Newspaper that ran satirical piece loses 2nd appeal
By The Associated Press
11.26.02
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas appeals court has ruled again that the First Amendment does not protect a weekly alternative newspaper's satirical piece.
On Nov. 21, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Court of Appeals rejected the Dallas Observer's request to throw out a libel lawsuit filed by two Denton County officials after the newspaper invented an account about a 6-year-old girl being arrested, jailed and put in shackles.
The piece, published in 1999 under the headline "Stop the Madness," was a parody of the actual arrest of a Ponder student that year.
State District Judge Bob McCoy in Fort Worth, assigned to the case after Denton County judges recused themselves, originally denied the Dallas Observer's request to throw out the case. If the Nov. 21 ruling is not appealed, the case will return to his court for trial.
Denton County District Attorney Bruce Isaacks and County Court at Law Judge Darlene Whitten, major characters in the real incident and the fictional piece, said they were subjected to public ridicule and threats after the article appeared.
"It hurt these people who have had good reputations. It injured them, and people asked them to resign," said Michael Whitten, Darlene Whitten's husband and the attorney representing both officials.
It was the second time the Dallas Observer had asked that the case be thrown out. The appeals court issued a similar ruling in May.
Justice Anne Gardner wrote that the piece appeared among legitimate stories, raising the question that "a reasonable person could construe the asserted parody or satire as a statement of actual fact."
James Hemphill, an Austin attorney representing the Observer, said his clients have 45 days to decide whether they want to ask the entire appeals court to review the case or appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
But if the paper is unsuccessful, Hemphill said, the decision could "inject a fear of liability" and stifle the publication of any form of political satire.
The real incident occurred in 1999, when Darlene Whitten detained Christopher Beamon, then 13 and a seventh-grader in Ponder, after he wrote a graphic Halloween story depicting the shooting death of a teacher and two classmates.
This was six months after two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide.
Beamon was held in a juvenile facility for five days. After Isaacks and Darlene Whitten found out that the letter had been a homework assignment, the boy was released. But his jailing drew national attention.
A few weeks later, Observer writer Rose Farley penned a parody in which a fictional "diminutive" school girl, Cindy Bradley, was arrested in her classroom in Ponder. Bradley had written a book report on Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
Farley has Darlene Whitten chastising the girl as Isaacks considers prosecuting Cindy as an adult. Farley's fiction also says court officials had handcuffs small enough for a first-grader because a pair had been ordered after Beamon's arrest.
"The story did hold the judge's actions up to ridicule, and that is what we intended," said Julie Lyons, Observer editor. "It was a work of political satire and meant to comment on her actions. We are going to fight for our right to publish satire."
In its next edition, the paper printed an explanation, saying anyone who believed Farley's piece was "cerebrally challenged" and "clueless."