Make No Law

The case that built modern free-press protection, told by the reporter who understood it best. New York Times v. Sullivan held that public figures cannot win libel suits over honest error about their official conduct, and so freed the press to report on power without fear of ruin. Lewis traces how the First Amendment came to mean what it now means, and reminds the reader that the freedom was not given but won, in a particular case, against real resistance.

The reporter who made the Supreme Court legible to ordinary readers and won two Pulitzer Prizes doing it. Gideon's Trumpet follows a single handwritten petition from a Florida prison cell to the ruling that guaranteed counsel to anyone facing felony charges. Make No Law tells the story of the case that built modern free-press protection. He showed how a great right reaches one actual person.