Court: Bogus Heroes' Lies Steal Nobody's Valor

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Aug 17, 2010 | Legal Issue: Freedom of Speech | 0 |

FREE SPEECH — Josh Gerstein, writing for Politico's Under the Radar column, comments on today's 2-1 decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that Congress's Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment by criminalizing lies"I won this military medal"that cause no evident harm. As earlier argued here, this is the correct decision.

If the false claim to military honor is not detected as a lie, it takes no luster from the true claimants; neither their valor nor its recognition is "stolen" or diminished. Imitation, as Oscar Wilde noted, is the sincerest form of flattery. If and when the false claim is exposed, the contempt rained on the poseur reflects the high respect due and given to the authentic heroes.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

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