Arizona high court to rule on lawsuit over anti-Muslim letter
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=14643
By The Associated Press
01.06.05
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court said yesterday that it would decide whether a newspaper can be sued for publishing a letter that suggested U.S. soldiers in Iraq respond to attacks on them by killing Muslims at nearby mosques.
The state high court agreed without comment to hear the Tucson Citizen's appeal of a Pima County Superior Court judge's decision to hold a trial in a lawsuit accusing the newspaper of distressing residents by printing the letter to the editor.
The Supreme Court ordered legal briefs filed within 30 days. No date was set for oral arguments in Citizen Publishing v. Miller
Plaintiffs' attorney Herbert Beigel did not immediately return a call yesterday seeking comment, while a lawyer for the Citizen said the court's willingness to hear the case was important because it involves major First Amendment issues.
"Essentially the cause of action relates to a polemical statement issued by the letter writer over how best the war in Iraq should be waged," newspaper attorney David Bodney said. "It hardly supports a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress."
Two Tucson men filed a class-action lawsuit against the Gannett Co. newspaper on Jan. 13, 2004, over a letter printed on Dec. 2, 2003, as deadly attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq mounted.
The letter prompted some fearful Tucson Muslims to keep their children home from religious schools and resulted in letters of protests from readers and a published apology by the Citizen, which also sent staff members to meet with members of a local mosque.
In a Dec. 6, 2003, column apologizing for the newspaper's decision to print the letter, Publisher and Editor Michael A. Chihak said the letter's author had written a second letter to clarify that his comments only referred to military actions in combat zones.
In its court appeal, the Citizen argued the case put at risk the fundamental First Amendment right to engage in robust political debate.
"If the trial court's ruling is allowed to stand, political speech that falls well short of advocating immediate violence may be subject to sanction in Arizona — making this state a uniquely risky jurisdiction in which to publish news and commentary," the newspaper's lawyers wrote in the appeal.
Without any immediate physical threat to anyone, publication of the letter is constitutionally protected, the newspaper's appeal added.
However, the plaintiffs argued the newspaper's decision to publish the letter crossed the line and was not constitutionally protected because it was a direct call to violence that could extend to Islamic-Americans.
Judge Leslie Miller of Pima County Superior Court in Tucson on May 10 allowed the lawsuit's claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress to stand, setting the stage for pretrial fact-finding now put on hold during the appeal to the Supreme Court.
"Clearly, reasonable minds could differ in determining whether the publication of the letter rose to the level of extreme and outrageous conduct," Miller wrote.
The judge granted the Citizen's request to dismiss an assault count in the original lawsuit.
The Citizen first appealed to the state Court of Appeals, but a three-judge panel voted 2-1 against hearing the appeal.
Also, the Arizona Supreme Court said yesterday that it would hear another First Amendment case, a legal dispute over limits on use of Prescott's courthouse plaza. In the case, Yavapai County is appealing the Court of Appeals ruling that the plaza is a public forum and the county's ordinance allowing only nonprofit organizations to sponsor events there is unconstitutional.
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Newspaper fights lawsuit over anti-Muslim letter
Judge rules men can file suit for emotional distress; Arizona Supreme Court being asked to step in. 09.20.04
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