TUSCALOOSA, AL — A federal judge has denied summary judgment motions from both former Alabama basketball player Kai Spears and the New York Times, allowing Spears' defamation and false light lawsuit against the newspaper to head to a jury trial.
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In a 19-page memorandum opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon ruled that genuine issues of material fact remain regarding whether the New York Times falsely portrayed Spears as being involved in the fatal January 2023 shooting near The Strip that claimed the life of Jamea Harris.
As Patch previously reported, the lawsuit stems from a March 2023 New York Times article titled, "A Fourth Alabama Player Was at a Deadly Shooting, in a Car Hit by Bullets."
Spears contends the article incorrectly reported that he was in former Alabama basketball standout and eventual No. 2 overall pick in the NBA Draft Brandon Miller's vehicle and at the scene when the shooting occurred.
Instead, during the capital murder trial for one of the two defendants, Miller testified that former Alabama basketball manager Cooper Lee was the other individual in his car at the time of the shooting.
ALSO READ: COLUMN | Kai Spears Versus The World
Nevertheless, Spears was a walk-on freshman on Alabama's men's basketball team at the time and was friends with several teammates, including Miller.
Following the shooting, Spears, a native of Pittsburgh, eventually transferred to Marshall University to finish his college basketball career.
Court records indicate Spears accompanied Miller to Moe's Original BBQ shortly before the shooting but did not ride with him when Miller left to meet former teammate Darius Miles on Grace Street, just off of The Strip.
As Patch previously reported, Miles is charged with capital murder for allegedly providing the gun used by his childhood friend, Michael Lynn Davis, in the shooting that killed Harris.
A Tuscaloosa County jury found Davis guilty of capital murder after a weeklong trial last May and it is unclear at this time when Miles' case will be heard by a jury.
The opinion states that Spears has maintained he was unaware Miles had left a firearm in Miller's vehicle, did not know Miles had asked Miller to bring him the weapon and was not present when the shooting occurred.
The New York Times argued the article was substantially true because Spears was "involved" in events leading up to the shooting. However, Judge Axon found that a reasonable jury could conclude otherwise.
"Mr. Spears did not get in Mr. Miller's car and was not at the scene of the shooting when it occurred," Axon wrote, noting evidence indicating Spears was walking back to his dorm with friends when gunfire erupted several blocks away.
The judge also rejected the newspaper's request for summary judgment on Spears' false light claim, finding a jury could determine that placing Spears in the vehicle that transported the gun used in the shooting could be highly offensive to the person portrayed in the story.
By denying summary judgment to both parties, the court has cleared the way for Spears' claims to proceed toward trial unless the case is resolved through settlement or other pretrial proceedings.
"We are very pleased that a jury in west Alabama will soon hear the facts of this case," Tuscaloosa attorney Matt Glover told Patch following the ruling. "This decision follows the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that clarified the law regarding the reporter’s privilege."
Indeed, Spears has also alleged the newspaper relied on confidential sources and failed to exercise reasonable care before publishing false information that damaged his reputation.
As the courtroom battle has developed over the last three years, Spears sought to learn the identities of those sources, prompting a legal dispute over Alabama's journalist shield law.
The Alabama Supreme Court went on to rule that the law protects only information that would inevitably reveal a confidential source's identity, rejecting a broader interpretation that would shield any information that could potentially lead to identifying a source.
The trial is set for Aug. 10 in the U.S. Federal Building And Courthouse in downtown Tuscaloosa.
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