An Alabama jury ordered The New York Times to pay 9.25 million dollars in damages for defamation after a nine-day trial centered on a 2023 report that falsely linked former college basketball player Kai Spears to a fatal Tuscaloosa shooting.
A federal civil trial in Tuscaloosa concluded with a multi-million-dollar judgment against one of the world’s most prominent news organizations. The eight-person jury determined that Kai Spears was owed 9.25 million dollars in damages after enduring a high-profile false connection to a deadly shooting near the University of Alabama campus.
The legal battle stems from reporting published in March 2023 in the aftermath of the murder of 23-year-old Jamea Harris. Former Alabama basketball player Darius Miles faced a murder charge in the shooting, while his friend, Michael Davis, was convicted of capital murder on May 9, 2025.
How the False Report Linked Kai Spears to a Deadly Shooting
At the time of the January 15, 2023, incident, Spears served as an 18-year-old freshman walk-on for the Crimson Tide basketball team. Sportswriter Billy Witz authored a report published on March 15, 2023, that mistakenly placed Spears as a passenger in teammate Brandon Miller’s car at the scene of the shooting.
Photo: APR
Witz relied on a single anonymous informant for the claim. Testifying during the trial, the sportswriter described the informant as a high-level person, professional who possessed direct access to case files, impound photos, and video evidence, according to coverage from the Tuscaloosa Patch.
Photo: AL.com
I think the way I was looking at it, Source A, by their job title and by virtue of their access to the transcript, videos and impound photos, was somebody who knew a lot about this case, Witz stated from the witness stand, as noted in reports detailing the court proceedings. The reporter also acknowledged that a second anonymous source had offered vague information, telling him, I can tell you it’s a White guy on the basketball team, I just don’t remember his name.
Subsequent reporting identified the actual occupant of Miller’s car as Cooper Lee, a student manager for the basketball program. Spears filed his defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuit in May 2023 after facing severe public backlash and death threats, with the initial complaint seeking 75,000 dollars.
The Retraction and Historic Legal Precedent
The newspaper eventually amended its coverage months after the initial publication. In June 2023, editors appended a lengthy note to the original article admitting the error.
Photo: Patch
The note continued by explaining that editors assigned further reporting after Spears filed his lawsuit with new details, confirming that Cooper Lee rather than Spears had been present at the scene.
According to confirmation from the newspaper’s own reporting staff, the institution had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than half a century. That track record stretched back to the landmark 1964 PatchSullivan decision, before the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned the original state-level judgment.
Reactions From the Spears Family and The New York Times
Following the verdict, Christian Spears expressed relief and condemned the publication’s handling of the error throughout the litigation process.
“Our goal was a simple retraction from The New York Times,” “Instead, the Times defended its inaccurate article and continued to distort facts rather than acknowledge the harm they caused, acting as if its power made it untouchable. The Alabama jury made it clear to the New York Times that they were wrong to do what they did.”
Christian Spears also praised his son’s perseverance. Our son Kai, the walk-on from Pittsburgh who earned a scholarship at Alabama, did not back down, and neither did the jury, he said in remarks highlighted by local coverage. Kai Spears later transferred from Alabama to Marshall and is currently listed as a senior guard on the basketball roster at West Liberty University, a Division II program in West Virginia.
Meanwhile, representatives for the media organization registered sharp disagreement with the jury’s decision.
“We’re disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake,” “We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence. We are reviewing our legal options.”
