Gestolen Valor Act op Hooggerechtshof: liegt over het feit dat een held een recht?

When Xavier Alvarez stood up and were based on a local water district meeting in July 2007 said, he had no idea that he was about to commit a federal crime.

"I am a retired Marine of 25 years," he told the other Board members in Pomona, California "I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987 I received the Congressional Medal of Honor. I have many times wounded by the same guy. I'm still around.

In the most social situations, such declarations interested nods, adoring smiles and maybe heart-felt thanks for his gallant service to elicit the nation.

But it turns out that Mr. Alvarez never served a day in the u.s. Army, had never wounded, and-most important – never received the Medal of Honor.

How much do you know about the u.s. Constitution? A quiz.

After his false claim was exposed, turn up the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Alvarez was soon sued for allegedly violating the stolen Valor Act of 2005, a right that it makes a federal crime to falsely claim to have gotten a military medal.

His lawyer attacked the indictment as a violation of the first amendment, arguing that Americans a free-speech rightly have a false and outrageous allegations about himself without facing criminal prosecution of a Government truth squad.

A federal judge upheld the indictment, but an appellate Court U.S. reversed.

On Wednesday the case to the Supreme Court, where arrives Alvarez the justices are being asked to decide whether the stolen Valor Act unconstitutional regulation of freedom of expression or an acceptable effort by the Government to punish an alleged liar.

The high court has never directly addresses the issue of lying about military awards, and it is not clear how the justices may decide.

The Supreme Court has a number of categories of speech that are full first amendment protection recognised unworthy. They include obscenity, libel and slander, incitement to imminent harm, and fraud. In each of these areas causes the underlying speech a concrete damage.

Critics of the stolen Valor Act say that it requires no underlying injury. The false information claiming after receiving a medal can be penalized. These critics suggest the best remedy for such false statements are not criminal punishment but more speech, particularly truthful speech exposes the lie.

The Obama administration is urging the Court to maintain the restriction as a valid regulation of a separate type false speech that important constitutional value is missing.

Alvarez has never declared that the Court counters that such false statements are unworthy of constitutional protection. His lawyer says that the Government position marks a radical departure from free speech principles which can lead to sanctions against those who use hyperbole, exaggeration, or engage in satire.

"For good or bad, right or wrong, everybody lies. Xavier Alvarez is no exception. He told a bunch of blunders, "wrote the lawyer, Deputy Federal Public Defender Alvarez Jonathan Libby, in his letter to the Court.

"Exaggerated anecdotes, barroom braggadocio and cocktail party have always thought to be puffery than the realm of Government to reach and pass without fear of criminal penalty," said Mr. Libby.

The U.S. Solicitor General's Office disagrees, arguing that the stolen Valor Act is aimed to an important goal and that the eng is aimed to achieve that goal.

"The Government has sent a message to the public that the military decorations receiver is approved by the Government as part of a select group to convey," wrote Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in his letter to the Court. "It undermines that purpose … statistical effect of false claims by diluting the message of the prestige and honor medals".

The law would punish only those who knowingly make a false claim of a coin are issued, said Mr. Verrilli. A person is unlikely to make such a claim from confusion or accidentally, he said.

"Content-based restrictions on actual false statements are consistent with the first amendment if they are supported by a strong government interest and sufficient ' breather ' for fully secure voice offer," Verrilli said the briefing.

Alvarez the lawyer, Mr. Libby, openly admits that his client is a liar. But he says that Alvarez was nailed to the pillory in his community as an "idiot" and a "jerk" after his false statements were exposed.

Libby says Americans lie all the time in social situations and research that if his client loses his case, the Government may soon get the accuracy of a wider range of funny statements.

"Xavier Alvarez lied. He lied when he claimed to have played professional hockey for the Detroit Red Wings. He lied when he claimed to have been married to a Mexican starlet whose appearance in public causing paparazzi to swoon. He lied when he claimed to be of an engineer. He lied when he claimed to have rescued the American Ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis, and when he said that he was shot going back to grab the American flag, "said Libby in his letter.

What is the damage, Libby asked in his letter. There is no evidence that anyone is on Alvarez de false assertions about hockey or military feats.

