Paraphrased Article

A federal jury in Alabama has ordered The New York Times to pay $9.25 million to former University of Alabama basketball player Kai Spears after determining that the newspaper defamed him by wrongly reporting that he was present at the location of a fatal shooting.

The eight-member jury reached its decision Thursday after a nine-day trial at the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Spears had filed the lawsuit in 2023 over a March article that connected him to the January 2023 killing of 23-year-old Jamea Harris in Tuscaloosa.

The newspaper, relying on an anonymous source familiar with the investigation, incorrectly stated that Spears had been a passenger in a vehicle at the scene. However, court records later confirmed that Spears was neither inside the car nor present when the shooting happened.

The individual who was actually in the vehicle was Cooper Lee, a student manager for Alabama’s basketball team. Lee was never accused or charged in connection with the shooting.

The New York Times reviewed the report after Alabama’s athletic director and Spears’ father rejected the claim. Following Spears’ lawsuit, the newspaper conducted further reporting and eventually issued an editor’s note correcting the mistake.

Spears said the inaccurate report seriously damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress because his name became permanently linked to a murder investigation. His lawyer, Matt Glover, welcomed the verdict and said he hoped the decision would encourage better journalism across the United States.

The New York Times expressed disappointment with the ruling and said it was reviewing its legal options. The newspaper argued that the mistake was unintentional and maintained that both the verdict and the amount of compensation were inconsistent with the law and evidence.

The case was reportedly the newspaper’s first loss in a US defamation lawsuit involving one of its articles in more than five decades.

Spears left Alabama following the 2023-24 season and subsequently continued his college basketball career at Marshall and West Liberty in West Virginia.
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