Editorial: A libel law finally meets its demise

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 11:19 a.m.

THE freedom of expression rights enjoyed by citizens of the United States are expansive, even when compared to other democratic nations. But even in the United States, efforts to chip away at First Amendment rights have always been with us, creating concern for the sanctity of one of the most basic civil liberties.

Nevada is no exception. Although no one had ever been prosecuted under the state's criminal libel law, it had been on the books since 1911. As the Sun's Brian Seals reported Wednesday, unlike libel laws in most other states Nevada's said that publishing the truth was not an absolute defense unless it was published "for good motive and justifiable reasons." Fortunately this terrible law met its death this week as a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional.

The law had made it a gross misdemeanor to publish "malicious defamation ... tending to blacken the memory of the dead, or impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue of reputation, or to publish the natural defects of a living person, or community of persons, or association of persons, and thereby expose them to public contempt or ridicule."

Obviously, political correctness isn't a recent phenomenon; it's been with us at least since the turn of the 20th century.

This law meant that editors could be prosecuted if they published this kind of information in newspapers, magazines and books. While the law hadn't been enforced, the Nevada Press Association made a good argument that the law should be removed because of the potential chilling effect of intimidating people from exercising their First Amendment rights.

The Nevada Press Association and the state attorney general's office agreed that it should be stricken from Nevada statutes because it was unconstitutional. This week U.S. District Judge Johnnie Rawlinson made it official, ruling that it could not be enforced consistently with the First and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.

It's good to see this black eye on the protection of civil liberties finally removed from the books.