"The Government interest in the protection of the reputation of military medals is legitimate, but not compelling," said Libby. "False claimants cannot tarnish the reputation of medal-winners."

"The Government wants to create a new test-completely unmoored from precedents of this Court," said Libby.

"Falsehoods are valuable for countless reasons: in the refining of truth in the expression of personal autonomy and in the wheels of social interaction, greasing" Libby said. "More than that, there is a realm of harmless puffery, chat and generally considered to be outside the control of the Government."

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In Stolen Valor Act Case, Supreme Court Debates When Lies Can Be Crimes

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday morning appeared divided over whether to strike down a federal law that makes it a crime for a person to lie about receiving military honors.

In 2007, Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a Los Angeles-area water board, introduced himself at a public meeting as a retired Marine. "Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor," he added for the record. Both statements were lies -- and the latter he would find out, when the FBI came looking for him, had recently been made a federal crime.

The Stolen Valor Act, passed by Congress in 2006, states that "whoever falsely represents himself or herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States ... shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than six months, or both." Alvarez would become the first person convicted under the act.

He appealed his conviction on the ground that the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment protections for free speech. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2010 agreed, reversing the lower court and striking down the act. Since the Supreme Court consented to hear United States v. Alvarez this past fall, another appeals court has upheld the act, creating a split among the circuits.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing on behalf of the Obama administration, told the justices on Wednesday that the 9th Circuit's fears of a society where any knowing falsehood could be criminalized were unfounded. The Stolen Valor Act prohibits only a "carefully limited and narrowly drawn category of calculated factual falsehoods" regarding military honors, Verrilli said at the start of his presentation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor then wondered about a hypothetical Vietnam War protester who holds up a sign that reads, "I won a Purple Heart -- for killing babies." If the protester knew his statement to be false, Sotomayor asked, "Is that person, if he's not a veteran having received the medal, is he liable under this act?"

If a reasonable observer would see the sign as "political theater," Verrilli answered, then "it's not within the scope of the statute, and it wouldn't be subject to liability."

But, Verrilli continued, "this Court has said in numerous contexts, numerous contexts, that the calculated factual falsehood has no First Amendment value for its own sake."

"It has said it often, but always in context where it is well understood that speech can injure," responded Justice Anthony Kennedy, pointing to defamation and fraud actions. "I think it's a sweeping proposition to say that there's no value to falsity," he went on. "Falsity is a way in which we contrast what is false and what is true."

But Alvarez's lies and others implicated under the Stolen Valor Act do cause injury, Justice Antonin Scalia said. "[T]here's harm to those courageous men and women who receive the decorations," said Scalia. "Their service is demeaned when everybody says, 'I served in the armed forces.'"

Sotomayor disagreed. "[Y]ou can't really believe that a war veteran thinks less of the medal that he or she receives because someone's claiming fraudulently that they got one," she said. "They don't think less of the medal. We're reacting to the fact that we're offended by the thought that someone's claiming an honor they didn't receive."

"So outside of the emotional reaction, where's the harm?" she asked. "And I'm not minimizing it. I, too, take offense when people make these kinds of claims, but I take offense when someone I'm dating makes a claim that's not true."

Throughout Verrilli's presentation, Scalia seemed to be the lone unambiguous supporter of the Stolen Valor Act, going so far as to declare flatly, "I believe that there is no First Amendment value in falsehood." The justice's clear intent to uphold the act comes in some contrast to his votes in recent years to strike down, on First Amendment grounds, a federal ban on dogfighting videos, a California ban on the sale of violent video games and a jury verdict against funeral picketers. Scalia's son Matthew served with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

But whatever lead Alvarez had at the end of the solicitor general's argument disappeared when his lawyer, Jonathan Libby, took to the lectern. Chief Justice John Roberts, who had earlier pushed Verrilli on whether Congress could criminalize lying about obtaining a high school diploma, jumped all over Libby, a deputy federal public defender in California.

"What is the First Amendment value in a lie, pure lie?" asked Roberts.

The question, which came less than a minute into Libby's argument, seemed to knock him off balance. "Just a pure lie? There can be a number of values," he answered. "There is the value of personal autonomy."

"The value of what?" said Roberts.

"Personal autonomy," Libby repeated.

"What does that mean?" pressed the chief.

