Fun fact: slander is spoken, libel is written.
So Musk didn't slander the innocent man, he made a libelous accusation against an innocent man.
The good part? Legally, there's absolutely no difference so I hope this poor guy's client wipes the floor with Musk.
"That's ridiculous, slander is spoken, libel is written!"
There's no legal distinction, it's only defamation.
Fun fact. At least through the early 1800s, the First Amendment did not protect you from criminal defamation no matter how truthful your words were.
People v Croswell. A reporter, Croswell, discovered that Jefferson was paying a reporter to attack Adams and call Washington a traitor. He wrote an article on it.
Jefferson pressured the NY AG to bring forward charges of defamation. Croswell argued in court that he could not be defaming Jefferson because he had proof the actions occurred. The Court ordered the jury to only base their opinions on whether or not the statements were published. They found him guilty.
He appealed to the NY SC, this time with Hamilton representing him. Hamilton argued that the truth should always be an absolute defense against defamation. After all, it can't be defamation if it's factual. They ruled against him as well.
He appealed to the SCOTUS. Hamilton presented the same arguments: what Croswell wrote were facts, he could prove they were facts, and defamation should only apply to lies. They were split 2-2 which upheld his sentence and de facto prevented truth from applying as a defense to defamation.
While many states enacted laws providing truth as an absolute defense, it wasn't until over a century later that the Constitutional opinion changed and allowed the defense.
I'm pretty sure he was making a movie reference as a joke
It’s wild that the trumposphere’s pathological need to lie about everything has resulted in Slander going from a seldom used and rarely advisable civil charge to file, to a completely normal and reasonable mitigating action to take against one entire half of our political system.
Tangential as well, Mark Bankston was one of the prosecuting attorneys in Alex Jones' TX trial for his slander and libel ('cause he definitely did both) of the families of Sandy Hook victims. So on top of dunking on Musk, he's also a good attorney? Seems like a pretty cool dude.
I've met quite a few attorneys lately and it has really changed my opinion to something other than the American public default of "scum sucking lawyers". In fact, the only attorney I've met that actually is a scum sucking piece of shit is a city manager. The other private attorneys are all awesome and do a fair bit of pro bono work.
In this particular context, I meant "successful and capable" when I said "good". But I agree with your point generally: people are often less shitty than the stereotypes about them.
Fuck the police.
Tangental, but who needs deepfakes when a bit of old school Photoshop is misleading enough.
This is a slam dunk lawsuit.
