Federal judge throws out rap music critic's defamation suit

The Associated Press

02.11.99

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	Late rapper Tupac Shakur speaks at voter-registration rally in South Central Los Angeles in 1996.

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by a rap music critic against two newsmagazines for their reports on her earlier lawsuit against the estate of slain rapper Tupac Shakur.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter threw out C. DeLores Tucker's lawsuit against Time and Newsweek writers for those publications, and Shakur estate lawyer Richard Fischbein.

Buckwalter ruled that Tucker, a former Pennsylvania secretary of state, was a public figure in the eyes of the law. That means she had to prove that Time and Newsweek wrote the stories with "actual malice," knew they were inaccurate and would "embarrass and humiliate" her and her husband, William.

The Tuckers did not meet that burden of proof, Buckwalter ruled.

"There is a vast difference between being annoyed and/or embarrassed on the one hand, and being disgraced and ridiculed to the extent that one's reputation is harmed in the estimation of the community, on the other," the judge wrote in a ruling issued Feb. 9.

The Tuckers' $10 million lawsuit against Shakur's estate said the rapper's lyrics, in which he rhymed Tucker's name with an obscenity, caused emotional distress that led to "a loss of consortium."

A subsequent article in Time referred to "claims that lewd remarks made about her ... caused her so much distress that she and her husband have not been able to have sex." A Newsweek article referred to claims that the lyrics "iced their sex life."

Tucker said the "consortium" complaint had nothing to do with sex.

The Tuckers' lawsuits are still pending against dozens of news outlets — including the Associated Press — that carried stories on the initial lawsuit.

Buckwalter last month threw out the lawsuit against Shakur's estate, ruling that the references to Tucker on Shakur's "All Eyes on Me" album were "unpleasant at best and vulgar at worst" but not libelous.

Shakur was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996.