Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a First Amendment case about lying.  Nina Totenberg from NPR lays out the facts of the case:

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday [February 22] in a case about lies, big and small, and when those lies can be a crime under the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech. At issue is the constitutionality of a law making it a crime to lie about being the recipient of military medals.

At the center of the case is Xavier Alvarez, a man nobody disputes is a liar. He lied about being an ex-professional hockey player. He lied about being an engineer. He lied about rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. He even lied about being a retired Marine.

But none of those lies is a crime. Only one of his whoppers violated the law — the one he told about receiving the Medal of Honor.

“Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he said in introducing himself at a municipal water board meeting in California, about seven months after he was elected to a neighboring board.

In fact, Alvarez had never won any military medals. He had not even served in the military. Under federal law, making false claims about winning military medals is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.

The federal law referred to is the Stolen Valor Act (P.L. 109-437), passed by Congress and signed by the President in 2006.  At issue here is the constitutionality of that law—whether the government can punish false speech that doesn’t fit into one of the established exceptions to the First Amendment—defamatory speech, obscene speech, or speech that defrauds.

Proponents of the Act say that false statements of fact have never been constitutionally protected.  Striking down this law could undermine other laws, such as those that make it a crime to impersonate a police officer or that ban the deceptive use of a name in fundraising.

Opponents of the Act argue that it goes too far—it could allow for the prosecution of a person who lies about receiving a military medal in the privacy of his own home.  Could this law lead down a slippery slope?  Totenberg writes:  “Could Congress make it a crime to make false statements denying the existence of the Holocaust? Could Congress, concerned about diverting the attention of a president, make it a crime to knowingly make false statements representing that the president is not a natural-born American citizen? And what about knowing lies about military medals that are satire?”

This case is important from a First Amendment perspective, but for Alvarez?  He’s currently in jail because he claimed his ex-wife on his health insurance, a lie that constitutes fraud.

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