Judge shielded SPLC from scrutiny in groundbreaking defamation case
A district court judge repeatedly shielded the Southern Poverty Law Center from scrutiny during a defamation case and then dismissed a conservative group’s case because it “lacked evidence,” according to the conservative group’s attorneys.
Attorneys for the estate of Donald A. King and his organization, the Dustin Inman Society, filed an 81-page brief Thursday asking a higher court to reconsider the case. They claimed that Judge Corey L. Maze of the Northern District of Alabama erred in rejecting their attempts to obtain evidence proving the SPLC acted with actual malice in branding the society an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
“The case was decided by stacking four errors,” Harry Mihet, chief litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel and one of DIS’s attorneys, told The Daily Signal in a Friday phone call. “Cutting off discovery, ignoring what the SPLC already knew, twisting the legal standard, and stretching the single-publication rule, until the plaintiffs had no case left.
“And so the case was decided, not because there is no evidence available, but because the court did not allow any evidence to be gathered, to show that the SPLC acted with actual malice.”
“The case is really about a simple principle: you can’t block discovery, and then win because there’s no evidence,” he added.
Critics say the SPLC routinely smears mainstream conservative and Christian groups by placing them on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, sued the center for defamation after it branded his Georgia-based organization—which opposes illegal immigration—an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
The SPLC claims that “The Dustin Inman Society, led by D.A. King, poses as an organization concerned about immigration issues, yet focuses on vilifying all immigrants.” In 2011, the SPLC stated that the society was not a “hate group,” but it reversed course and applied the label in 2018. The society’s board includes legal immigrants, and King’s adopted sister is herself a legal immigrant.
Judge W. Keith Watkins of the Middle District of Alabama allowed the defamation case to move forward in 2023, but Judge Maze later took the case, and rejected the society’s discovery motions.
Alleged Errors
The society’s lawyers claim that Maze violated precedent when he denied the society’s request for documents related to SPLC’s internal policies for designating “hate groups,” SPLC’s communications about the society, and materials concerning SPLC’s methodology as applied to other groups in the immigration context.
The denial of discovery left behind “a record stripped of the evidence on which defamation plaintiffs depend,” they said, and then the judge “granted summary judgment because that evidence was missing.”
The society also claims Maze erred by finding that the statute of limitations prevented the society from obtaining documents related to the SPLC’s decision to brand the society a “hate group” in 2018 and beforehand.
“The statute of limitations bars stale claims; it does not bar relevant evidence,” the filing states.
The society also faulted the judge for using “wrong legal standards” to analyze the defamation claims.
Maze ruled that the society did not have a defamation claim because the SPLC’s definition of “anti-immigrant” meant animus against illegal immigrants, as well as legal ones. But the society’s lawyers say Maze took the SPLC’s definition on faith, rather than asking how a third-party would view the “anti-immigrant” accusation.
“A defendant’s self-serving testimony that it believed in the truth of its statements ‘cannot, by itself, defeat summary judgment,’” the brief states, citing precedent.
Finally, the judge allegedly shielded the SPLC by finding that the Alabama Supreme Court would view the SPLC’s repeated attack on DIS as a single publication, dating only to a time outside the statute of limitations.
The society’s lawyers noted that the Alabama Supreme Court has never ruled in a situation quite like this one, and the single-publication rule arguably does not apply.
“The ‘no evidence’ conclusion did not reflect any weakness in [the society’s] case,” the brief argues. “It reflected the cumulative force of four rulings that made the case nearly impossible to prove.”
Why Does This Matter?
The SPLC has faced renewed scrutiny after the assassination of Charlie Kirk last year. The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, and it now publishes a “hate map” that includes conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC added Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, to the “hate map” in May.
In 2012, a terrorist used the “hate map” to target the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C.
The SPLC condemned both the Kirk assassination and the attack on FRC, but it has kept both groups on the “hate map.”
Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the bureau had formally severed all ties with the SPLC, which he called a “partisan smear machine.”