United States v. Alvarez

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No.08-50345
Plaintiff-Appellee,
D.C. No.
v.
 2:07-cr-01035-
XAVIER ALVAREZ, AKA Javier RGK-1
Alvarez,
OPINION
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted
November 4, 2009—Pasadena, California

Filed August 17, 2010

Before: Thomas G. Nelson, Jay S. Bybee, and
Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.;
Dissent by Judge Bybee

11845
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11849

COUNSEL

Jonathan D. Libby, Deputy Federal Public Defender, Los
Angeles, California, for the defendant-appellant.

Craig H. Missakian, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Cyber and Intel-
lectual Property Section, Los Angeles, California, for the
plaintiff-appellee.

OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Xavier Alvarez conditionally pleaded
guilty to one count of falsely verbally claiming to have
received the Congressional Medal of Honor, in violation of
the Stolen Valor Act (the Act), 18 U.S.C. § 704(b), (c),1
reserving his right to appeal the Act’s constitutionality.

1
Although predecessor versions have existed since 1948, the current
form of the Act was passed in 2006. In that year, Congress found that
“[f]raudulent claims surrounding the receipt of the Medal of Honor [and
other Congressionally authorized military medals, decorations, and
awards] damage the reputation and meaning of such decorations and med-
als,” and that “[l]egislative action is necessary to permit law enforcement
officers to protect the reputation and meaning of military decorations and
medals.” Stolen Valor Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-437, § 2(1), (3), 120
Stat. 3266, 3266 (2006).
11850 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
The Act, as presently drafted, applies to pure speech; it
imposes a criminal penalty of up to a year of imprisonment,
plus a fine, for the mere utterance or writing of what is, or
may be perceived as, a false statement of fact—without any-
thing more.

The Act therefore concerns us because of its potential for
setting a precedent whereby the government may proscribe
speech solely because it is a lie. While we agree with the dis-
sent that most knowingly false factual speech is unworthy of
constitutional protection and that, accordingly, many lies may
be made the subject of a criminal law without creating a con-
stitutional problem, we cannot adopt a rule as broad as the
government and dissent advocate without trampling on the
fundamental right to freedom of speech. See Jonathan D.
Varat, Deception and the First Amendment: A Central, Com-
plex, and Somewhat Curious Relationship, 53 UCLA L. Rev.
1107, 1109 (2006) (“[A]ccepting unlimited government
power to prohibit all deception in all circumstances would
invade our rights of free expression and belief to an intolera-
ble degree, including most notably—and however
counterintuitively—our rights to personal and political self
rule.”). Rather we hold that regulations of false factual speech
must, like other content-based speech restrictions, be sub-
jected to strict scrutiny unless the statute is narrowly crafted
to target the type of false factual speech previously held
proscribable because it is not protected by the First Amend-
ment.

The rule the government and dissent urge us to apply in
order to uphold the Act would, if adopted, significantly
enlarge the scope of existing categorical exceptions to First
Amendment protection. All previous circumstances in which
lies have been found proscribable involve not just knowing
falsity, but additional elements that serve to narrow what
speech may be punished. Indeed, if the Act is constitutional
under the analysis proffered by Judge Bybee, then there
would be no constitutional bar to criminalizing lying about
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11851
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 sad fact is, most people lie about some aspects of their
lives from time to time. Perhaps, in context, many of these
lies are within the government’s legitimate reach. But the
government cannot decide that some lies may not be told
without a reviewing court’s undertaking a thoughtful analysis
of the constitutional concerns raised by such government
interference with speech.

Finding no appropriate way to avoid the First Amendment
question Alvarez poses, we hold that the speech proscribed by
the Act is not sufficiently confined to fit among the narrow
categories of false speech previously held to be beyond the
First Amendment’s protective sweep. We then apply strict
scrutiny review to the Act, and hold it unconstitutional
because it is not narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling
governmental interest.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Xavier Alvarez won a seat on the Three Valley Water Dis-
trict Board of Directors in 2007. On July 23, 2007, at a joint
meeting with a neighboring water district board, newly-seated
Director Alvarez arose and introduced himself, stating “I’m a
retired marine of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in
1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got
wounded many times by the same guy. I’m still around.”

Alvarez has never been awarded the Congressional Medal
of Honor, nor has he spent a single day as a marine or in the
service of any other branch of the United States armed forces.
In short, with the exception of “I’m still around,” his self-
introduction was nothing but a series of bizarre lies.

Alvarez’s misrepresentations during the 2007 water district
board meeting were only the latest in a long string of fabrica-
11852 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
tions. Apparently, Alvarez makes a hobby of lying about him-
self to make people think he is “a psycho from the mental
ward with Rambo stories.” The summer before his election to
the water district board, a woman informed the FBI about
Alvarez’s propensity for making false claims about his mili-
tary past. Alvarez told her that he won the Medal of Honor for
rescuing the American Ambassador during the Iranian hos-
tage crisis, and that he had been shot in the back as he
returned to the embassy to save the American flag. Alvarez
reportedly told another woman that he was a Vietnam veteran
helicopter pilot who had been shot down but then, with the
help of his buddies, was able to get the chopper back into the
sky.

In addition to his lies about military service, Alvarez has
claimed to have played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, to
have worked as a police officer (who was fired for using
excessive force), and to have been secretly married to a Mexi-
can starlet. As the district court observed, Alvarez “live[s] in
a world, a make-believe world where [he] just make[s] up sto-
ries all the time . . . . [T[here’s no credibility in anything [he]
say[s].”

After the FBI obtained a recording of the water district
board meeting, Alvarez was indicted in the Central District of
California on two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 704(b),
(c)(1). Specifically, he was charged with “falsely represent[-
ing] verbally that he had been awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor when, in truth and as [he] knew, he had not
received the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Alvarez appears
to be the first person charged and convicted under the present
version of the Act.

Alvarez moved to dismiss the indictment, claiming that the
Act is unconstitutional both on its face and as applied to him.
The district court denied the motion. Alvarez then pleaded
guilty to the first count, reserving his right to appeal the First
Amendment question. He was sentenced to pay a $100 special
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11853
assessment, a $5,000 fine, to serve three years of probation,
and to perform 416 hours of community service. This case
addresses Alvarez’s timely appeal of the constitutional issue."

JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

Alvarez brings both facial and as-applied2 challenges to the
validity of the Act under the First Amendment. We review the
constitutional question de novo. See Perry v. L.A. Police
Dep’t, 121 F.3d 1365, 1367-68 (9th Cir. 1997).

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

DISCUSSION

The Act provides:

Whoever falsely represents himself or herself, ver-
bally or in writing, to have been awarded any deco-
ration or medal authorized by Congress for the
Armed Forces of the United States, any of the ser-
vice 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 imita-
tion of such item shall be fined under this title,
imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

18 U.S.C. § 704(b). The prescribed prison term is enhanced
to one year if the decoration involved is the Congressional
2
Because, as described further infra, the Act is so broadly drafted, the
government was not required to prove anything before the district court
except that Alvarez made a false statement about his having received the
Congressional Medal of Honor—to which Alvarez pleaded guilty.
Accordingly, we know very little about what other evidence the govern-
ment might have been able to introduce in order to prove that Alvarez’s
particular statements were unprotected. For instance, some evidence in the
record suggests he might have made the false claim at issue, or similar
misrepresentations, in order to fraudulently obtain certain benefits.
11854 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
Medal of Honor, a distinguished-service cross, a Navy cross,
an Air Force cross, a silver star, or a Purple Heart. Id.
§ 704(c), (d).

