First Amendment
Judge Orders Divorcing Blogger to Take Down Posts on Marriage
Posted Jan 10, 2008, 12:03 pm CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Vermont judge has ordered a divorcing spouse to take down all his Internet postings about his wife and their marriage, surprising some First Amendment experts.
The lawyer for blogger William Krasnansky contends the order by Judge Thomas Devine violates her client’s right to free speech, the New York Times reports. The lawyer, Debra Schoenberg of Burlington, has asked the judge to vacate his order. Krasnansky says the posts represent a fictionalized account of his marriage.
Susan Ellwood Montpelier, the lawyer for Krasnansky’s divorcing wife, called the blog postings “inaccurate, derogatory, defamatory and inappropriate” and said they could be banned as harassment, according to court filings.
First Amendment experts said courts generally don’t enjoin speech absent a hearing and a defamation suit. Typically damages rather than an injunction would be the typical remedy.
But Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky told the Times that courts are increasingly issuing injunctions to stop negative speech. “The Supreme Court hasn’t yet ruled as to whether you could have an injunction in a situation like this, or more generally, in a case of defamatory speech,” he said.
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Comments
Posted by Stephen - 7 months, 4 weeks, 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
The offending blogger has refused to take down his post “deliberate act of civil disobedience” and also has a long copy write warning specifically directed a “judcial officers”.
His divorce blog--which he disclaims as a work of fiction--was apparently designed to talk about his pug dogs.
See
http://lookatmypugs.livejournal.com/
The guy is definitely jail bound.
Posted by Philip R. Olenick - Boston MA - 7 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 3 hours, 57 minutes ago
If he thinks that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether you can have an injunction against defamatory speech, Prof. Chemerinsky should take a look at Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), which struck down a state statute which allowed for injunctions against defamation as unconstitutional “prior restraint” on speech - the source of that expression - and Organization for a Better Austin, et al. v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415 (1971), which reaffirmed it in striking down an injunction against leafletting by a civil rights organization near the home of a real estate broker accusing him of “panic peddling” (commonly called “blockbusting") , holding that “Under Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), the injunction, so far as it imposes prior restraint on speech and publication, constitutes an impermissible restraint on First Amendment rights.”