovery phase and trial arguing there is “sufficient evidence” where a jury could find actual malice—the constitutional standard for defamation involving public figures.

In the reply brief, Liberty Counsel asserts that actual malice can be proven though circumstantial evidence, including financial incentives, ideological bias, hostility toward opposing organizations, and evidence that the SPLC reached is defamatory conclusion before completing a full investigation.

While the SPLC is attempting to narrow the actual malice inquiry down to a single employee who approved the later redesignations of DIS as a “hate group,” Liberty Counsel argues the SPLC is disregarding the knowledge and actions of other SPLC personnel over the years who researched, investigated, and originally approved the hate label for DIS.

SPLC’s strategy, which the lower court erroneously favored, is to rely on the “self-serving declaration” of a single employee that the label was accurate, which cannot be enough to insulate the rest of the organization’s decision-making process from scrutiny, wrote Liberty Counsel.

In addition, SPLC argues its “hate group” label is a “nonactionable opinion.” However, the brief notes that the SPLC considers itself “a premier investigative organization that offers expert analysis” and presents its “hate map” and intelligence reports as factual findings to the media, public, and law enforcement.

“It doesn’t market its ‘hate map’ or its ‘extremist profiles’ as the musings of civil rights lawyers. It distributes them as factual investigative reports,” wrote Liberty Counsel. “An organization that holds its designations out to the FBI, newsrooms, and the public as the product of investigation and expertise cannot, when sued for defamation, suddenly recharacterize the same designations as non-verifiable opinion.”

By allowing the case to proceed to discovery to reveal SPLC’s editorial process, a jury can then decide whether SPLC’s hate label characterization is factual or defamatory, concluded Liberty Counsel.

The SPLC’s hate list is connected with real-world tragedies. On August 15, 2012, Floyd Corkins intended to commit mass murder at the headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, Corkins was stopped by the security guard, who was shot in the process. Corkins confessed to the FBI that he was motivated by the “hate map” on the SPLC website that listed FRC as a “hate group.” In 2013, Corkins was sentenced to 25 years in prison. 

In June 2017, James Hodgkinson shot Rep. Steve Scalise, Zach Barth, a staff member for Congressman Roger Williams, former Congressional staff member Matt Mika and two U.S. Capitol Police officers at a practice for a charity baseball game. Hodgkinson died of his wounds after first responders successfully stopped his rampage. The SPLC admitted that Hodgkinson “liked” the SPLC on Facebook. In posts on its website dating back to 2014, SPLC had repeatedly implied that Scalise associated with white supremacists and other groups the organization had deemed “hate groups.”

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Falsely labeling organizations with whom you disagree as ‘hate groups’ is irresponsible, dangerous, and deadly. An organization that touts its ‘investigative reports’ as factual cannot suddenly claim they are opinions when challenged in court. True discovery in this case is imperative to meet the legal standard to discern the states of mind of the persons who bore responsibility behind the ‘hate group’ designation. ‘Hate group’ labels carry real-world consequences because third parties often treat them as authoritative judgments. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s editorial decision-making needs scrutiny, transparency, and accountability. The district court ruling should be reversed.”