In Fraud We Trust by Wes Henricksen

Author:Wes Henricksen [Wes Henricksen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700637478
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Supreme Court issued a plurality opinion, onto which four justices signed, and a concurring opinion, onto which two justices signed. But though the plurality and concurring justices did not agree on how to frame the falsehoods at issue, or what test to apply to them, they agreed on one thing: the Stolen Valor Act violated the First Amendment.

The other three justices strongly dissented. They saw Alvarez’s Medal of Honor lies as causing harm to victims and providing a clear benefit to the liar. They would have upheld the law, and Alvarez’s conviction. But by a 6–3 vote, both the law and conviction were overturned.

Bottom line following Alvarez: the First Amendment does not allow punishing or censoring knowingly false speech unless it falls afoul of some other law, like perjury or fraud, or, at a minimum, either causes harm or is likely to cause harm. The more damage a falsehood causes, under this rationale, the more likely it is to shed its free speech protections. Because Alvarez’s lies at the water board meeting were harmless, they were thus fully protected.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.