Court strikes down law aimed at preventing false statements about politicians

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today a law that attempts to criminalize public falsehoods about political candidates violates the state constitution's free-speech protections.

The issue arose last year on Cape Cod, when state Rep. Brian Mannal convinced a district court clerk-magistrate to file a criminal complaint against Melissa Lucas, head of a political action committee that published brochures claiming that Mannal, a lawyer, was pushing legislation to help convicted sex offenders obtain counsel to benefit himself and his fellow attorneys. He brought his complaint under a state law that bans "any false statement in relation to any candidate for nomination or election to public office, which is designed or tends to aid or to injure or defeat such candidate" - a law that carries a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

The state's highest court ruled today that the law goes too far, because the criminal complaints it allows could have a "chilling" effect on political speech since anybody can apply for one. That, the justices write, goes against the "strict scrutiny" required under the state constitution's Declaration of Rights for any attempt to squelch public speech.

While the court agreed the state has a right to try to "thwart political corruption, voter intimidation, and election fraud," but that in this case, the state failed to show the law "actually is necessary to serve the compelling interest of fair and free elections" because candidates already have a remedy: "The simple truth."

As written, the state law is little better than the Sedition Act of 1798, which tried to outlaw "false, scandalous and malicious
writing or writings against the government of the United States" with about the results you would expect, the justices continue.

Noting that after Mannal threatened legal action against the PAC, Lucas decided not to run radio ads, the court adds:

As the facts of this case demonstrate, the danger of such breadth is that the statute may be manipulated easily into a tool for subverting its own justification, i.e., the fairness and freedom of the electoral process, through the chilling of core political speech.

And so:

We conclude that § 42 cannot be limited to the criminalization of fraudulent or defamatory speech, is neither necessary nor narrowly tailored to advancing the Commonwealth's interest in fair and free elections, and chills the very exchange of ideas that gives meaning to our electoral system. For all of these reasons, we hold that § 42 is antagonistic to the fundamental right of free speech enshrined in art. 16 of our Declaration of Rights and, therefore, is invalid. Accordingly, the criminal complaint charging Lucas with violating § 42 must be dismissed.