"Well, that we get to, we get to exaggerate and create ... ," Libby tried to answer.

"No, not exaggerate, lie," Roberts corrected him.

Libby offered up Samuel Clemens' use of the pen name Mark Twain as one such "persona" that is really just a lie about one's personal story and identity.

"Well, but that was for literary purposes," retorted Roberts.

Justice Samuel Alito was similarly incredulous, asking, "Do you really think that there is First Amendment value in a bald-faced lie about a purely factual statement that a person makes about himself because that person would like to create a particular persona?"

"Yes, Your Honor, so long as it doesn't cause imminent harm to another person or imminent harm to a government function," Libby said.

Some minutes later, Kennedy, who had seemed very much on Libby's side in the first half of the argument, appeared to fall off the bandwagon. "[I]t's a matter of common sense that it seems to me that [lying about receiving a military honor] demeans the medal," he said.

But it was Justice Elena Kagan who may have delivered the knockout blow to Libby, even if most of her questions leaned toward his case. "What truthful speech will this statute chill?" she asked.

"Your Honor, it's not that it may necessarily chill any truthful speech," Libby said. "We certainly concede that one typically knows whether or not one has won a medal or not."

"So, boy, I mean, that's a big concession, Mr. Libby," Kagan replied.

On rebuttal, the solicitor general made the most of that concession, but not before Kagan gave him a hard time, too. She asked if the government can criminalize deliberate falsehoods about extramarital affairs if the law is drawn narrowly and specifically enough. "The government has a strong interest in the sanctity of the family, the stability of the family, so we're going to prevent everybody from telling lies about their extramarital affairs," she hypothesized.

"That's a hard case," Verrilli admitted, before facing an additional flurry of questions from Sotomayor and Justice Stephen Breyer suggesting their belief that upholding the Stolen Valor Act would lead to laws that chilled speech clearly protected by the First Amendment.

To dispel that concern, Verrilli said, they need look no further than Libby's admission just moments earlier. The defendant's own lawyer, the solicitor general said, "conceded that this statute chills nothing."

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Stolen Valor Act on Supreme Court: lying about being a hero a right?

When Xavier Alvarez stood up and were based on a local water district meeting in July 2007 said, he had no idea that he was about to commit a federal crime.

"I am a retired Marine of 25 years," he told the other Board members in Pomona, California "I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987 I received the Congressional Medal of Honor. I have many times wounded by the same guy. I'm still around.

In the most social situations, such declarations interested nods, adoring smiles and maybe heart-felt thanks for his gallant service to elicit the nation.

But it turns out that Mr. Alvarez never served a day in the u.s. Army, had never wounded, and-most important – never received the Medal of Honor.

How much do you know about the u.s. Constitution? A quiz.

After his false claim was exposed, turn up the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Alvarez was soon sued for allegedly violating the stolen Valor Act of 2005, a right that it makes a federal crime to falsely claim to have gotten a military medal.

His lawyer attacked the indictment as a violation of the first amendment, arguing that Americans a free-speech rightly have a false and outrageous allegations about himself without facing criminal prosecution of a Government truth squad.

A federal judge upheld the indictment, but an appellate Court U.S. reversed.

On Wednesday the case to the Supreme Court, where arrives Alvarez the justices are being asked to decide whether the stolen Valor Act unconstitutional regulation of freedom of expression or an acceptable effort by the Government to punish an alleged liar.

The high court has never directly addresses the issue of lying about military awards, and it is not clear how the justices may decide.

The Supreme Court has a number of categories of speech that are full first amendment protection recognised unworthy. They include obscenity, libel and slander, incitement to imminent harm, and fraud. In each of these areas causes the underlying speech a concrete damage.

Critics of the stolen Valor Act say that it requires no underlying injury. The false information claiming after receiving a medal can be penalized. These critics suggest the best remedy for such false statements are not criminal punishment but more speech, particularly truthful speech exposes the lie.

The Obama administration is urging the Court to maintain the restriction as a valid regulation of a separate type false speech that important constitutional value is missing.

Alvarez has never declared that the Court counters that such false statements are unworthy of constitutional protection. His lawyer says that the Government position marks a radical departure from free speech principles which can lead to sanctions against those who use hyperbole, exaggeration, or engage in satire.