I

[1] The Act proscribes false verbal or written representa-
tions about one’s being awarded Congressionally authorized
military honors and decorations. The parties do not dispute
that the Act “seek[s] to regulate ‘only . . . words.’ ” Broadrick
v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 612 (1973) (quoting Gooding v.
Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 520 (1972)). Moreover, the Act targets
words about a specific subject: military honors. The Act is
plainly a content-based regulation of speech.

[2] Content-based speech restrictions ordinarily are sub-
jected to strict scrutiny. See United States v. Playboy Entm’t
Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000). However, there is an
exception to the ordinary rule for “certain well-defined and
narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punish-
ment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitu-
tional problem.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568,
571-72 (1942). As explained recently by the Supreme Court
in United States v. Stevens:

“From 1791 to the present,” . . . the First Amend-
ment has “permitted restrictions upon the content of
speech in a few limited areas,” and has never “in-
clude[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional lim-
itations.” These “historic and traditional categories
long familiar to the bar[ ]”[ ] includ[e] obscenity,
defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to
criminal conduct . . . .

130 S. Ct. 1577, 1584 (2010) (internal citations omitted); see
also Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572 (explaining that unprotected
speech includes “the lewd and obscene, the profane,3 the libel-
3
Since Chaplinksy’s list is outdated, see Cohen v. California, 403 U.S.
15 (1971) (holding profanity is protected by the First Amendment), we
find the current list in Stevens to be the most pertinent.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11855
ous, and the insulting or ‘fighting’ words-those which by their
very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate
breach of the peace “); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376
U.S. 254, 269 (1964) (listing, in defamation case, other low
value speech categories as including: “insurrection, contempt,
advocacy of unlawful acts, breach of the peace, obscenity,
solicitation of legal business” (footnotes omitted)).

The primary argument advanced by the government, and
our dissenting colleague, is that the speech targeted by the Act
—demonstrably false statements about having received mili-
tary honors—fits within those “well-defined” and “narrowly
limited” classes of speech that are historically unprotected by
the First Amendment. The government and the dissent rely on
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. and its progeny for the proposi-
tion that “the erroneous statement of fact is not worthy of con-
stitutional protection.” 418 U.S. 323, 340 (1974). In Gertz, the
Court classified false statements of fact as “belong[ing] to that
category of utterances” that “ ‘are of such slight social value
as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from
them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and
morality.’ ” Id. at 340 (quoting Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572).
Thus, the government and the dissent conclude, regulations of
false factual speech may be proscribed without constitutional
problem—or even any constitutional scrutiny.

We disagree. Gertz does not stand for the absolute proposi-
tion advocated by the government and the dissent. See Nike,
Inc. v. Kasky, 539 U.S. 654, 664 (2003) (Stevens, J., concur-
ring in dismissal of writ as improvidently granted) (noting
that the Court’s statement in Gertz that false statements of fact
are unprotected speech is “perhaps overbroad[ ]”). Rather,
Gertz’s statement that false factual speech is unprotected,
considered in isolation, omits discussion of essential constitu-
tional qualifications on that proposition.

[3] It has long been clear that First Amendment protection
does not hinge on the truth of the matter expressed, see Sulli-
11856 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
van, 376 U.S. at 271 (“Authoritative interpretations of the
First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to rec-
ognize an exception for any test of truth . . . .”), nor does it
hinge on the distinction between “facts” and “ideas,” see
Nike, 539 U.S. at 678 (Breyer, J., dissenting from dismissal of
writ as improvidently granted ) (“That the [document contain-
ing false statements] is factual in content does not argue
against First Amendment protection, for facts, sometimes
facts alone, will sway our views on issues of public policy.”).
Although statements characterized by both falsity and factual-
ness have never been protected “for [their] own sake,” Va.
State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council, 425
U.S. 748, 771 (1976), the “First Amendment requires that we
protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that mat-
ters,” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341. As eloquently explained in Sul-
livan,

[t]o persuade others to his own point of view, the
pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggera-
tion, to vilification of men who have been, or are,
prominent in church or state, and even to false state-
ment. But the people of this nation have ordained in
the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of
excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long
view, essential to enlightened opinion and right con-
duct on the part of the citizens of a democracy.

. . . [E]rroneous statement is inevitable in free
debate, and . . . it must be protected if the freedoms
of expression are to have the breathing space that
they need to survive.

376 U.S. at 271-72 (internal quotation marks and ellipsis
omitted) (emphases added). Thus, while some false factual
speech may be proscribable, the Supreme Court has shown
that not all of it is. We next consider how the distinction is
made.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11857
II

We begin by noting our rejection of the government’s sug-
gestion that because “[f]alse statements of fact are particularly
valueless,” Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 52
(1988), “Congress may prohibit false statements of fact unless
immunity has been carved out or should be carved out
because the First Amendment requires protection of some
falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.” In other
words, the government contends that there is no protection for
false statements of fact unless it can be shown, in a particular
case, that there should be.

Contrary to the dissent’s view, we cannot adopt the govern-
ment’s approach as the general rule for false factual speech
without turning customary First Amendment analysis on its
head.

First, under the government’s proposed approach, it would
effectively become the speaker’s burden to prove that his
false statement should be protected from criminal prosecution.
That approach runs contrary to Supreme Court precedent. See
Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767,
776-77 (1986) (“In the context of governmental restriction of
speech, it has long been established that the government can-
not limit speech protected by the First Amendment without
bearing the burden of showing that its restriction is justi-
fied.”); see also Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271 (“Authoritative
interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have con-
sistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth
. . . especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the
speaker.”).

Second, the government’s approach would give it license to
interfere significantly with our private and public conversa-
tions. Placing the presumption in favor of regulation, as the
government and dissent’s proposed rule does, would steadily
undermine the foundations of the First Amendment. In Cohen
11858 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
v. California, the Court rejected state regulation of profanity
because “the principle contended for by the State seems inher-
ently boundless. How is one to distinguish this from any other
offensive word?” 403 U.S. 15, 25 (1971). This case is to that
extent analogous. How, based on the principle proposed by
the government, would one distinguish the relative value of
lies about one’s receipt of a military decoration from the rela-
tive value of any other false statement of fact?4 The govern-
ment argues that the “protection of false claims of receipt of
military honors is not necessary to a free press, to free politi-
cal expression, or otherwise to promote the marketplace of
ideas.” But in nearly every case, an isolated demonstrably
false statement will be not be considered “necessary” to pro-
moting core First Amendment values, and will often be con-
trary to it. In nearly every case, the false statement will be
outweighed by the perceived harm the lie inflicts on the truth-
seeking function of the marketplace of ideas. Using such an
approach, the government would almost always succeed.
However, such an approach is inconsistent with the mainte-
nance of a robust and uninhibited marketplace of ideas. See
Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1585 (explaining that the government’s
suggestion that “[w]hether a given category of speech enjoys
First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical bal-
4
One possible answer to this question is to use the mode of analysis out-
lined in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), which holds that
even entirely unprotected content cannot be targeted on the basis of view-
point. Even here, given that one could frame the Congressional intent
behind the Act as intending to prevent telling lies that tend to disparage
military, concerns about possible viewpoint discrimination may be legiti-
mate. However, laws targeting false statements of fact, including this one,
are unlikely to directly express or relate to an identifiable viewpoint,
meaning that the exception in R.A.V. for cases in which “there is no realis-
tic possibility that official suppression of ideas is afoot,” id. at 390
(emphasis added), would probably apply. Thus, given the difficulty of
identifying the potential viewpoint discrimination afoot in laws targeting
false statements about simple, demonstrable facts, we do not rely primarily
on R.A.V. to sort between permissible and impermissible restrictions on
speaking false statements of fact. We acknowledge, however, that R.A.V.
might help us avoid plunging down a logical slippery slope.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11859
ancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs” is
“startling and dangerous”). “The First Amendment’s guaran-
tee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech
that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and
benefits.” Id. The language from Chaplinsky, borrowed in
Gertz to establish that false factual statements are “of such
slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may
be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social
interest in order and morality,” Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572,
“do[es] not set forth a test that may be applied as a general
matter to permit the Government to imprison any speaker so
long as his speech is deemed valueless or unnecessary[.]”
Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1586.5

