Law banning lies about political candidates is struck down by top Massachusetts court
Massachusetts’ top court has overturned a law used to prosecute a PAC official for campaign brochures claiming a state lawmaker put the interests of criminals ahead of families.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cited free speech protections in striking down the law, which makes it a crime to make or publish false statements that are designed to aid or defeat a political candidate. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog notes the decision and links to coverage by the Associated Press. The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald also have coverage.
The court said the 1946 law violates free speech guarantees in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. 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,” the court said in its Aug. 6 decision (PDF).
The brochures criticized Democratic State Rep. Brian Mannal, who sought a criminal complaint against Melissa Lucas, the treasurer of the political action committee that distributed the materials. (Lucas had denied any responsibility for the brochures.)
The brochures targeted Mannal, a criminal defense lawyer, for sponsoring a law that would have notified indigent sex offenders of the right to a lawyer in hearings before a sex offender registry board. Statements in the brochures included:
• “Brian Mannal chose convicted felons over the safety of our families. Is this the kind of person we want representing us?”
• “Helping Himself: Lawyer Brian Mannal has earned nearly $140,000 of our tax dollars to represent criminals. Now he wants to use our tax dollars to pay defense lawyers like himself to help convicted sex offenders.”
• “Brian Mannal is putting criminals and his own interest above our families.”
Mannal won re-election by a margin of 205 votes.
