Five years ago, a Milford High School student wrote nasty comments about his high school principal and others in his community on a personal Web site. The county attorney prosecuted him, and the case ultimately reached the Utah Supreme Court, which struck down the law because it didn't include basic libel provisions outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court — like proving "actual malice" or having truth as a complete defense, said McCoy.

Local press-freedom attorney Jeff Hunt filed a brief in that case, representing a number of media groups including the national Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "In this day and age, there's no place for criminalizing speech," Hunt said.

"We've found that these criminal libel and defamation laws have been used to make mischief," Hunt said. "More often than not a prosecutor (who may stand for election) has a political motivation in filing the case. It has been really abused, and it's good to get rid of them."

In 1987, former Salt Lake County Attorney Ted Cannon was convicted of defaming a TV reporter. Cannon was indicted by a county grand jury, which brought so many other charges that the Legislature later reformed the grand jury system in Utah after one official called it a "Star Chamber" that unfairly treated citizens.

Just this summer a Farmington, N.M., man was convicted of criminal libel for carrying a sign in public that called a police officer — who had argued with the man over a traffic incident — a "liar" and a "dirty cop," reported USA Today.

A Colorado college student was being investigated by police for criminal libel after they seized his computer, which had on it a doctored picture of a college professor disguised as a member of the rock group KISS. The investigation was later dropped and no criminal libel charges filed, the newspaper said.

"Thirty-three other states have repealed their criminal libel and defamation laws, and Utah, now in the minority, should also," Dryer said.

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com