Profanity and deliberately false statements of fact rarely
contribute meaningfully to public debate over important
issues, but

[t]he constitutional right of free expression is power-
ful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as
ours. It is designed and intended to remove govern-
mental restraints from the arena of public discus-
sion, putting the decision as to what views shall be
voiced largely into the hands of each of us . . . .

. . . We cannot lose sight of the fact that, in what oth-
erwise might seem a trifling and annoying instance
of individual distasteful abuse of a privilege, these
fundamental societal values are truly implicated.
5
Although the dissent denies the proposed rule would result in ad hoc
balancing, his own analysis shows that it does. See Dissent at p. 11908
(explaining that the Act does not cover speech that matters because “the
harm from public officials outright lying to the public on matters of public
record should be obvious” and that “our public discourse will not be worse
for the loss” caused by chilling “false autobiographical claims by public
officials such as Alvarez”).
11860 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
Cohen, 403 U.S. at 24-25 (emphasis added).

There is certainly no unbridled constitutional right to lie
such that any regulation of lying must be subjected to strict
scrutiny. However, the right to speak and write whatever one
chooses—including, to some degree, worthless, offensive, and
demonstrable untruths—without cowering in fear of a power-
ful government is, in our view, an essential component of the
protection afforded by the First Amendment. The dissent
accuses us of confusing rules with exceptions, but with due
respect, we disagree with his postulate that we must com-
mence our constitutional analysis with the understanding that
all false factual speech is unprotected. The fundamental rule
is found in the First Amendment itself: “Congress shall make
no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” U.S. Const.
amend. I. Any rule that certain speech is not protected by this
foundational principle is the exception, which may in turn be
subject to other exceptions to protect against such exceptions
swallowing the rule.

In other words, we presumptively protect all speech against
government interference, leaving it to the government to dem-
onstrate, either through a well-crafted statute or case-specific
application, the historical basis for or a compelling need to
remove some speech from protection (in this case, for some
reason other than the mere fact that it is a lie). Though such
an approach may result in protection for a number of lies,
which are often nothing more than the “distasteful abuse of
[the First Amendment] privilege,” Cohen, 403 U.S. at 25, it
is constitutionally required because the general freedom from
government interference with speech, and the general freedom
to engage in public and private conversations without the gov-
ernment injecting itself into the discussion as the arbiter of
truth, contribute to the “breathing space” the First Amend-
ment needs to survive. See Steven G. Gey, The First Amend-
ment and the Dissemination of Socially Worthless Untruths,
36 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 1, 21-22 (2008). “The First Amend-
ment, said Judge Learned Hand, ‘presupposes that right con-
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11861
clusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of
tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To
many this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked
upon it our all.’ ” Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 270 (quoting United
States v. Associated Press, 52 F. Supp. 362, 372 (S.D.N.Y.
1943)). “The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by
the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the
Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses
any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that
some speech is not worth it.” Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1585.

III

[4] If the speech targeted by the Act is to be declared
among those classes of speech which can be prohibited with-
out any constitutional problem (the exceptions to the First
Amendment), the speech must fit within those “historical and
traditional categories long familiar to the bar.” Id. at 1584
(internal quotation marks omitted). We find no authority hold-
ing that false factual speech, as a general category unto itself,
is among them.6

A

[5] Gertz involved a libel action by a private citizen
against a newspaper for the newspaper’s reckless printing of
6
Of course, in the area of commercial speech, the analysis that follows
might be very different. Here, there is no suggestion that the Act targets
commercial speech, and therefore we do not address commercial speech
given the unique way in which it is treated under the First Amendment.
However, we are additionally persuaded that upholding the Act would
require a novel extension of Gertz by the fact that, even in the context of
commercial speech, knowingly false factual speech about a matter of pub-
lic concern is potentially entitled to heightened First Amendment scrutiny.
See Nike, 539 U.S. 654 (dismissing—with a highly fractured Court—
certiorari as improvidently granted in a case involving the question of
whether false speech with both commercial and public interest aspects is
entitled to a degree of First Amendment protection).
11862 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
an accusation that the plaintiff was a Communist. 418 U.S. at
326-27. The Court began with the “common ground” that
“there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact.
Neither the intentional lie nor the careless error materially
advances society’s interest in ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-
open’ debate on public issues.” Id. at 339-340 (quoting Sulli-
van, 376 U.S. at 270). But the Court did not end there. Rather,
it emphasized that “[a]lthough the erroneous statement of fact
is not worthy of constitutional protection, it is nevertheless
inevitable in free debate.” Id. at 340. Therefore, “[t]he First
Amendment requires that we protect some falsehood in order
to protect speech that matters.” Id. at 341. To distinguish
between the falsehood related to a matter of public concern
that is protected and that which is unprotected, Gertz held that
there must be an element of fault. Id. at 347. Indeed, the Court
has consistently held that when a speaker publishes a false
statement of fact about a matter of public concern, such a
statement can be punished only upon some showing of malice
(as opposed to mere negligence),7 because the malice require-
ment avoids the potential for punishing speakers who simply
make innocent errors. See Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 283. The First
Amendment is concerned with preventing punishment of
innocent mistakes because the prospect of punishment for
such speech “runs the risk of inducing a cautious and restric-
tive exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of
speech and press.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340. Thus, many false
factual statements are shielded by the First Amendment even
under Gertz, regardless of how valueless they may be. This is
emphasized in Garrison v. Louisiana, in which the Court clar-
7
A false statement of fact can be punished upon a showing of mere neg-
ligence in the context of purely private defamation. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.
v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 761 (1985). Because we take
the statements at issue here to be of public concern, and because a viola-
tion of the Act calls for the imposition of a criminal penalty on the violator
for speaking about a matter of public concern, an element of malice (at
least reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement) is neces-
sary to its constitutionality, assuming defamation jurisprudence even gov-
erns this case.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11863
ified “the knowingly false statement . . . do[es] not enjoy con-
stitutional protection.” 379 U.S. 64, 75 (1964) (emphasis
added); see also Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 283.

