Last month, House Speaker Mike Moyle proposed a bill that would make it a felony to knowingly publish a false statement “with actual malice” about another person.
“Actual malice” is measured as knowing the statement is false or with reckless disregard as to whether or not the statement is false. The bill defines “publish” as to “communicate to a person or persons.”
Moyle spoke with The Argonaut to clarify the intent of the bill, as Idaho already has previously established laws against libel.
“In defamation law, ‘publish’ has a specific meaning: to communicate the defamation to someone other than the person defamed,” Moyle said. “Traditionally, there are two types of defamation, libel, which is written defamation, and slander, which is oral defamation. To keep things simple, this bill is using “criminal libel” for both types of defamation.”
Under this bill, such communications would be punishable by up to a $100,000 fine, up to five years in prison or some combination of the two.
“The goal is not to protect us from criticism or negative opinions. Criticism and negative opinions represent protected speech, and to be fair, they are often deserved,” Moyle said.
“My goal here is to protect the electorate’s access to accurate and debatable information about public officials and political candidates. The mass distribution of objectively provable lies has become a huge problem, and voters should have some level of assurance that the things being communicated to them about their leaders and political candidates represent truth or debatable opinion.”
He continued, “This bill may or may not be the best way to address this.”
Moyle expressed his belief that the proposed bill would largely serve as a deterrent for lying, rather than an avenue for a greater volume of prosecutions.
“Even if the bill passes, I’m not expecting to see many prosecutions,” Moyle said. “I’m hoping that the potential for stiff penalties will have a deterrent effect. I’m also hoping that, armed with a constitutional statute, more prosecutors will be willing to take on the egregious cases where people are having their lives destroyed by provable lies because traditional defamation law isn’t protecting people anymore.”
While the House State Affairs Committee unanimously introduced the bill, some remained hesitant. Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, expressed his desire for a legal analysis regarding the potential impact on the First Amendment. As per KREM2 News, Skaug said, “My concern is that if you make every liar a felon, then we’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Not enough room in our jails.”
Skaug’s reservations address the potential subjectivity of the wording of the bill and the reach it may have. Currently, libel in the state of Idaho is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 or up to six months’ imprisonment in county jail.
Julia Kolman can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu.
Steven Walker
Let's try this out on Idaho politicians first!