"For good or bad, right or wrong, everybody lies. Xavier Alvarez is no exception. He told a bunch of blunders, "wrote the lawyer, Deputy Federal Public Defender Alvarez Jonathan Libby, in his letter to the Court.

"Exaggerated anecdotes, barroom braggadocio and cocktail party have always thought to be puffery than the realm of Government to reach and pass without fear of criminal penalty," said Mr. Libby.

The U.S. Solicitor General's Office disagrees, arguing that the stolen Valor Act is aimed to an important goal and that the eng is aimed to achieve that goal.

"The Government has sent a message to the public that the military decorations receiver is approved by the Government as part of a select group to convey," wrote Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in his letter to the Court. "It undermines that purpose … statistical effect of false claims by diluting the message of the prestige and honor medals".

The law would punish only those who knowingly make a false claim of a coin are issued, said Mr. Verrilli. A person is unlikely to make such a claim from confusion or accidentally, he said.

"Content-based restrictions on actual false statements are consistent with the first amendment if they are supported by a strong government interest and sufficient ' breather ' for fully secure voice offer," Verrilli said the briefing.

Alvarez the lawyer, Mr. Libby, openly admits that his client is a liar. But he says that Alvarez was nailed to the pillory in his community as an "idiot" and a "jerk" after his false statements were exposed.

Libby says Americans lie all the time in social situations and research that if his client loses his case, the Government may soon get the accuracy of a wider range of funny statements.

"Xavier Alvarez lied. He lied when he claimed to have played professional hockey for the Detroit Red Wings. He lied when he claimed to have been married to a Mexican starlet whose appearance in public causing paparazzi to swoon. He lied when he claimed to be of an engineer. He lied when he claimed to have rescued the American Ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis, and when he said that he was shot going back to grab the American flag, "said Libby in his letter.

What is the damage, Libby asked in his letter. There is no evidence that anyone is on Alvarez de false assertions about hockey or military feats.

"The Government interest in the protection of the reputation of military medals is legitimate, but not compelling," said Libby. "False claimants cannot tarnish the reputation of medal-winners."

"The Government wants to create a new test-completely unmoored from precedents of this Court," said Libby.

"Falsehoods are valuable for countless reasons: in the refining of truth in the expression of personal autonomy and in the wheels of social interaction, greasing" Libby said. "More than that, there is a realm of harmless puffery, chat and generally considered to be outside the control of the Government."

How much do you know about the u.s. Constitution? A quiz.

Get daily or weekly updates of CSMonitor.com directly in your mailbox. Sign up today.

View the original article here

In case of stolen Valor Act, Supreme Court debates when crimes lies can be

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court appeared divided over whether to strike on Wednesday morning down a federal law that makes it a crime for a person to lie about receiving military honors.

In 2007, Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a Los Angeles-area water board, introduced himself at a public meeting as a retired Marine. "Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor," he added for the record. Both statements were lies--and the latter he would find out, when the FBI came looking for him, had recently been made a federal crime.

The Stolen Valor Act, passed by Congress in 2006, states that "whoever falsely represents himself or herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States ... shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than six months, or both." Alvarez would become the first person convicted under the act.

He appealed his conviction on the ground that the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment protections for free speech. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2010, reversing the lower court agreed and striking down the act. Since the Supreme Court United States v. Alvarez consented to hear this past fall, another appeals court has upheld the act, creating a split among the circuits.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing on behalf of the Obama administration, told the justices on Wednesday that the 9th Circuit's fears of a society where any knowing falsehood could be criminalized were unfounded. The Stolen Valor Act prohibits only a "carefully limited and narrowly drawn category or calculated factual falsehoods" regarding military honors, Verrilli said at the start of his presentation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor then wondered about a hypothetical Viet Nam War protester who holds up a sign that reads, "I won a Purple Heart--for killing babies." If the protester knew his statement to be false, Sotomayor asked, "Is that person, if he's not a veteran having received the medal, is he liable under this act?"

If a reasonable observer would see the sign as "political theater," Verrilli answered, then "it's not within the scope of the statute, and it wouldn't be subject to liability."

But, Verrilli continued, "this Court has said in numerous contexts, numerous factual contexts, that the calculated falsehood has no First Amendment value for its own sake."