[6] Moreover, Garrison’s clarification is not the only rele-
vant refinement. In defamation jurisprudence, the question
has never been simply whether the speech “forfeits [First
Amendment] protection by the falsity of some of its factual
statements.” Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271. The question is always
whether the speech forfeits its First Amendment protection as
a result of its falsity “and by its alleged defamation of [the
plaintiff].” Id. (emphasis added). In other words, in a defama-
tion case, a threshold question is whether the false speech at
issue is defamatory, meaning that the defamer’s false state-
ment is the proximate cause of an irreparable8 harm to anoth-
er’s reputation. See Gertz, 418 U.S. at 347 (holding that “so
long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States
may . . . [impose] liability for a publisher or broadcaster of
defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual”).
8
On the importance of irreparability, see infra pp. 11869, 11879-80. The
dissent argues at length that we have conjured up this harm element out
of whole cloth, see Dissent at p. 11910, but it comes directly from several
of the cases about “unprotected” speech. See, e.g., Chaplinsky, 315 U.S.
at 572 (identifying fighting words as “those which by their very utterance
inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace”) (empha-
sis added); Gertz, 418 U.S. at 347 (describing defamation as “injurious”).
We do not mean to suggest, however, that harm is necessarily a required
element for all unprotected speech regulations (although we find it inter-
esting that it is present in many of them); rather, we note here only that
it is a required element of defamation. Defamation, like every “unprotect-
ed” category, involves thoughtful and unique definitional analysis, see
infra n.9. Even obscenity doctrine, which the dissent argues includes no
harm element, still requires the statute to define “obscenity” in conformity
with the constitutional rule. See, e.g., Paris Adult Theater I v. Slaton, 413
U.S. 49 (1973) (reaffirming that obscenity is unprotected, but holding the
an anti-obscenity statute must be carefully drafted or construed to meet
First Amendment standards). Thus, if defamation law supplies the rule to
be applied in this case, we cannot ignore that the definition of defamation
includes injury to reputation. See, e.g., Gertz, 418 U.S. at 347; Sullivan,
376 U.S. at 271; Dun & Bradstreet, 472 U.S. at 762.
11864 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
[7] Since the Stevens Court saw fit to name defamation
specifically, rather than false statements of fact generally, as
the historical category excluded from constitutional protec-
tion, we believe the historical category of unprotected speech
identified in Gertz and related law is defamation, not all false
factual speech. The dissent erroneously relies on Gertz for its
statement that false factual speech is valueless and unpro-
tected, while ignoring what Gertz actually held, and how the
Court in Gertz framed the issues and carefully analyzed the
First Amendment questions raised in the case. Our dissenting
colleague does not, because he cannot, provide any citation to
relevant authority that follows his suggested approach, in
which the Court characterizes a law as targeting false factual
speech under the language of Gertz and resolves the case in
the government’s favor without engaging in any First Amend-
ment analysis at all.9 Unlike our dissenting colleague, we are
9
If Judge Bybee is correct, the opinion in this case would need be no
more than a few paragraphs in length. See Dissent at pp. 11905-06. Start-
ing with the premise that false statements are unprotected, he believes it
therefore follows that the First Amendment presumptively does not apply.
He takes one step back to consider briefly whether there is any need to
protect the particular false statements targeted by the Act in order to
ensure robust political speech, and seeing none, concludes there is no First
Amendment issue. The opinion would end there.
Of course, the First Amendment requires more. That is why even in
“unprotected” speech cases, the First Amendment analysis is nonetheless
rigorous. See Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 268 (“Like insurrection, contempt,
advocacy of unlawful acts, breach of the peace, obscenity, solicitation of
legal business, and the various other formulae for the repression of expres-
sion that have been challenged in this Court, libel can claim no talismanic
immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by stan-
dards that satisfy the First Amendment.”) (footnotes omitted) (emphasis
added); see also Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (articu-
lating First Amendment test for incitement); Gooding, 405 U.S. at 522
(requiring fighting words restrictions to be “carefully drawn”); Ill. ex rel.
Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., Inc., 538 U.S. 600, 619 (2003) (requir-
ing fraud statute to be properly tailored); Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15,
23-24 (2003) (articulating “carefully limited” test for obscenity regula-
tions); Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) (engaging in First Amend-
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11865
not eager to extend a statement (often quoted, but often quali-
fied) made in the complicated area of defamation jurispru-
dence into a new context in order to justify an unprecedented
and vast exception to First Amendment guarantees.10 Indeed,

ment analysis to determine test for true threat regulations); Va. State Bd.
of Pharmacy, 425 U.S. 748 (applying intermediate scrutiny to commercial
speech). That is also why restrictions on “unprotected” speech are at times
invalidated. See, e.g., Cohen, 403 U.S. 15 (rejecting, on First Amendment
grounds, restrictions of profanity); Gooding, 405 U.S. 518 (striking down
fighting words statute); Hustler, 485 U.S. 46 (prohibiting recovery for
emotional distress in libel action); Reno v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 521
U.S. 844 (1997) (finding portions of Communications Decency Act
invalid under the First Amendment). Thus, even if one agrees with the dis-
sent that Gertz and its progeny requires the historical category of unpro-
tected speech at issue here be defined as knowingly false factual speech
per se, that is simply not enough to make the Act immune from First
Amendment analysis. Judge Bybee’s approach excepting “some false-
hood” when it is necessary to protecting speech that matters reintroduces
some First Amendment scrutiny into it, but we believe that approach is not
sufficiently speech-protective for the reasons explained supra pp.
11859-60. If Judge Bybee is correct, then, we will need an entirely new
constitutional rule for false speech regulations. Rather than guess what
rule the Court would adopt for this newly-broadened category of unpro-
tected speech, we confine our review to previously defined unprotected
categories.
10
We are not persuaded that Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 255
F.3d 1180 (9th Cir. 2001), is anything more than a variation on defamation
jurisprudence. Hoffman applied the actual malice standard from Gertz-
Garrison-Sullivan in a case involving a magazine’s alleged creation of a
false impression that a famous actor posed for a photograph. Id. at 1187;
cf. also Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967) (holding constitutional a
state law imposing civil liability for malicious false statements that invade
a private individual’s right of privacy). Although the asserted injury in
Hoffman is not to reputation, but instead to a form of publicity rights, the
interests at stake are sufficiently similar to defamation that the Gertz-
Garrison-Sullivan framework can conceptually apply without a significant
extension of the doctrine. When the only asserted injury is to the reputa-
tion of a government institution, the historical basis for finding that the
“social interest in order and morality” outweighs the value of precluding
government interference with speech is absent. Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at
571-72; see Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341 (“The need to avoid self-censorship by
11866 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
Stevens instructs us not to do so: “Our decisions [following
Chaplinksy] cannot be taken as establishing a freewheeling
authority to declare new categories of speech outside the
scope of the First Amendment.” 130 S. Ct. at 1586.

[8] With this constitutional background in mind, we next
consider whether the Act fits into the defamation category.
We assume that receipt of military decorations is a matter of
public concern, as it primarily involves Congressional and
military recognition of public service. The Act, however, does
not require a malicious violation, nor does it contain any other
requirement or element of scienter (collectively, a scienter
requirement). Without a scienter requirement to limit the
Act’s application, the statute raises serious constitutional con-
cerns under defamation jurisprudence because the First
Amendment clearly prohibits criminally punishing negligent
speech about matters of public concern. See Gertz, 418 U.S.
at 340, 347.

To avoid such a result, the government preemptively sug-
gested at oral argument that a scienter requirement can be
read into the Act. Adopting the government’s suggestion
(even though the Act presently includes no express scienter
element) would require us to construe the Act to include a
requirement that the government prove that the defendant
spoke with malice. See Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600,
604-06 (1994); Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 115 (1990).
If a scienter requirement would save the statute, we would be
obliged to read it in if possible. See Gray v. First Winthrop
Corp., 989 F.2d 1564, 1568 (9th Cir. 1993). Such an approach
might be reasonable since most people know the truth about
themselves, thereby permitting us to construe the Act to

the news media is . . . not the only societal value at issue. If it were, this
Court would have embraced long ago the view that publishers and broad-
casters enjoy an unconditional and indefeasible immunity from liability
for defamation.”) (emphasis added).
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11867
require a knowing violation. Indeed, the government charged
Alvarez with knowingly making the false statement.

