Ruling Lauds Intent of Legislation, But Sees It as Too Broad, Violating First Amendment
WSJ
New York’s top court struck down a law that made cyberbullying a crime, in what had been viewed as a test case of recent state and local statutes that target online speech.
The New York Court of Appeals, in a 5-2 ruling, held on Tuesday that the 2010 Albany County law prohibited a vast swath of speech “far beyond the cyberbullying of children,” in violation of the First Amendment.
The court’s ruling could stand as a guidepost for other state high courts hearing challenges to such laws, as well as for states and localities considering criminal penalties for cyberbullying, legal experts said. Besides Albany, four other New York counties and more than a dozen states, including Louisiana and North Carolina, have similar laws.
The Albany law made it a crime to electronically communicate “private, personal, false, or sexual information,” intended to “harass, annoy, threaten, abuse, taunt, intimidate, torment, humiliate, or otherwise inflict significant emotional harm on another person” for no legitimate purpose.
Cohoes High School student Marquan W. Mackey-Meggs was the first to be charged under the law, after the then-15-year-old created a Facebook FB -2.56% page in 2010 called “Cohoes Flame” and posted photos of other teenagers with captions that included graphic and sexual comments, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty, on the condition that he could challenge the constitutionality of the law.
Judge Victoria Graffeo, writing for the majority, described the posts as “repulsive and harmful” but declined the county’s request to uphold the law in a form that would have barred narrow categories of electronic communications, including sexually explicit photographs and private or personal sexual information, sent with the intent to harm.
“Even if the First Amendment allows a cyberbullying statute of the limited nature proposed by Albany County, the local law here was not drafted in that manner,” she wrote.
Despite the ruling, Judge Graffeo lauded the motivation behind the law and allowed that the First Amendment “permits the prohibition of cyberbullying directed at children, depending on how that activity is defined.”
County Executive Daniel P. McCoy said he was disappointed with the court’s ruling but would work with the county legislature to craft a new law that “addresses this decision and preserves our ability to do what we can to reduce cyberbullying of children.”
“Cyberbullying is a serious concern that all communities must confront, but there are better and more constructive ways to address the problem than giving children criminal records,” said Corey Stoughton of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents Mr. Mackey-Meggs. “Communities across New York and the nation should take note that criminalizing First Amendment activity is unlawful and does nothing to address the causes of bullying.”
Judge Robert Smith, writing in dissent, said the majority made too much of flaws in the law’s draftsmanship. “The crux of the case, in my view, is whether Albany County constitutionally may do what it is trying to do: to prohibit certain kinds of communication that have no legitimate purpose and are intended to inflict significant emotional injury on children,” he said.
If, as in Mr. Mackey-Meggs’s case, the communications targeted by the law are of no public importance, then New York’s law should be deemed valid, he said.
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