Posted on 05/21/2002 6:45:44 AM PDT by Dallas
DALLAS --
A state appeals court has refused to dismiss a libel suit filed by two elected officials who claim a weekly alternative newspaper's satirical story damaged their reputations.
Denton County Court-at-Law Judge Darlene Whitten and District Attorney Bruce Isaacks sued after the Dallas Observer published a November 1999 story in its news section about a first-grader jailed for a book report on Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."
Reporter Rose Farley's story was meant to poke fun at the judge's actual decision several weeks earlier to jail a seventh-grader for five days because he read a graphic Halloween story to his class. The case received national media coverage.
So Farley imagined a second incident, quoting both plaintiffs. It was not labeled as satire but, Farley said Monday, "the story was written specifically to let the reader in on the joke."
The judge is quoted in the parody as admonishing the girl, who wore "handcuffs and ankle shackles."
"Any implication of violence in a school situation, even if it was just contained in a first-grader's book report, is reason enough for panic and overreaction," Whitten was quoted as saying in the parody. "It's time for you to grow up, young lady, and it's time for us to stop treating kids like children."
The Second District Court of Appeals, in a decision earlier this month, said a reasonable reader could find the story believable and that satire is not protected under the First Amendment if it contains a substantially false and defamatory impression.
"If an attempted satire or parody fails to make clear to its readers that it is not conveying actual facts, it may be defamatory," the opinion stated.
A Dallas radio station and the student newspaper at the University of North Texas reported the story to be true. The Observer also received correspondence from readers who believed the article was true.
The Observer published a disclaimer of sorts the following week, and again several weeks later.
"It was a joke," Managing Editor Patrick Williams wrote in a column. "We made it up."
Editor Julie Lyons said the story was labeled as a satire on the newspaper's Web site.
"I thought it was obvious," Lyons said. "There was no intention to deceive the public. I was surprised some people misunderstood that."
Plaintiffs' attorney Michael Whitten, who is married to the judge, said that when the newspaper refused his request for a retraction, he sued on behalf of his wife and Isaacks, who are seeking unspecified damages.
Whitten said readers were misled by the story, which harmed his clients' reputations.
"You can't make up false facts and false quotes and attribute them so that reasonable people think it's actual events," he said. "Many readers just didn't get it."
The newspaper had sought to have the case dismissed in a county trial court. The paper may appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
I have great respect for criminal defense lawyers who help protect us from the government, but tort lawyers (money changers) are a different breed.
Another attack on the Bill of Rights brought to you by the trial lawyers of America "Stealing your rights, one amendment at a time".
Denton, BTW, is the home county of Dick Armey. His son, a Denton County Commisioner ran for a new district in Congress and lost the Republican primary to a newcomer. The Denton politicians (we have elected judges) must be getting very thin skinned.
Personally, I would have written a retraction and explaining that the judge had demanded it. With a bit of skill, it would have done ten times the damage by revealing his idiocy to the world -- and he wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about either the old or the new zingers.
We shouldn't have to have our Constitutional rights nibbled away because some stupid people misunderstand our messages. If anything, the stupid folks should be satirized themselves for being so bone-headed. Our rights shouldn't be judged by the least common denominator.
And if anyone can provide a link I'd love to read this article. Putting it on the front page of the news section was pretty cheeky - does the Observer normally run satire runs there, and do people look to it as a source of genuine news, or is it more like the Onion?
Sheesh, the simple solution is to write "satire" on the material so the idiot judges understand.
This looks like the piece in question.
© 1999 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
Stop the madness
Ponder officials jail second student; first-grader's report on Where the Wild Things Are deemed too violent
By Rose Farley
In the second homework-related arrest in as many weeks, a Denton County juvenile court judge jailed a Ponder student for suspicion of making a terroristic threat after the first-grader wrote a book report on the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are.
Cindy Bradley, a diminutive 6-year-old, was arrested without incident during "story time" at her class at Ponder Elementary School on Tuesday morning. In a court appearance later that day, Judge Darlene Whitten ordered the girl detained for 10 days at the Denton County juvenile detention center while prosecutors contemplate whether to file charges.
"Any implication of violence in a school situation, even if it was just contained in a first-grader's book report, is reason enough for panic and overreaction," Whitten said from the bench. "It's time for you to grow up, young lady, and it's time for us to stop treating kids like children."
Cindy, dressed in blue jeans, a Pokémon T-shirt, handcuffs, and ankle shackles, appeared subdued as she stood before Whitten. Sources say courthouse security officers ordered the shackles after they reviewed her school disciplinary record, which included reprimands for spraying a boy with pineapple juice and sitting on her feet.
