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July 20, 2010 12:52 AM UTC

Civil Rights Suit v. Greeley Deputy DA Moves Forward

4 Comments
by: ohwilleke

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

A federal court case against a Deputy District Attorney in Greeley who reviewed and approved a search warrant in a criminal libel case alleging that an online parody of a professor was illegal will move forward due to a ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals today.

The court held that prosecutors are liable for money damages if they are involved in issuing search warrants for criminal libel cases involving communications that are protected by a clearly established free speech right under the U.S. Constitution. This includes a broad protection for parodies such as the one in question here. (Colorado’s criminal libel statute remains constitutional in the proper circumstances, however.)

Calls to invoke Colorado’s criminal libel statute come up almost every election season and are usually ignored by prosecutors. This decision gives prosecutors one more reason to say no to requests to bring these kinds of charges.

4 thoughts on “Civil Rights Suit v. Greeley Deputy DA Moves Forward”

JeffcoBlue says:

July 20, 2010 at 3:19 am

Is a vestige of old and unequal times. It needs to go.

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1. ohwilleke says:
  
  July 20, 2010 at 3:31 am
  
  Criminal libel, and by association, the criminalization of politics, is generally a bad idea.
  
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davebarnes says:

July 20, 2010 at 4:29 am

http://washparkprophet.blogspo…

Andrew is too modest.

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Tom says:

July 20, 2010 at 9:30 pm

but it tends to get invoked more as a scare tactic than anything else. Prosecutors avoid bringing actual charges because they know that a test case would give standing to throw the law out on constitutional grounds. Instead, they use the threat of prosecution and the investigation to chill free speech rights on astonishingly broad grounds– in Colorado it is illegal to tarnish the reputation of the deceased for example.

Campaigns use a criminal statute as an excuse to use the legal system for free to score political points instead of having to pay actual money to file suit in civil court. Luckily most prosecutors don’t put much effort into investigating such well publicized charges, but it’s still an option for every mudslinging office seeker.

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