Stolen Valor Act Unconstitutionally Criminalizes Merely Lying

The Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional because it imposes a criminal penalty for merely uttering a false statement of fact without anything more, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found

In a 2-1 decision, the majority said, while Congress has an interest in preserving the integrity of honoring military men and women, the Act’s speech restriction was not narrowly tailored to achieve that result. Under the Act, it is a crime for a person to represent verbally or in writing that he or she was awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces.

Xavier Alvarez at a public meeting stated he was a retired Marine, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and was wounded many times, all of which were lies. “In addition to lies about military service, Alvarez has claimed to have played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, to have worked as a police officer (who was fired for using excessive force), and to have been secretly married to a Mexican starlet,” the appellate court wrote.

“Preserving the value of military decorations is unquestionably an appropriate and worthy governmental objective that Congress may achieve through, for example, publicizing the names of legitimate recipients or false claimants, creating educational programs, prohibiting the act of posing as a veteran to obtain certain benefits, or otherwise more carefully circumscribing what is required to violate the Act. But the First Amendment does not permit the government to pursue this sort of objective by means of a pure speech regulation like the one contained in the Act,” the court found.

Because the Act regulated speech, the court applied a strict scrutiny test that requires the government to show that the law is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest. The court said it failed to see how the Act was narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest. “As presently drafted, the Act is facially invalid under the First Amendment, and was unconstitutionally applied to make a criminal out of a man who was proven to be nothing more than a liar, without more.”

The majority criticized the dissent, noting that if the Act were constitutional under the dissent’s analysis, “then there would be no constitutional bar to criminalizing lying about one’s height, weight, age, or financial status on Match.com or Facebook, or falsely representing to one’s mother that one does not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, is a virgin, or has not exceeded the speed limit while driving on the freeway. The sad fact is, most people lie about some aspects of their lives from time to time.”

United States of America v. Xavier Alvarez, Ninth Circuit No. 08-50345, filed August 17, 2010.