"It's not easy finding cuffs that small," said a bailiff, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. "Fortunately, we ordered a special set last week after that other kid was busted."
That "other kid" is 13-year-old Christopher Beamon, a Ponder seventh-grader whom Whitten ordered detained October 28 after he wrote a graphic Halloween horror story in which he describes shooting a teacher and two students after getting high on Freon. After complaints from parents, Ponder High School Principal Chance Allen called juvenile authorities, who sent sheriff's deputies to remove Christopher from school. He was released after being held five days at the juvenile facility.
Denton County District Attorney Bruce Isaacks said Tuesday that he hasn't decided whether to prosecute Cindy. If convicted of making a terroristic threat, she could be confined to the Texas Youth Commission until she turns 18.
"We've considered having her certified to stand trial as an adult, but even in Texas there are some limits," Isaacks said.
Whitten told reporters that she took action at the request of school officials, who were alarmed by acts of "cannibalism, fanaticism, and disorderly conduct" that Cindy wrote about in her report, titled "Where the Wild Things Are: A Book Report by Cindy Bradley."
Cindy received two gold stars and a stamped smiley face for the teacher-assigned report, according to her mother, Karen Bradley.
"I thought the report was good and deserved the stickers it got," the bewildered mother says. "I thought it was a sign that we had turned a corner with Cindy's academic career. God knows what this will do to her permanent record."
Cindy's trouble began Monday morning, when the mother of one of her classmates called school officials to complain that students at Ponder were encouraged to read books that could cause students to think dangerous thoughts. The officials then contacted Dr. Byron Welch, who runs the Denton county school district, who in turn contacted juvenile authorities.
"In this day and age, you never know what students might do, and I can't risk another Columbine," Welch says. "Frankly, these kids scare the crap out of me."
Welch also confirmed reports that school representatives will soon join several local faith-based organizations, including God-Fearing Opponents of Freedom (GOOF), and ask publishers to review content guidelines for children's books.
Written by Maurice Sendak, the 1964 winner of the Caldecott Medal for Most Distinguished Picture Book, Where the Wild Things Are is a 37-page book about a boy named "Max" who dresses in a wolf costume and is sent to his room without supper for making mischief. The most controversial aspect of the book is contained in an early exchange between Max and his mother. It reads:
"His mother called him 'WILD THING!'
and Max said 'I'LL EAT YOU UP!'
so he was sent to bed without eating anything."
Reached on the presidential campaign trail in South Carolina, Gov. George W. Bush said he had not read the book, but was "appalled that such material could find its way into the hands of a Texas schoolchild. This book clearly has deviant, violent, sexual overtones.
"Parents must understand that zero tolerance means just that," he said. "We won't tolerate anything."
In Washington, D.C., the news of Cindy's arrest prompted an immediate outcry from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has offered to provide Cindy with free legal representation.
"Jesus H. Christ, are you people nuts? She's just a kid," said the ACLU's Emily Whitfield, the organization's national spokeswoman, who commented while en route to Dallas with a team of lawyers in tow. "When I was Cindy's age, we sang 'On Top of Old Smokey,' and 'Marijuana, Marijuana, LSD.'"
The schoolyard rhyme "On Top of Old Smokey" refers to shooting a teacher "with a .44-slug." The later drug ditty concludes: "Scientists make it, teachers take it. Why can't we?"
By 5 p.m. Tuesday, the day's events were beginning to take their toll on Cindy, who asked her mom to bring her pink pajamas, the ones with the kangaroos on them, before lights-out.
"I don't get why everyone's so mad," Cindy said in a phone interview from the detention center. "Just 'cause I like how Max told his mom he wanted to eat her up and ran away in his mind and did a rumpus with the monsters doesn't mean I would do those things."
Cindy scoffed at the suggestion that Where the Wild Things Are can corrupt young minds.
"Like, I'm sure," she said. "It's bad enough people think like Salinger and Twain are dangerous, but Sendak? Give me a break, for Christ's sake. Excuse my French."
People of North Texas: Stupid is as stupid does.
From a South Texan.
WW
There are others, I'm sure, who would not recognize it as such. That's what this case is going to turn on--whether it's obviously satire.
Clearly, this piece contains lies. They were deliberate lies, and deliberate lies which damage someone's reputation are libel. So, the question is going to be whether a reasonable person who reads this would know it's a funny piece of fiction.
I know how I would rule, but this parody was almost believable, which makes it a closer call than normal.
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