But that is not enough. The Court has never held that a per-
son can be liable for defamation merely for spreading know-
ingly false statements. The speech must also be “injurious to
a private individual.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 347.

Of course, if we look beyond the text of the Act, there is
a presumptive harm identified by Congress that might be
analogized to the presumption of reputational harm made in
defamation cases. Specifically, Congress made “Findings”
that “fraudulent claims” about receipt of military honors
“damage the reputation and meaning of such decorations and
medals.” Stolen Valor Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-437,
§ 2(1), 120 Stat. at 3266; see also 151 Cong. Rec. S12684-01,
S12688-99 (2005) (statement of Sen. Conrad). We do not
believe the “Findings” make this a defamation statute.

First, while the “Findings” identify the injury the Act tar-
gets, they do not actually limit the application of the Act.
There is no requirement in the Act that the government bear
the burden to prove that the defendant’s speech or writing
proximately caused damage to the reputation and meaning of
military decorations and medals. Although common law tradi-
tions suggest that we can sometimes presume damage in defa-
mation cases, see Gertz, 418 U.S. at 349-50, there is no
readily apparent reason for assuming, without specific proof,
that the reputation and meaning of military decorations is
harmed every time someone lies about having received one.
To the contrary, the most obvious reason people lie about
receiving military honors is because they believe that their
being perceived as recipients of such honors brings them
acclaim, suggesting that generally the integrity and reputation
of such honors remain unimpaired. And notably, even in defa-
mation cases, a “publication” is required, ensuring that liabil-
ity attaches only to those falsehoods spoken under
circumstances in which the harm could result. In this case,
11868 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
however, we cannot ignore the fact that nothing in the Act
requires a showing of either (1) publicity or (2) victims. Alva-
rez made his statement in a water district board meeting; it
would have made no difference under the Act if he had he
made the statement in the privacy of his home at a family din-
ner.

More importantly, even if it were justifiable to presume that
harm to the meaning and reputation of military decorations
occurs whenever a false claim concerning their receipt or pos-
session is made, the government may not restrict speech as a
means of self-preservation. The right against defamation
belongs to natural persons, not to governmental institutions or
symbols. See Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 291 (“ ‘[N]o court of last
resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that
prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the
American system of jurisprudence.’ ” (quoting City of Chi-
cago v. Tribune Co., 139 N.E. 86, 88 (Ill. 1923)) (emphasis
added)). Preserving the value of military decorations is
unquestionably an appropriate and worthy governmental
objective that Congress may achieve through, for example,
publicizing the names of legitimate recipients or false claim-
ants,11 creating educational programs, prohibiting the act of
posing as a veteran to obtain certain benefits, or otherwise
more carefully circumscribing what is required to violate the
Act. But the First Amendment does not permit the govern-
ment to pursue this sort of objective by means of a pure
speech regulation like the one contained in the Act. See Texas
v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 418-20 (1989) (“To say that the
government has an interest in encouraging proper treatment of
the flag, however, is not to say that it may criminally punish
a person for burning a flag as a means of political protest.”);
11
Indeed, Congress and other organizations already make such lists pub-
licly available. See Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Recipients,
http://www.cmohs.org (last accessed Mar. 31, 2010); Congressional
Medal of Honor Foundation, http://www.cmohfoundation.org (last
accessed Mar. 31, 2010).
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11869
see also Schacht v. United States, 398 U.S. 58, 63 (1970)
(“An actor, like everyone else in our country, enjoys a consti-
tutional right to freedom of speech, including the right openly
to criticize the Government during a dramatic performance.
The last clause of [18 U.S.C. § 772(f)] denies this constitu-
tional right to an actor who is wearing a military uniform by
making it a crime for him to say things that tend to bring the
military into discredit and disrepute.”).

Finally, even assuming the Act prevents a harm legiti-
mately preventable by means of a speech or writing restric-
tion, to say that the Act in its current form fits within
defamation doctrine would require us to ignore the nature of
the harm against which the defamation law is intended to pro-
tect. A victim’s right to recovery for defamation trumps the
defamer’s First Amendment interests because, when it comes
to defamatory falsehoods, “the truth rarely catches up with a
lie” so the “opportunity for rebuttal seldom suffices to undo
harm.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 344 n.9; see also Hustler, 485 U.S.
at 52 (explaining that defamatory falsehoods “cause damage
to an individual’s reputation that cannot easily be repaired by
counterspeech, however persuasive or effective”). The harm
caused by defamation is thought to be irreparable even when
the truth is brought to light. Here, in contrast, when someone
falsely claims to have been awarded a Congressionally-
authorized medal, and his or her false claims are exposed as
self-aggrandizing lies, scandal results, and counter-speech can
vindicate the truth in a way the law presumes rebuttal of
defamatory falsehoods cannot. Indeed, Alvarez was perceived
as a phony even before the FBI began investigating him, and
he has since been publicly humiliated in his community and
in the press (one online article described him as an “idiot,”
and another post described him as a “jerk”). When valueless
false speech, even proscribable speech, can best be checked
with more speech, a law criminalizing the speech is inconsis-
tent with the principles underlying the First Amendment. See
infra pp. 11879-80.
11870 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
[9] Thus, the Act is not sufficiently analogous to an anti-
defamation law to bring it within the scope of the historical
First Amendment exception for laws punishing defamation.

B

[10] Moving beyond defamation, there are other of the his-
torical categories that may involve false factual speech—
fraud and, to a certain extent, speech that is integral to crimi-
nal conduct. It is obvious, however, that these categories also
include limiting characteristics to what speech may be pro-
scribed beyond mere falsity, just as defamation law does.

[11] Fraud statutes must be precisely crafted to target only
specific false statements that are likely to cause a bona fide
harm.

[I]n a properly tailored fraud action the State bears
the full burden of proof. False statement alone does
not subject a [speaker] to fraud liability. . . . [T]o
prove a defendant liable for fraud, the complainant
must show that the defendant made a false represen-
tation of a material fact knowing that the representa-
tion was false; further, the complainant must
demonstrate that the defendant made the representa-
tion with the intent to mislead the listener, and suc-
ceeded in doing so.

Ill. ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., Inc., 538 U.S.
600, 620 (2003).

[12] Even laws about perjury or fraudulent administrative
filings—arguably the purest regulations of false statements of
fact—require at a minimum that the misrepresentation be
willful, material, and uttered under circumstances in which
the misrepresentation is designed to cause an injury, either to
the proper functioning of government (when one is under an
affirmative obligation of honesty) or to the government’s or
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11871
a private person’s economic interests. See, e.g., United States
v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993) (“A witness testifying
under oath or affirmation violates [the perjury statute, 18
U.S.C. § 1621] if she gives false testimony concerning a
material matter with the willful intent to provide false testi-
mony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty
memory.” (emphases added)); 18 U.S.C. § 1035 (prohibiting
knowing and willful, material false statements made to obtain
health care benefits). Into this area of the law we would also
place Clipper Exxpress v. Rocky Mountain Motor Tariff
Bureau, Inc., 690 F.2d 1240, 1262 (9th Cir. 1982) (holding
that the First Amendment does not protect deliberately mis-
representing facts to an administrative body for anticompeti-
tive purposes ”).12 Thus, falsity alone is not enough. The
context must be well-defined.

