Attorneys blast communications fraud law

Is a lie truly a crime, and are lies protected speech under the Constitution?

Those two heavy legal issues were debated Thursday before the Utah Supreme Court after several criminal defense attorneys requested that the state's high court throw out Utah's communications fraud statute.

The attorneys in three criminal cases say Utah's communications fraud law is so vague it makes seemingly harmless lies into crimes.

Take the case of Richard Mattinson. He was charged in 2001 with felony communications fraud after he took his ailing girlfriend to the emergency room at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo. According to court documents, Mattinson's girlfriend, Stevoni Wells, was in a great deal of pain with a dangerously high fever from spinal meningitis. But Wells was a drug user with several warrants for her arrest. Desperate to get her medical attention, Mattinson gave hospital officials a false name for Wells and a false name as her husband so that he could be with her in the emergency room. He also gave two false Social Security numbers.

"Mattinson ultimately received no financial benefit for the lie," said attorney Jennifer Gowans. Because he was not really Wells' husband, he was not financially responsible for her $5,868 medical bill.

Gowans argued that Mattinson's motive for lying was simply to get his friend emergency medical help and to be with her for support.

A jury convicted Mattinson and on appeal the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, noting that the communications fraud statute was valid.

But state supreme court justices did have concerns about the law, which some said appeared to open anyone caught in a lie to be criminally prosecuted.

At issue is what the term "value" means in Utah's law. Communications fraud is any "scheme or artifice to defraud another or to obtain from another money, property, or anything of value" with a lie.

Justice Jill Parrish pointed out that anyone lies to get somewhere or something and that the language of the law appears to criminalize lying outright.

Deputy Utah Attorney General Matthew Bates said lying is not protected under the Constitution because it does not add any redeeming substance to honest debate and discussion. Prosecutors would charge only in lies that perpetrate fraud.

Chief Justice Christine Durham pointed out that many people tell lies to smooth things over. "Your wife says this morning 'does this make me look fat?' . . . some utter calculated lies to make the day go better," Durham said.