Northern District of Alabama Federal Judge Corey Maze has dismissed a conservative nonprofit’s defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center, reversing a previous judge’s theory of the case brought by the late Georgia activist D.A. King. The founder of the Marietta-based Dustin Inman Society sued the left-wing organization center for defamation after it branded his society —which supports enforcement of immigration laws and opposes open borders— an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
Judge W. Keith Watkins of the Middle District of Alabama allowed the defamation case to move forward in 2023 but, unfortunately for King, Maze later assumed the case. After the legal process of discovery, Maze decided most of King’s claims fell outside the statute of limitations, and that the Georgian further failed to prove the center acted with “actual malice” in re-publishing the “hate group” accusation. (Although King passed away last year, his estate is a plaintiff in the case.)
Harry Mihet, chief litigation counsel for Liberty Counsel and one of King’s attorneys, slams Maze. He told The Daily Signal:
“I think the first judge who looked at this issue got it exactly right and the court currently got it exactly wrong. The first judge looked at this in careful detail and nothing’s changed since. Whether something is time barred is a matter of law, so that should not have been affected by the facts in discovery.”
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