In addition, impersonation statutes are drafted to apply nar-
rowly to conduct performed in order to obtain, at a cost to
another, a benefit to which one is not entitled. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 912 (“Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer
12
Clipper Exxpress supports the cautionary holding we reach today. In
that case, we explained:
The first amendment has not been interpreted to preclude liability
for false statements. For example, defamatory statements can be
made the basis for liability. 18 U.S.C. § 1001 imposes criminal
penalties for knowingly and wilfully concealing or misrepresent-
ing material facts before any department or agency of the United
States. Courts uniformly punish perjury. As the Supreme Court
stated in [Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340], “there is no constitutional
value in false statements of fact.” Contrary to defendants’ asser-
tions, there is simply no basis to hold that deliberately misrepre-
senting facts to an administrative body for anticompetitive
purposes enjoys blanket first amendment protection.
690 F.2d at 1261-62. We read Clipper Exxpress to explain, as we have
done herein, that although false factual speech is not protected for its own
sake such that the First Amendment precludes its prosecution, laws pro-
hibiting it must nonetheless target well-defined subsets of speech like def-
amation or fraud or other clearly-defined criminal conduct.
11872 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
or employee acting under the authority of the United States or
any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such,
or in such pretended character demands or obtains any
money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or
both.” (emphases added)).

[13] Since Congress apparently intended the Act to be used
to stop fraud, comparing the Act to fraud laws strikingly illus-
trates the Act’s infirmities. In a “properly tailored fraud
action” “[f]alse statement alone does not subject a [speaker]
to fraud liability.” Ill. ex rel. Madigan, 538 U.S. at 620.
Rather, there must be proof the false statement was (1) know-
ing and intended to mislead, (2) material, and (3) did mislead.
Id. The Act, even were we to read a “knowingly” element into
it, see supra pp. 11866, still lacks the critical materiality,
intent to defraud, and injury elements. Indeed, Alvarez
pleaded guilty simply to making a knowingly false statement.
The government was not require to allege that the statement
was material, intended to mislead, or most critically, did mis-
lead the listener. Rather, the record here shows, if anything,
Alvarez has no credibility whatsoever and that no one detri-
mentally relied on his false statement. Although we believe
that Congress could revisit the Act to modify it into a properly
tailored fraud statute, we are not permitted to suggest how it
could be done, since such would be a “ ‘serious invasion of
the legislative domain.’ ” Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1592 (quoting
United States v. Nat’l Treasury Employees Union, 513 U.S.
454, 479 n.26 (1995)). Accordingly, we cannot construe the
Act as falling within the historical First Amendment excep-
tion for anti-fraud laws.

[14] Somewhat relatedly, criminal conduct is not immu-
nized “merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evi-
denced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken,
written, or printed.” Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co.,
336 U.S. 490, 502 (1949). Thus, laws focused on criminal
conduct—like perjury or tax or administrative fraud or imper-
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11873
sonating an officer—raise no constitutional concerns even
though they can be violated by means of speech. Unlike such
uncontroversial criminal laws, however, the Act makes crimi-
nal the speech itself regardless of any defining context that
assures us the law targets legitimately criminal conduct.13
Here again, Alvarez was not prosecuted for impersonating a
military officer, or lying under oath, or making false state-
ments in order to unlawfully obtain benefits. There was not
even a requirement the government prove he intended to mis-
lead. He was prosecuted simply for saying something that was
not true. Without any element requiring the speech to be
related to criminal conduct, this historical exception from the
First Amendment does not apply to the Act as drafted.

C

In sum, our review of pertinent case law convinces us that
the historical and traditional categories of unprotected false
factual speech have thus far included only certain subsets of
false factual statements, carefully defined to target behavior
that is most properly characterized as fraudulent, dangerous,
or injurious conduct, and not as pure speech. We are aware of
no authority holding that the government may, through a
criminal law, prohibit speech simply because it is knowingly
factually false.

Precedent makes clear that knowing factual error is insuffi-
cient “to remove the constitutional shield from criticism of
official conduct.” Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 273. Hence the histori-
cal rejection of the validity of the Alien and Sedition Act,
which “made it a crime, punishable by a $5,000 fine and five
13
While it may seem unlikely anything but the most egregious viola-
tions of the Act would be prosecuted, we do not determine the constitu-
tionality of the Act based on our assumptions of how prosecutors will, in
their discretion, enforce it. See Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1591 (“[T]he First
Amendment protects against the Government; it does not leave us at the
mercy of noblesse oblige. We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute
merely because the Government promised to use it responsibly.”).
11874 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
years in prison, ‘if any person shall write, print, utter or pub-
lish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writ-
ings against the government of the United States, or either
house of the Congress . . . , or the President . . . with intent
to defame . . . or to bring them, or either of them, into con-
tempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any
of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States.’ ”
Id. at 273-34 (quoting Sedition Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 596).
Thus, even though some knowing false statements may be
proscribed, that proscription cannot be universal.

Moreover, there can be no doubt that there is affirmative
constitutional value in at least some knowingly false state-
ments of fact. Satirical entertainment such as The Onion, The
Daily Show, and The Colbert Report thrives on making delib-
erate false statements of fact. Such media outlets play a sig-
nificant role in inviting citizens alienated by mainstream news
media into meaningful public debate over economic, military,
political and social issues. However, even if such satirical
writings and shows did not invite attention to and comment
about issues of “public importance,” would anyone with even
a rudimentary knowledge of First Amendment law seriously
argue that the satirical, false statements frequently contained
in such writing and programming are categorically outside
First Amendment protection? See Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 279
n.19 (“Even a false statement may be deemed to make a valu-
able contribution to public debate, since it brings about ‘the
clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced
by its collision with error.’ ” (quoting John Stuart Mill, On
Liberty 15 (Oxford: Blackwell 1947))). Further, whether it be
method actors getting into character, satirists being ironic or
sarcastic, poets using hyperbole, or authors crafting a story,
creative persons often make factual statements or assertions
which, as they are fully aware, are entirely untrue. Such cre-
ative uses of knowingly false speech are highly protected. Cf.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973) (requiring
obscenity statutes to apply only to works that “taken as a
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11875
whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scien-
tific value”).

[15] Thus, false factual speech as a general category is not,
and cannot be, proscribed under threat of criminal prosecu-
tion. Although certain subsets of false factual speech have
been declared unprotected, such classes of speech were devel-
oped as the result of thoughtful constitutional analysis of what
other characteristics the speech must have before it can be
proscribed without clashing with First Amendment protec-
tions. The Act does not fit neatly into any of those “well-
defined” and “narrowly limited” classes of speech previously
considered unprotected, and we thus are required to apply the
highest level of scrutiny in our analysis.

IV

Before performing the customary First Amendment analy-
sis, however, we consider alternatively what may perhaps be
better authority for the view that the maliciously stated false
factual speech is historically unprotected— not Gertz and the
unique universe of defamation jurisprudence, or the law of
fraud, but Schenck v. United States, as suggested by Alvarez
in his appeal. There, Justice Holmes famously noted that
“[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not pro-
tect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a
panic.” 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919). Although Schenck was con-
cerned with seditious speech, it is particularly instructive here,
given that the “clear and present danger” test emerged from
the “fire in a theater” hypothetical, which is quintessentially
about a false statement of fact.

