February 15, 2012 12:33 AM UTC

GOP's Greg Brophy, ACLU Team Up To Repeal Criminal Libel

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP on the passage of Senate Bill 12-102 today:

Colorado senators gave the first approval to a bill that would repeal the state’s criminal libel law…

Libel is commonly a civil matter and that option would still exist if the bill passes.

The bill is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Colorado Press Association, and the Criminal Defense Bar.

Westword’s Michael Roberts earlier today:

​”I thought we lived in a country where we had free speech,” says Brophy, whose measure is scheduled to be heard by the Senate judiciary committee this morning. “I understand that if you say something about somebody that harms them, they have the right to sue in for damages in civil court. But I didn’t think the heavy hand of government could come in and throw you in prison for something you’d written. And I think that’s dangerous.”

Use of the criminal-libel law, which ACLU of Colorado legal director Mark Silverstein has called a “relic of the 19th century,” is rare. Yet its continued existence on the Colorado books “begs for the argument of unequal application of the law,” Brophy believes. “So this kid in Greeley gets a charge against him for something he did, but somebody in another town doesn’t. That’s not supposed to happen. If you commit a crime, it’s serious, and you should be prosecuted for it.”

Moreover, he goes on, “this is a felony. We’re not talking about speeding here. This is treated as a class-six felony, which means if you’re guilty, you go to prison.”

There are few members of the Colorado Senate that we’ve been harder on in recent years than Sen. Greg Brophy, from his perennial anti-fictitious-gun-grab bills, to leading the charge to pass needless drug testing for public assistance. It’s safe to say that any time Sen. Brophy sees a Google Alert on his name that points here, he’s not expecting particularly kind words.

But in this case, our praise for arch-conservative Sen. Brophy teaming with no less than the American Civil Liberties Union itself, not to mention his Democratic Senate colleagues, to repeal a statute so plainly harmful to free speech is very much authentic.