Few among us would defend what Rick Strandlof is accused of doing.
He’s the guy who pretended to be a former Marine captain who had won a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.
But a Colorado-based federal court judge decided, and rightly so, that prosecuting Strandlof under a law that criminalized his lies was an unconstitutional restriction of free speech.
Sometimes defending the First Amendment involves standing up for miscreants and bad actors, no matter how distasteful that may be.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Blackburn, who has a reputation as a thoughtful and precise judge, made the right call last week in dismissing the charges against Strandlof.
There is no doubt that Strandlof’s deception was disgraceful. He claimed to have served three tours in Iraq, suffered a brain injury on the battlefield, and said he was at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks.
None of these things was true. He also founded the Colorado Veterans Alliance and used the position to lobby for veterans’ causes — but apparently not for personal gain.
That’s key, because if he had, he could have been pursued for fraud.
Instead, he was charged under the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to falsely claim to have been awarded a military service medal or badge.
Unconnected to an underlying criminal act, the federal legislation, which was sponsored by Colorado’s Rep. John Salazar, seeks to criminalize speech based on its content.
The law allows only narrow avenues for doing that. Blackburn wrote that he was “hard-pressed to find that the government’s interest in preserving the symbolic meaning of military awards is sufficiently compelling to withstand First Amendment scrutiny.”
In defending the act, the government argued that the Stolen Valor Act protects the meaning and significance of military awards by prohibiting just anyone from claiming them.
Allowing such falsehoods “could impact the motivation of soldiers to engage in valorous, and extremely dangerous, behavior on the battlefield,” the government argued.
Blackburn called the assertion “shocking” and wrote that he found it incredible to suggest members of the military would think about whether they were going to get a medal before acting in a crisis situation.
He makes a good point. The character traits that these honors are meant to reward would contradict the idea of such a calculation.
Despite persuasive arguments that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional, the judge’s decision is unlikely to end the debate. Emotions run high on this topic, and an appeal would not be surprising.
We hope that if the litigation continues, future jurists continue to apply logic and constitutional precedent in protecting the First Amendment, no matter how unsavory the defendant.