Generalizing from the “fire in a theater” hypothetical, Jus-
tice Holmes went on to hold that “[t]he question in every case
is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and
are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger
that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress
has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and
11876 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
degree.” Id. (emphasis added). To the extent we are even free
to look beyond defamation and fraud for a more general rule
concerning prohibition of false factual speech, we agree with
Alvarez that the rule from Schenck might supply a helpful
guideline for defining the relevant subset of false speech that
is historically unprotected.14 Indeed, Schenck’s requirements
that any restricted speech be uttered under circumstances
likely to be the proximate cause of an imminent harm within
the scope of Congress’ legitimate reach are highly relevant to
the classes of false factual speech we have already identified
—defamation, fraud, and speech integral to criminal conduct
—and other classes of speech historically held to be unworthy
of constitutional protection. See, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio,
395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (“[T]he constitutional guarantees of
free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or
proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation
except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or produc-
ing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce
such action.” (emphases added)); Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S.
343, 360, 363 (2003) (permitting prohibition of “cross burn-
ings done with the intent to intimidate” because
“[i]ntimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of
the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a
threat to a person . . . with the intent of placing the victim in
fear of bodily harm or death” (emphases added)); Chaplinsky,
14
The “clear and present danger” rule has long been criticized as being
insufficiently protective of First Amendment freedoms when it comes to
seditious and some other forms of speech. See Thomas I. Emerson,
Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, 72 Yale L.J. 877,
910-12 (1963). Indeed, the holding of Schenck itself, in which the Court
upheld a prosecution for discouraging military enlistment, was accompa-
nied by a strong dissent. However, our purpose here is only to articulate
minimum requirements that must be met before a false statement of fact
can be removed from First Amendment protection under existing prece-
dents. Some false statements of fact made with scienter and likely to cause
a real harm might nonetheless deserve constitutional protection, such as
the sort of malicious false speech targeted by the Alien and Sedition Act,
see infra p. 11873-74. In such a case, additional First Amendment scrutiny
would obviously be required.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11877
315 U.S. at 573 (“It is a statute narrowly drawn and limited
to define and punish specific conduct lying within the domain
of state power, the use in a public place of words likely to
cause a breach of the peace.” (emphasis added)).

Following Schenck, then, we might articulate the class of
false factual speech unprotected by the First Amendment to
be that false factual speech which creates a clear and present
danger of a harm Congress has a right to prevent. Assuming
that the “clear and present danger” test is the more appropriate
rule, as Alvarez urges us to do, we agree with him that the Act
fails the test for the same reasons the Act is not analogous to
anti-defamation laws.

As explained in Schenck, the power of the government to
punish such speech involves careful consideration of “prox-
imity and degree” of the harm. For the reasons already sub-
stantially described supra in Part III.A, the speech targeted by
the Act does not pose any immediate and irreparable harm;
any harm it does cause can be remedied by more speech. Fur-
ther, the harm the Act identifies—damage to the reputation
and meaning of military honors—is not the sort of harm we
are convinced Congress has a legitimate right to prevent by
means of restricting speech.

V

Having concluded that the Act does not fit within the tradi-
tional categories of speech excluded from First Amendment
protection, we must subject it to strict scrutiny review. Indeed,

[e]ven as to [the narrowly limited classes of speech
noted in Chaplinsky] . . . because the line between
speech unconditionally guaranteed and speech which
may legitimately be regulated, suppressed, or pun-
ished is finely drawn . . . the power to regulate must
be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end,
unduly to infringe the protected freedom[.] In other
11878 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
words, the statute must be carefully drawn or be
authoritatively construed to punish only unprotected
speech and not be susceptible of application to pro-
tected expression. Because First Amendment free-
doms need breathing space to survive, government
may regulate the area only with narrow specificity.

Gooding, 405 U.S. at 522 (internal quotation marks and cita-
tions omitted) (emphases added); see also Reno v. Am. Civil
Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 874 (1997) (explaining that
the First Amendment requires that statutes targeting the con-
tent of speech must be drafted with “precision”). The Court
has always carefully considered the contours of regulations
purporting to target “unprotected” speech; here, being uncon-
vinced the Act even targets such “unprotected” speech, we are
even more mindful of our obligation to ensure the statute is
narrowly drawn.

[16] The strict scrutiny standard of review is familiar: the
government must show that the law is narrowly tailored to
achieve a compelling governmental interest. Citizens United
v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 130 S. Ct. 876, 898 (2010). A law
is not narrowly tailored when less speech-restrictive means
exist to achieve the interest. See Reno, 521 U.S. at 874 (hold-
ing that although adult content is unprotected as to children,
it is protected as to adults, so a law imposing a “burden on
adult speech is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives
would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate pur-
pose that the statute was enacted to serve”). Even the dissent
agrees that the Act fails strict scrutiny. Dissent at n.10.

[17] The asserted governmental interest at issue in the Act
is to prevent “fraudulent claims” about receipt of military
honors, such claims causing “damage the reputation and
meaning of such decorations and medals.” Stolen Valor Act
of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-437, § 2(1), 120 Stat. at 3266; see
also 151 Cong. Rec. S12684-01, S12688-99 (2005) (statement
of Sen. Conrad). The government argues that the referenced
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11879
interest is important to motivating our military. Especially at
a time in which our nation is engaged in the longest war in its
history, Congress certainly has an interest, even a compelling
interest, in preserving the integrity of its system of honoring
our military men and women for their service and, at times,
their sacrifice.

[18] However, the government has not proven here that the
speech restriction is a narrowly tailored means of achieving
that noble interest. In Brown v. Hartlage, the Supreme Court
explained,

Although the state interest in protecting the political
process from distortions caused by untrue and inac-
curate speech [or, in this case, the state interest in
protecting the integrity of our national military deco-
ration system] is somewhat different from the state
interest in protecting individuals from defamatory
falsehoods, the principles underlying the First
Amendment remain paramount. Whenever compati-
ble with the underlying interests at stake, under the
regime of that Amendment “we depend for . . . cor-
rection not on the conscience of judges and juries but
on the competition of other ideas.” In a political
campaign, a candidate’s factual blunder is unlikely
to escape the notice of, and correction by, the erring
candidate’s political opponent. The preferred First
Amendment remedy of “more speech, not enforced
silence,” thus has special force.

456 U.S. 45, 61 (1982) (quoting Gertz, 418 U.S. at 339-40,
and Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927) (Bran-
deis, J., concurring)) (ellipses in original). Here, Alvarez’s lie,
deliberate and despicable as it may have been, did not escape
notice and correction in the marketplace. The preferred First
Amendment remedy of “more speech” thus was available to
repair any harm. See also Johnson, 491 U.S. at 419 (“ ‘[N]o
danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present,
11880 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent
that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discus-
sion. If there be time to expose through discussion the false-
hood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of
education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not
enforced silence.’ ” (quoting Whitney, 274 U.S. at 377 (Bran-
deis, J., concurring))).

