The criminal libel case over a satirical website called “The Howling Pig” has ended well for the young man whose computer was taken from him by Greeley police eight years ago.
Thomas Mink will get a $425,000 settlement. And civil libertarians got what they believe is a precedent-setting ruling about the duty of prosecutors to ensure the legality of a search warrant before they sign off on it.
However, a glaring issue at the core of the case remains unresolved.
Despite legal challenges, the state’s criminal libel statute, parts of which date to 1868, is still on the books. It’s an antiquated law that must be repealed.
This case began in 2003 when Mink was a student at the University of Northern Colorado and created the Howling Pig website and published altered pictures of UNC professor Junius Peake. In one depiction, he made the professor look like Gene Simmons of the glam rock band KISS. In another, he put dark sunglasses and a Hitler-like mustache on Peake. Mink called him “Junius Puke” and attributed views to the characters that were diametrically opposite those of the professor.
In this day and age, we must say, it all seems so tame. Nevertheless, the professor was irritated and called Greeley police, who began investigating a possible violation of Colorado’s criminal libel law. They subsequently got a warrant, which a county prosecutor signed off on, raided Mink’s home, and took his computer.
Mink filed a lawsuit challenging the criminal libel law and contending the search and seizure violated his constitutional rights. In the meantime, prosecutors dropped the libel case.
Eventually, federal courts ruled that since Mink no longer faced the threat of prosecution, the libel law question was moot.
It’s unfortunate. Of course, we don’t think Mink should have been prosecuted, but we do believe Colorado’s criminal libel law should be shot down, be it by the courts or the legislature.
Colorado is among a dwindling number of states that still have criminal libel laws on the books. Colorado’s statute makes it a felony to “impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation” of a person.
Worse yet, it criminalizes language that would “blacken the memory of one who is dead” or exposes the “natural defects of one who is alive.” Unbelievably, the statute goes on to say truth is not a defense in those instances.
We think there’s a strong case to be made that the law is unconstitutional. And we definitely believe it is out of step with modern sensibilities.
Keep in mind, there are well-established civil libel remedies for those who believe they have been wronged.
This statute, however, has to go. Laws that allow people to be put in jail for their words have an unacceptably chilling effect on free speech.
