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November 19, 2007
How can you NOT vote for this man?
Posted by MeganRitter at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)
November 8, 2007
Journalism majors: Quick, share with me everything you know about libel and slander.
Over the weekend, I decided to exercise my First Amendment rights and took two of my College Republicans out to the corner of Main and Otterman Streets in Greensburg to quietly protest certain shady behaviors among our team of incumbent county commissioners running for re-election.
One sign said, "Throw Ceraso out of the county's car and out of office."
One sign said, "Honk if you want Ceraso to pay for his own gas."
My sign said, "Ceraso and Balya: Corruption With Legs."
We'd only been out for a few minutes when an elderly man in a brown corduroy coat ambled up to me and held out a camera. I wasn't sure if he was a journalist or just a concerned citizen who enjoyed my sign and my use of First Amendment rights. He took my picture, and then he took my name.
And then he said, "Good, we'll need that for the law suit we're going to file against you," and walked into the courthouse just across the street.
After my first moment of blind panic, my instinct was that he wanted to scare me away, and that I was not going to let myself be scared away. I regrouped with my CR friends, they confirmed my instincts, and we returned to merrily waving our signs and dancing jigs every time we got a honk.
But this won't die. I've gotten an online threat from someone who says that I'll be sued along with the Westmoreland GOP and the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania - I assume for defamation of character. I emailed Commissioner Ceraso himself to ask if he knew that, at the very least, one of his supporters is threatening to sue me on his behalf. It's been more than twenty-four hours and I haven't heard a word in reply. I did some research and found that in the case of a defamation suit, the burden of proof that Balya and Ceraso are, in fact, corruption with legs, rests firmly on the defendant. That is not, from what I can dredge up of my Intro to American Law class that I took freshman year, how case law usually works. I don't know what to do. This is not exactly what I wanted for my senior year of college. They'd have to be crazy to sue a college kid, I think, but all the visible evidence has previously shown that they are not especially nice guys.
So, my friends, what do you know about libel and slander? Am I sprouting grey hair over nothing?
Posted by MeganRitter at 11:25 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack