Another group of law professors has filed a second brief in support of the plaintiff’s amended complaint in Brennan Gilmore’s defamation lawsuit. They seek to convince the court that Gilmore has properly pleaded a defamation case and that quashes any protection the defendants’ might enjoy under the First Amendment.
IANAL, but at first glance, this brief does appear to do a better job of pleading a defamation case that Gilmore’s amended complaint did. I’m not sure how that helps Gilmore’s case.
UPDATE—The judge has issued an oral order granting the motions to file the two amicus briefs.
Bloggers should file their own amicus briefing.
Foremost, the brief should repeatedly point out the distinction between a
fact-based legal brief and briefs filled with speculations, conjectures, unstated
inferences, and outright falsities. For instance, George Soros donated nearly
a million dollars to a candidate who in turned hired Mr. Gilmore to help run
his campaign. Gilmore initially commits a fraud upon the court by claiming no
direct links to George Soros while later acknowledging indirect links did exist.
A journalist pointed out that Gilmore’s links had disappeared from a State
Department website. That was the truth. He did not claim Gilmore was the
causal agent of the removal. A statement of truth, which is a complete defense,
was twisted in a defamatory statement by imputing words that were simply
not stated.
Second, vigorous public debate must allow for the publication of facts that
raise questions without immediately being labeled “conspiracy theories” that
are inherently defamatory. Such transformation of underlying remarks are
rightly considered conspiracy theories themselves. That deeply chills speech.
Third, self-serving ignorance is not law. Gilmore’s sole act of “informing” the
electorate consisted of noting that the car in question crossed a certain
intersection twice, back and forth. But, that isn’t what Gilmore claimed. He
claimed that he had presented proof of criminal intent. That’s arguing, not
informing. When a blogger questioned whether his case was persuasive,
instead of debating him, he sued a third party for defamation for having
provoked the critic.
Completely off-topic, but I wanted to address this forthrightly:
BigSkyBob, you were right about Trump and I was wrong. I saw a 2016 post and was embarrassed. I thought Trump was a conman who was lying through his teeth mixed with a madman with authoritarian delusions. Instead, Half the dudes I followed sold out conservatism, and some are tossing out democracy. (Kristol only likes elections in Iraq)
I wanted to apologize for being a jackass on this matter.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled lolsuit.
Thank you,
Good on you
If the lawyers in question wish to reargue Gilmore’s case then they ought to certify that they have researched the underlying facts, and are presenting what they believe is truth, which is painfully obviously is not the case in this pleading.
The distinction they wish to raise concerning false and accurate statements as having “Constitutional merit” is a standard that simply doesn’t exist. Consider Falwell vs Hustler, and, the pornography decisions. Pornography was deemed speech, and, Hustler’s bile was labeled parody. Though Hustler’s article was clearly malicious, and utterly lacking in artistic merit, it was granted absolute protection because parody was deemed something of Constitutional value, and, thus, the protection of utterly worthless pieces of crap such Hustler’s protected other acts of parody that potentially had merit. Likewise, a couple copulating before a camera was deemed speech, and, speech in and of itself was deemed of Constitutional value.
It cannot be stressed how dangerous of a precedent Gilmore wishes to establish here. It is a staple of political advertising to factually lay out who is donating money to a candidate, and, then, list special treatment such donors have received from the state. If the Gilmore precedent is established, such candidates would have the right to claim defamation since the opposing candidate is inferring a quid pro quo. Such ads work because people, rightly in my opinion, assume that politicians are corrupt and self-serving and so are inclined to believe the worst. People tend to believe likewise about lawyers and used car salesmen. Do we really want to live in a world in which we must tip=toe around lawyers, politicians and used car salesmen precisely because people tend to belief they are people of low character?