The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a 2006 law making it a criminal offense to lie about being decorated for military service.

The Stolen Valor Act makes it unlawful to falsely represent, verbally or in writing “to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item.”

A federal appeals court declared the law unconstitutional last year (.pdf). The measure imposes penalties of up to a year in prison.

The issue before the justices comes from the San Francisco–based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled if it were to uphold the law, “then there would be no constitutional bar to criminalizing lying about one’s height, weight, age, or financial status on Match.com or Facebook, or falsely representing to one’s mother that one does not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, is a virgin, or has not exceeded the speed limit while driving on the freeway.”

The case the Justice Department asked the high court to review concerned defendant Xavier Alvarez. In 2007, he claimed that as a Marine, he had won the Congressional Medal of Honor. He made that public statement during a local Los Angeles suburban water board meeting, in which he had just won a seat on its board of directors.

The government said Alvarez should be prosecuted because the speech fits into the “narrowly limited” classes of speech, such as defamation, that is historically unprotected by the First Amendment. Congress, when adopting the law, said fraudulent claims about military honors “damage the reputation and meaning of such decorations and medals.”

Alvarez was the first person ever charged and convicted under the act, which has ensnared dozens of defendants. Alvarez pleaded guilty, was fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 416 hours of community service. He appealed his conviction to the 9th Circuit.

The justices did not immediately decide whether to hear the government’s petition, filed last Thursday.

Photo: BattlefieldPortraits.com/Flickr

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