Federal Court Holds Defamation Case Against Candidate Violate First Amendment

The other day I blogged about the 281 Care Committee case, noting that it was the first case to address the constitutionality of false campaign speech laws in light of the Supreme Court’s U.S.v. Alvarez case (stolen valor).  Now we have another case. A federal district court in Ohio held that Alvarez‘s First Amendment analysis barred even a defamation case against a candidate from going forward.  You can read the opinion in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus at this link.

In my forthcoming article, A Constitutional Right to Lie in Campaigns and Elections?,I note that the constitutional survival of defamation cases against candidates in political campaigns is uncertain after Alvarez.

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