home > newsroom Utah Supreme Court to Hear Arguments Regarding Utah’s Criminal Libel Statute FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, March 12, 2002 SALT LAKE CITY – A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, March 13 in a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah to the constitutionality of the state’s criminal libel law. The case will be heard by the Utah Supreme Court at 9:00 a.m. Cooperating attorney Richard Van Wagoner, of the law firm Snow, Christensen & Martineau, will present the ACLU’s arguments to the court. The challenge stems from criminal libel charges against Ian Michael Lake, who at the time of his arrest was a 16-year-old Milford High School student. Almost two years ago, deputies from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Department seized Lake’s home computer and incarcerated the high school student in the Iron County Youth Detention Center for seven days. Lake’s crime? An Internet website he had created that included parodic statements about classmates, teachers, and the Milford High School principal. Upon his arrest, Lake was charged under Utah’s rarely used criminal libel statute. At the request of Lake and his father, the ACLU of Utah filed a motion to dismiss Lake’s criminal charges on the ground that Utah’s criminal libel statute is unconstitutional on its face. In January 2001, Fifth District Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Jackson ruled against the motion and referred the case to the Utah Supreme Court to review the statute’s constitutionality. “While perhaps offensive, Ian’s statements are not criminal, and the overzealous prosecution of this young man reflects precisely the kind of heavy-handed censorship the First Amendment forbids,” said Stephen Clark, ACLU of Utah legal director. “Our hope is that the Utah Supreme Court will throw out this anachronistic and unconstitutional statute.” Van Wagoner will argue that Utah’s criminal libel statute is not in line with the constitutional requirements laid out by the United States Supreme Court almost forty years ago, and is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague because it purports to punish statements made with ill will. --end--

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