Another One Of Jason Bowman’s Infamous Love Letters!

No element of anything ‘Martin’ has posted is untrue, as I have taken everything from Kevin’s own websites and his own words… All my info has come with references (which is more than I can say for Kevin Annett)… I welcome the opportunity to bring my evidence of Kevin’s wrongdoing before a judge… It would be about bloody time!

Just for fun, I thought i’d look up the legal definition of libel… Here’s what Legaldictionary.com has to say: Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.

Defamation may be a criminal or civil charge. It encompasses both written statements, known as libel, and spoken statements, called slander.

The probability that a plaintiff will recover damages in a defamation suit depends largely on whether the plaintiff is a public or private figure in the eyes of the law. The public figure law of defamation was first delineated in new york times v. sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964). In Sullivan, the plaintiff, a police official, claimed that false allegations about him appeared in the New York Times, and sued the newspaper for libel. The Supreme Court balanced the plaintiff’s interest in preserving his reputation against the public’s interest in freedom of expression in the area of political debate. It held that a public official alleging libel must prove actual malice in order to recover damages. The Court declared that the First Amendment protects open and robust debate on public issues even when such debate includes “vehement, caustic, unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” A public official or other plaintiff who has voluntarily assumed a position in the public eye must prove that defamatory statements were made with knowledge that they were false or with reckless disregard of whether they were false.

Where the plaintiff in a defamation action is a private citizen who is not in the public eye, the law extends a lesser degree of constitutional protection to defamatory statements. Public figures voluntarily place themselves in a position that invites close scrutiny, whereas private citizens who have not entered public life do not relinquish their interest in protecting their reputation. In addition, public figures have greater access to the means to publicly counteract false statements about them. For these reasons, a private citizen’s reputation and privacy interests tend to outweigh free speech considerations and deserve greater protection from the courts. (See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S. Ct. 2997, 41 L. Ed. 2d 789 [1974]).

Distinguishing between public and private figures for the purposes of defamation law is sometimes difficult. For an individual to be considered a public figure in all situations, the person’s name must be so familiar as to be a household word—for example, Michael Jordan. Because most people do not fit into that category of notoriety, the Court recognized the limited-purpose public figure, who is voluntarily injected into a public controversy and becomes a public figure for a limited range of issues. Limited-purpose public figures, like public figures, have at least temporary access to the means to counteract false statements about them. They also voluntarily place themselves in the public eye and consequently relinquish some of their privacy rights. For these reasons, false statements about limited-purpose public figures that relate to the public controversies in which those figures are involved are not considered defamatory unless they meet the actual-malice test set forth in Sullivan.

Determining who is a limited-purpose public figure can also be problematic. In Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448, 96 S. Ct. 958, 47 L. Ed. 2d 154 (1976), the Court held that the plaintiff, a prominent socialite involved in a scandalous Divorce, was not a public figure because her divorce was not a public controversy and because she had not voluntarily involved herself in a public controversy. The Court recognized that the divorce was newsworthy, but drew a distinction between matters of public interest and matters of public controversy. In Hutchinson v. Proxmire, 443 U.S. 111, 99 S. Ct. 2675, 61 L. Ed. 2d 411 (1979), the Court determined that a scientist whose federally supported research was ridiculed as wasteful by Senator William Proxmire was not a limited-purpose public figure because he had not sought public scrutiny in order to influence others on a matter of public controversy, and was not otherwise well-known.
Further readings

Collins, Matthew. 2001. The Law of Defamation and the Internet. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Friedman, Jessica R. 1995. “Defamation.” Fordham Law Review 64 (December).

Jones, William K. 2003. Insult to Injury: Libel, Slander, and Invasions of Privacy. Boulder, Colo.: Univ. Press of Colorado.

Smolla, Rodney A. 1999. Law of Defamation. 2d ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group.
Cross-references

Freedom of the Press; Libel and Slander.

Kevin and Jason are not private citizens when it comes to this issue… They use social media and internet websites and Facebook pages and postings to promote their agenda. It is therefore their burden of proof to show that anything of what is posted by Greg Renouf or myself (or Lydia Whitecalf or Jim Craven for that matter) constitutes libel. A judge would throw a case like that out of court (common law or not) if it ever got that far. Kevin places himself in the public realm and therefore invites vigorous social debate…. The only shame is that they don’t want debate… only docile sheep to follow them around worshipping the ground they walk on….

Bowman, Bowman, Bowman…. Really? Did you really just say “Dear Tony, don’t give them any attention. Give ME all the attention. Or I’ll criminally prosecute you.”? Really? Seriously dude, get a real job. And stay out of the fake law business. Epic fail.