Supreme Court strikes down Stolen Valor law

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a federal law that made it a crime to falsely claim being awarded medals of valor, saying the law infringed on the First Amendment protection of free speech.

The ruling disappointed supporters of the Stolen Valor Act, which Congress passed in 2006, but they vowed to move quickly on a new version that Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., introduced last year. He said the bill that was presented in May 2011 will not interfere with free speech.

"Of course I’m disappointed that the law wasn’t upheld, but I understand why," Heck, an Army Reserve colonel, said from Washington, D.C. "But we’re ready to move forward with a bill that will pass constitutional muster. We had a fair number of co-sponsors, so I expect there will be a large amount of support for it."

In a statement issued on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling, Heck said the 2006 law was very popular, but it went too far in that it attempted to limit individuals’ speech.

"My bill takes a different approach – making it illegal for individuals to benefit from lying about their military service or record," Heck said. "I feel strongly about protecting the honor of our service men and women, and the Stolen Valor Act of 2011 will help do that."

He said he would push for a vote on the bill now that the Supreme Court has ruled. Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said they will co-sponsor Heck’s bill, which Amodei described as "narrowly tailored to protect free speech."

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., co-sponsored Heck’s bill while serving in the House, and he is co-sponsor of a companion bill in the Senate by Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

Retired Lt. Col. Bill Anton of North Las Vegas, who is a member of the Army Ranger Hall of Fame, supported the Stolen Valor Act since it was proposed in 2005 and advocated a state version of the act, which died in legislative committee last year.

While lying about military service and valor medals might be free speech, it’s a form of free speech that Anton said he detests.

"The Supreme Court has made its ruling and now we will go back and adjust the Stolen Valor Act for fraud, which they must agree with," Anton said.

The court ruling focused on the case of a California man, Xavier Alvarez, who was convicted for claiming falsely in 2007 that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor.

But Alvarez’s attorneys convinced a lower court that his untruths were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, and the Supreme Court agreed.

"Content-based restrictions on speech have been permitted only for a few historic categories … including incitement, obscenity, defamation," the court wrote in a summary.

"The Act seeks to control and suppress all false statements on this one subject in almost limitless times and settings. Permitting the Government to decree this speech to be a criminal offense would endorse government authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable."

The court voted 6-3 Thursday in favor of Alvarez, a former local elected official in California. In a judgment written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court noted that lying about valor medals doesn’t degrade those that were truly earned and therefore ordered that Alvarez’s conviction be thrown out.

The court’s decision irked Medal of Honor recipient Harold "Hal" Fritz, who is president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

"I disagree that lying about medals doesn’t degrade those medals," Fritz said from Peoria, Ill.

He said the Supreme Court justices who voted to strike down the Stolen Valor law might have thought differently had they been in his shoes.

"I’d like these justices to look in the eyes of widows of servicemen who died on the battlefields I’ve been on and tell them exactly that," he said.

In Nevada’s only prosecution under the Stolen Valor Act, David M. Perelman served one year in prison after pleading guilty to theft of government funds, a felony, and unlawful wearing of a service medal, a misdemeanor.

Perelman, a former Veterans Affairs employee and Air Force veteran, fraudulently obtained a Purple Heart, wore it in public and used it to obtain more than $180,000 in disability benefits.

Perelman also once claimed to be a Medal of Honor recipient, according to a 1997 federal court case in Los Angeles that was dismissed.

Before pleading guilty in his Nevada case, Perelman had argued that he was charged under a portion of the Stolen Valor Act that violates the First Amendment by restricting free speech. U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson rejected that argument, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his decision, ruling in September that Perelman’s wearing of a military medal "with an intent to deceive is engaging in legitimately criminal conduct."

After Thursday’s ruling, Assistant Federal Public Defender Alina Shell said she will ask the appeals court to rehear the Stolen Valor portion of Perelman’s case because wearing a medal as Perelman did is akin to saying that he is a recipient of the medal.

"I think the ruling in Alvarez today supports that position," she said Thursday.

Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said in his view the Supreme Court made the right decision because "otherwise any kind of lie could be criminalized and serve as a chilling effect."

Thomas A. Cotttone, a retired FBI agent who investigated Stolen Valor Act violations, said despite the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday with regard to free speech, it is still against the law to wear any military award or decoration without authority to do so. "The Stolen Valor Act only prohibits the verbal or written claims," he noted.

The Alvarez case has generated huge interest and divided First Amendment advocates, including the media, and veterans groups, who saw the act as a necessary weapon to discourage what appears to a boomlet of self-aggrandizers.

According to a brief filed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and two dozen veterans groups, "Pretenders have included a U.S. Attorney, member of Congress, ambassador, judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and bestselling author, manager of a Major League Baseball team, Navy captain, police chief, top executive at a world-famous research laboratory, director of state veterans programs, university administrator, pastor, candidate for countywide office, mayor, physician, and more than one police officer."

The Washington Post and The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.