Edward Coke Quotes
Every libel … is made either against a private man, or against a public person. If it be against a private man, it deserves a severe punishment..
This distinction is the basis for the Supreme Court Decision in New York Times v Sullivan where they ruled that the libel of a public figure is not to be punished unless it was malicious and not just defamatory. In England, a person can be sued for slandering a politician. Worse, truth is not an absolute defense in a libel suit in England as it is in the United States.
Edward Coke, 1552-1634, English Solicitor General, Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Commons, 77 Eng. Rep. 250, 1605
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The libel and slander laws in England were then, and are today, dramatically different from those of the United States in two fundamental ways: In America truth is an absolute defense; in England you can’t say true things about people which are personally libelous. Second, in America politicians and public figures are not entitled to a verdict even if the statements are inadvertently or possibly false. Without the Constitutional protections of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, the reputations of people including public figures are given much more weight in England than in America.
Usually Jefferson was the strongest voice for rights with no loopholes. However, he wanted to have a slander exception as this quote shows. However, the issue is what happens if a government official or an agency believed that it has been falsely slandered? If Jefferson’s proposal was accepted completely, the government and officials could sue someone who published negative information that they thought was false. Our supreme court has limited the exception to private parties who were NOT “public figures” unless the publisher knew the information was false and proceeded anyway for malicious reasons.
England and most other countries do not have such an exception and the press is very timid about criticizing the government or officials lest they make a mistake .
The word “printer” had a slightly different meaning then. In Jefferson’s time the printer was also the publisher, Benjamin Franklin was known as a printer but he not only published material but wrote much of it himself. This was typical. So Jefferson is concerned with the rights of the printer, the publisher and the writer.
This principle was incorporated into American law by the Supreme Court 1964 decision in Sullivan v. New York Times, where this argument drove the opinion.
A critical difference between English and American law is that truth is an absolute defense in the U. S. but is not in Great Britain. In the case of public figures, "the great," even truth is not required in U. S. law. It is not against American law to slander public figures as long as it is not malicious.
First amendment protect speech and publication even if it is slanderous or libelous as long as the subject is a public figure or public official and the falsehoods or errors are not malicious.
Sir Edward Coke SL was an English barrister, judge, and politician who is considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