"It has said it often, but always in context where it is well understood that speech can injure," responded Justice Anthony Kennedy, pointing to defamation and fraud actions. "I think it's a sweeping proposition to say that there's no value to falsity," he went on. "Falsity is a way in which we contrast what is false and what is true."

But Alvarez's groin and others implicated under the Stolen Valor Act, Justice Antonin Scalia said. do cause injury "[T] here's harm to those courageous men and women who receive the decorations," said Scalia. "Their service is demeaned when everybody says, ' I served in the armed forces. '"

Sotomayor disagreed. "[Y] ou can't really believe that a war veteran thinks less of the medal that he or she receives because someone's fraudulently claiming that they got one," she said. "They don't think less of the medal. We're reacting to the fact that we're offended by the thought that someone's claiming an honor they didn't receive. "

"So, where's the harm outside of the emotional reaction?" she asked. "And I'm not minimizing it. I, too, take offense when people make these kinds of claims, but I take offense when someone I'm dating makes a claim that's not true. "

Throughout Verrilli's presentation, Scalia seemed to be the lone supporter or the Stolen Valor Act unambiguous, going so far as to declare flatly, "I believe that there is no First Amendment value in falsehood." The justice's clear intent to uphold the act comes in some contrast to his votes in recent years to strike down, on First Amendment grounds, a federal ban on dogfighting videos, a California ban on the sale of violent video games and a jury verdict against funeral picketers. Scalia's son Matthew served with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

But whatever lead Alvarez had at the end of the solicitor General's argument disappeared when his lawyer, Jonathan Libby, took to the lectern. Chief Justice John Roberts, who had earlier pushed Verrilli on whether Congress could criminalize lying about obtaining a high school diploma, jumped all over Libby, a deputy federal public defender in California.

"What is the First Amendment value in a lie, pure lie?" asked Roberts.

The question, which came less than a minute into seemed to knock him off balance argument, Libby's. "Just a pure lie? There can be a number of values, "he answered. "There is the value of personal autonomy."

"The value of what?" said Roberts.

"Personal autonomy," Libby repeated.

"What does that mean?" pressed the chief.

"Well, that we get to, we get to exaggerate and create ...," Libby tried to answer.

"No, not exaggerate, lie," Roberts corrected him.

Libby offered up Samuel Clemens ' use of the pen name Mark Twain as one such "persona" that is really just a lie about one's personal story and identity.

"Well, but that was for literary purposes," retorted Roberts.

Justice Samuel Alito was similarly incredulous, asking, "Do you really think that there is value in a First Amendment-faced lie about a purely factual bald statement that a person makes about himself because that person would like to create a particular persona?"

"Yes, Your Honor, so long as it doesn't cause imminent harm to another person or imminent harm to a government function," Libby said.

Some minutes later, Kennedy, who had seemed very much on Libby's side in the first half of the argument, appeared to fall off the bandwagon. "[I] t's a matter of common sense that it seems to me that [lying about receiving a military honor] demeans the medal," he said.

But it was Justice Elena Kagan who may have delivered the knockout blow to Libby, even if most of her questions leaned toward his case. "What will this statute chill truthful speech?" she asked.

"Your Honor, it's not that it may necessarily chill any truthful speech," Libby said. "We certainly concede that one typically knows whether or not one has won a medal or not."

"So, boy, I mean, that's a big concession, Mr. Libby," Kagan replied.

On rebuttal, the solicitor general made the most of that concession, but not before Kagan gave him a hard time, too. She asked if the government can criminalize extramarital affairs if the deliberate falsehoods about law is drawn narrowly and specifically enough. "The government has a strong interest in the sanctity of the family, the stability of the family, so we're going to prevent everybody from telling lies about their extramarital affairs," she hypothesized.

"That's a hard case," Verrilli admitted, before facing an additional flurry of questions from Sotomayor and Justice Stephen Breyer upholding the Stolen Valor Act suggesting their belief that would lead to laws that chilled speech clearly protected by the First Amendment.

To will dispel that concern, Verrilli said, they need look no further than Libby's admission just moments earlier. The defendant's own lawyer, the solicitor general said, "conceded that this statute chills nothing."

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View the original article here