Of course I am not the only one who feels the need to speak ill of Johnnie Cochran.
But Cochran's death now begs the question: Since most courts still hold that you can't libel a dead man, is the important free speech case currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court now moot?
You can make the case that Tory v. Cochran should be moot at this point, but I hope that the Supreme Court decides it anyway in order to bring some sanity back to gag-order happy courts in this country.
It is this same disrespect for the First Amendment by our courts that causes a slew of bad decisions that renders free speech a nullity under the false guise of protecting individual rights.
[ Note to Patterico: If you are actually "surprised" by the non-ruling that you post about, then you haven't read enough Justin Levine rants here at Calblog regarding the state of free speech from the onslaught of overly broad libel/IP/FEC/priavcy laws. ;-) ]
[Update: I'm a big Eugene Volokh fan, so it always feels good to beat him to the punch on a legal point. Gratifying that he agrees.]
Posted by Justin Levine at March 29, 2005 08:20 PM | TrackBack