Teen's lawyers urge Utah high court to throw out criminal-libel law

By The Associated Press

03.14.02

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SALT LAKE CITY — Lawyers for a teen-ager charged with creating a Web site to insult his school principal argued yesterday that Utah's criminal libel statute is so old-fashioned and unconstitutional it penalizes even truthful, if mean-spirited, statements.

Ian Lake, now a high school graduate, is asking the state Supreme Court to throw out the 126-year-old criminal-libel law. Enacted before Utah became a state, it has been used only twice, both times more than a century ago, before modern justice liberalized defamation laws.

Under the 1876 law, Lake was arrested, jailed and charged in May 2000 for using his Web site to call the principal a "town drunk" and allege that he was having an affair with a school secretary.

"That's what I thought was clearly over the line," said Beaver County attorney Leo Kannell, who acknowledged he had legal problems prosecuting the case.

Lake also used coarse language on his Web site to belittle teachers and classmates. Although he hasn't been tried or convicted, Lake's defense is that his comments were satire protected under the state and U.S. constitutions.

A California teen-ager who moved to Utah, Lake had green hair, an attitude and run-ins with school authorities, his lawyer, Richard Van Wagoner, told the state Supreme Court.

He created the Web site "because he hated the principal and didn't like the faculty," said Van Wagoner, who dismissed it as a teen-age prank done without malice, a standard missing from Utah law that has become a cornerstone of American libel law.

"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, legal director for the Utah ACLU.

The law hasn't been used since the 1890s when a newspaper editor was prosecuted for writing that a delegate was unfit for election to a constitutional convention. Another man was convicted for calling a building-and-loan official a "gorilla-faced boss," Van Wagoner said.

State attorney Laura Dupaix argued that Utah courts can adopt a malice standard for the flawed law. She said the First Amendment doesn't protect "lies or calculated falsehoods" and "that is why Ian Lake is alleged to have committed criminal libel."

David Lake, the boy's father, settled a civil libel suit last September with Walter Schofield, the former principal of Milford High School in southern Utah. Schofield has taken a job at a Salt Lake City school. Terms of the settlement were sealed, but Lake said his son apologized.

"Criminal libel is outdated and should not be on the books in Utah," said David Lake, 46, now of Desert Hot Springs, Calif., who said the matter should have been quietly settled inside the Mormon church.

The Lakes and Schofield are church members.

Ian Lake, now 18, moved back to California after being held for a week in a Utah jail and graduated from Palm Springs High School.

"He's got no new Web sites," his father said. "He has e-mail, but I keep control over the computers in the house. I learned my lesson the hard way."

The five justices of the Utah Supreme Court had few questions during Wednesday's 45-minute hearing and weren't expected to make a decision for months.

Update

Utah high court tosses criminal-libel law
Statute had been used to arrest, charge teen for making disparaging comments about school officials, classmates on his personal Web site.  11.18.02

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Teen asks Utah high court to dismiss criminal-libel charge
ACLU attorney says statute being used to prosecute Ian Lake for Web postings is overly broad, punishes legal speech.  08.06.01