By in Rhode Island’s Future
Rhode Islanders no longer need to
worry about facing prison for exercising their free speech rights now that
an outdated law that banned the distribution of anonymous political
literature has been ruled unconstitutional.
Ruling in an ACLU lawsuit, U.S.
District Court Judge William Smith on Tuesday struck down a state law that
makes it a crime to circulate anonymous political literature, including
unsigned newspaper editorials.
The ACLU of Rhode Island sued over the legality
of the statute earlier this year to halt the Town of Smithfield’s stated plans
to enforce it. The statute, which carries a potential one-year prison sentence,
bars the distribution of any anonymous political literature that relates to
ballot questions or that criticizes a political candidate’s “personal character
or political action.”
The U.S. Supreme Court had previously
declared an almost identical Ohio statute unconstitutional, and called
anonymous pamphleteering “an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent”
designed to “protect unpopular individuals from retaliation – and their ideas
from suppression – at the hand of an intolerant society.” That 1995 ruling cited
a long history of anonymous political literature in this country, including the
Federalist Papers.
The ACLU received no response; instead, news stories
quoted town officials as calling the ACLU request “absolute nonsense” and
stating that they intended to continue initiating criminal complaints under the
statute.
This prompted the ACLU’s lawsuit,
filed by ACLU of RI volunteer attorney Mark W. Freel. In a written filing with
the court, the Attorney General’s office essentially agreed with the ACLU and
acknowledged the unconstitutionality of the statute.
In a four-page decision,
Judge Smith said it was “hard to imagine what the Rhode Island General Assembly
was thinking when it passed this law . . . [but it] must be invalidated as a
violation of the First Amendment.”
The plaintiff in the suit was
Smithfield resident John Blakeslee, who has disseminated written political
materials over the years that could be deemed to violate the statute’s
requirements.
ACLU attorney Freel said: “There is a
long tradition of anonymous pamphleteering on matters of public interest in
this country, and that right is embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. Today the court struck down a long-standing Rhode Island law that
was entirely at odds with that right. It is a victory for free speech and
expression.”
In an attempt to mitigate the time and
expense of defending the lawsuit, the House had passed a bill this session to
repeal the statute, but the bill died in the Senate. As a result of the court
decision, the defendants will pay $4,000 in attorneys’ fees in response to the
successful challenge to the statute.
Although anonymous literature that
criticizes candidates for public office is a criminal offense under the
statute, literature that supports or praises a candidate is not. The court’s
decision formally makes the statute legally unenforceable.
Steven Brown is the
executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.
