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| 9th Circuit strikes down the 2005 Stolen Valor Act |
| 2011-03-22 |
| The appeals court strikes down the 2005 Stolen Valor Act that makes it a crime to lie about top military decorations. The action also vacates a Pomona man's sentence for falsely claiming to have been awarded the congressional Medal of Honor. "Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals living means lying." Those were the words of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in Monday's decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Stolen Valor Act is an unconstitutional restraint on free speech and a threat to every citizen who fibs to embellish his or her image, avoid embarrassment or perpetuate a child's belief in Santa Claus. The court struck down both the 2005 act of Congress and the fines and sentence meted out to a Pomona man convicted on criminal charges for falsely claiming to have been awarded the congressional Medal of Honor. The Stolen Valor Act made it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to falsely claim to have received high military decorations, as Xavier Alvarez did at a public meeting of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in 2007. But Alvarez's groundless boast of heroic service in the U.S. Marine Corps doesn't fall under any of the exceptions to 1st Amendment protection of words that are false, as with fraud and defamation, the full appeals court said in refusing to reconsider a 2-1 decision last year to invalidate the act in the court's nine-state region. "If false factual statements are unprotected, then the government can prosecute not only the man who tells tall tales of winning the congressional Medal of Honor, but also the JDater who falsely claims he's Jewish or the dentist who assures you it won't hurt a bit," Kozinski wrote in defense of the 1st Amendment. "Phrases such as 'I'm working late tonight, hunny,' 'I got stuck in traffic' and 'I didn't inhale' could all be made into crimes," Kozinski argued. "Without the robust protections of the 1st Amendment, the white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse would become targets of censorship." At least seven of his conservative colleagues on the appeals court disagreed, signing a dissent from the decision not to rehear the Alvarez case, the first in which someone was charged and convicted under the challenged act, the court said. That expression of discord by more than a quarter of the court's 26 active judges could signal that a government petition to the U.S. Supreme Court is in the offing. "The court striking down a federal statute is a significant thing, and something one might expect to eventually reach the Supreme Court," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Raphael, noting that his office has not yet decided whether to recommend a high court appeal. Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to say whether the U.S. solicitor general was considering that move to rescue the Stolen Valor Act. Kozinski and Judge Milan D. Smith wrote concurring opinions denouncing the six-year-old statute as overly broad and an assault on protected speech after the majority of the court's judges voted in secret against a full-court rehearing of the Alvarez case. "Lying about being a military hero is despicable and may have some impact on the government's ability to recruit genuine heroes, but it's hard to understand why it's so much worse than burning an American flag, displaying a profane word in court, rubbing salt into the fresh wounds of the families of fallen war heroes," or other unpopular speech held to have constitutional protection, Kozinski said. In the dissent written by Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain and signed by six other judges, the majority was accused of misinterpreting 40 years of Supreme Court decisions. The dissenters said the high court has consistently held that "the right to lie is not a fundamental right under the Constitution" and that "the erroneous statement of fact is not worthy of constitutional protection." Jonathan D. Libby, the federal public defender who represented Alvarez, said he expected the government to petition the Supreme Court for review because it usually seeks that ultimate judgment when a federal law is struck down in any of the judicial circuits. "The judges have been looking at this from two very, very different perspectives," Libby said of the divided 9th Circuit. "One presumes the 1st Amendment protects all speech and the other view is that lies have no protection whatsoever under the 1st Amendment. They come to different results, but I think the majority got it right here." Alvarez, now imprisoned on an unrelated fraud matter, according to Libby, entered a guilty plea in federal court in Los Angeles in 2008. He challenged the constitutionality of the law after being sentenced to three years' probation, 416 hours of community service and fines of $5,100. |
| Posted by:746 |
| #3 IMO the primary crux here is US-WORLD GOVTS + LAW ENFORCEMENT, EVEN "BIG BUSINESS" = WALL STREET, ETC. rely on extensive networks of POLITICAL-LEGALLY DENIABLE covert agents + informants to collect reliable information, both from Allied as well as Dedicated, Presumed Enemy Govts-States + NGOS. Lest we fergit, there is also INTERNAL INTEL/COLLECTION to make sure Policies, Regulations, STandards + Protocols + Services, etc. ARE BEING OBEYED + FOLLOWED. IMO the "STOLEN VALOR" ACT is inconsistent wid US Federal-State laws that say that non-Fed-State = Non-Public US Citizens-Nationals whom are allowed by Fed-State Agencies to formally or informally impersonate being their Employees as related to Govt-Public Activities, etc. CAN + WILL BE INTERPETED AS BEING EMPLOYED OR CONTROLLED BY SAME, I.E. THEY ARE DE FACTO GOVT-PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, ETC. [USA Channel's "BURN NOTICE" TV Show, "ENEMY OF THE STATE" MOvie, + VALERIE PLAME ...@etc. here]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-03-22 20:43 |
| #2 From Wikipedia: Biography Kozinski was born in Bucharest, Romania. In 1962, when he was 12, his parents, both Holocaust survivors, brought him to the United States. The family settled in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California, where his father, Moses, ran a small grocery store. Kozinski graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving an A.B. degree in 1972, and from the UCLA School of Law, receiving a J.D. degree in 1975. Kozinski clerked for future Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976, and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger from 1976 to 1977. From June 5, 1981 to August 1982, Kozinski served as the first U.S. Special Counsel appointed by President Ronald Reagan. [edit] Judicial career In 1982, Kozinski was appointed chief judge at the newly formed United States Court of Federal Claims. In 1985, at the age of 35, Kozinski was appointed to a new seat at the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan, making him the youngest federal appeals court judge. Defending the court against criticism because of a controversial decision, Kozinski went on record emphasizing judicial independence: "It seems to me that this is what makes this country truly great—that we can have a judiciary where the person who appoints you doesn't own you."[2] He also took a stand against the charge that the Ninth Circuit is overly liberal, which led some to call it "The Notorious Ninth": "I can say with some confidence that cries that the Ninth Circuit is so liberal are just simply misplaced."[3] On November 30, 2007, Kozinski was appointed the tenth chief judge of the Ninth Circuit.[4] In 2008, according to The Los Angeles Times, Kozinski "maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos."[5] In response, Kozinski called for an ethics investigation of himself.[6] In July 2009, Kozinski was admonished by a panel headed by Judge Anthony Scirica.[7][8] |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2011-03-22 20:11 |
| #1 "Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals living means lying." Just remember that at the next party as you introduce yourself as a justice of the local federal district. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-03-22 19:22 |