[19] On this record it is speculative at best to conclude that
criminally-punishing lies about having received
Congressionally-awarded medals is the best and only way to
ensure the integrity of such medals—after all, it seems just as
likely that the reputation and meaning of such medals is
wholly unaffected by those who lie about having received
them. The greatest damage done seems to be to the reputa-
tions of the liars themselves. See supra p. 11869; see also
United States v. Hinskon, ___ F.3d ___, 2010 WL 2757419,
at *17 (9th Cir. Jul. 14, 2010) (W. Fletcher, J., dissenting
from denial of en banc panel rehearing) (arguing that witness’
credibility would have been impeached had his lie about hav-
ing received a Purple Heart been exposed to the jury). Further,
even assuming that there is general harm to the meaning of
military honors caused by numerous imposters, other means
exist to achieve the interest of stopping such fraud, such as by
using more speech, or redrafting the Act to target actual
impersonation or fraud. See supra p. 11870-72.

Further, we agree with the reasoning of the District Court
of Colorado, that suggesting “that the battlefield heroism of
our servicemen and women is motivated in any way . . . by
considerations of whether a medal may be awarded simply
defies . . . comprehension” and is “unintentionally insulting to
the profound sacrifices of military personnel the Stolen Valor
Act purports to honor.” United States v. Strandlof, No. 09-cr-
00497-REB, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2010 WL 2802691 (D.
Colo. Jul. 16, 2010). Even if we were to make the unfounded
assumption that our troops perform their riskiest missions in
the hope of receiving the Medal of Honor, there is no
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11881
evidence—nor any reasonable basis for assuming—that some
people’s false claims to have received the medal has a de-
motivating impact on our men and women in uniform.

[20] In sum, honoring and motivating our troops are doubt-
less important governmental interests, but we fail to see how
the Act is necessary to achieving either aim. Accordingly, we
hold that the Act is not narrowly tailored to achieve a compel-
ling governmental interest. As presently drafted, the Act is
facially invalid under the First Amendment, and was uncon-
stitutionally applied to make a criminal out of a man who was
proven to be nothing more than a liar, without more.15

We have no doubt that society would be better off if Alva-
rez would stop spreading worthless, ridiculous, and offensive
untruths. But, given our historical skepticism of permitting the
government to police the line between truth and falsity, and
between valuable speech and drivel, we presumptively protect
all speech, including false statements, in order that clearly
protected speech may flower in the shelter of the First
Amendment. The government has not rebutted that presump-
tion here because the Act is not sufficiently analogous to tra-
ditional permissible restrictions on false speech.

CONCLUSION

In order to advance Congress’s praiseworthy efforts to stop
fraudulent claims about having received Congressionally
authorized military honors, the government would have us
extend inapposite case law to create an unprecedented excep-
tion to First Amendment guarantees. We decline to follow
15
Judge Bybee emphasizes our failure to identify any other unconstitu-
tional applications of the Act. Of course, we cannot identify other invalid
applications because Alvarez’s prosecution is the first case brought under
the Act in its current form. The second prosecution we know of, United
States v. Strandlof, No. 09-cr-00497-REB, ___ F. Supp. 2d ___, 2010 WL
2802691, ended in the defendant’s favor, with the district court holding
the Act unconstitutional for substantially the same reasons we do.
11882 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
such a course, and hold that the Act lacks the elements that
would make it analogous to the other restrictions on false
speech previously held to be proscribable without constitu-
tional problem. Accordingly, we hold that the Act is not nar-
rowly drawn to achieve a compelling governmental interest,
and is unconstitutional.

REVERSED. The case is REMANDED to the district court
for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BYBEE, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

Xavier Alvarez, a California public official, stood in a pub-
lic meeting and announced that he was a retired Marine, a
wounded veteran, and the recipient of the Congressional
Medal of Honor. Alvarez was lying on all counts. He pleaded
guilty to violating the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 (“Act”),
which punishes a person who “falsely represents himself or
herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any dec-
oration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed
Forces of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 704(b). He now
challenges his conviction on First Amendment grounds.

In its recent decision in United States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct.
1577 (2010), the Supreme Court reminded us that there are
“categories of speech . . . fully outside the protection of the
First Amendment.” Id. at 1586. As to these categories—which
the Court labeled “historic and traditional categories long
familiar to the bar”—”the First Amendment has permitted
restrictions upon the content of speech.” Id. at 1584 (quota-
tion marks omitted).

For more than six decades, the Court has recognized that
“false statements of fact . . . belong to th[e] category of utter-
ances which ‘are no essential part of any exposition of ideas,
and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11883
benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed
by the social interest in order and morality.’ ” Gertz v. Robert
Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 340 (1974) (quoting Chaplinsky v.
New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942)). The Court has
stated as plain as words permit that “the erroneous statement
of fact is not worthy of constitutional protection.” Id.; see also
BE & K Constr. Co. v. N.L.R.B., 536 U.S. 516, 531 (2002)
(“[F]alse statements [are] unprotected for their own sake.”);
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 52 (1988) (“False
statements of fact are particularly valueless; they interfere
with the truth-seeking function of the marketplace of ideas
. . . .”); Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 776
(1984) (false statements of fact have “no constitutional value”
because they “harm both the subject of the falsehood and the
readers of the statement” (quotation marks omitted)); Bill
Johnson’s Rests., Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 461 U.S. 731, 743 (1983)
(“[F]alse statements are not immunized by the First Amend-
ment right to freedom of speech.”); Herbert v. Lando, 441
U.S. 153, 171 (1979) (“Spreading false information in and of
itself carries no First Amendment credentials.”). False state-
ments are unprotected by the First Amendment except in a
limited set of contexts where such protection is necessary “to
protect speech that matters,” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341, such as
“expression critical of the official conduct of public officials,”
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 268 (1964).
And even in these special contexts, “the knowingly false state-
ment and the false statement made with reckless disregard of
the truth, do not enjoy constitutional protection.” Garrison v.
Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 75 (1964) (emphasis added).

Despite the clarity and consistency of the Supreme Court’s
insistence that false statements of fact (or “false statements”)
generally fall outside First Amendment protection, the major-
ity somehow manages to “find no authority holding that false
factual speech, as a general category unto itself, is among [the
historically unprotected classes of speech],” Maj. Op. at
11861 (emphasis added), and concludes that “we presump-
tively protect . . . false statements,” id. at 11881. The majority
11884 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
then moves from this faulty principle to an even more remark-
able one: after repeating the Court’s statement in Garrison
that “ ‘the knowingly false statement . . . do[es] not enjoy con-
stitutional protection,’ ” Maj. Op. at 11863 (alteration and
ellipsis in original) (quoting Garrison, 379 U.S. at 75), the
majority holds that Alvarez’s knowingly false statement of
fact is entitled to full constitutional protection, and therefore
that the court is “required to apply the highest level of scru-
tiny in [its] analysis” of the Act, id. at 37; see also id. at 3
(“[R]egulations of false factual speech must . . . be subjected
to strict scrutiny . . . .”). Standing on these startling premises,
the majority delivers its final blow: the Act fails strict scrutiny
and is thus unconstitutional not only as applied to Alvarez,
but in all its applications. See id. at 45-46.

I would hold that the Act is constitutional as applied to
Alvarez and that the Act is not unconstitutionally overbroad.
Because the majority has rewritten established First Amend-
ment law, I respectfully dissent.

I

Before turning to Alvarez’s as-applied and facial chal-
lenges and the majority’s errors with respect to the particular
elements of this case, I am going to begin by discussing the
First Amendment framework under which the Supreme Court
analyzes false statements of fact, which involves a general
rule and a series of exceptions. I then explain why I think the
majority has misread the cases and, in the process, turned the
exceptions into the rule and the rule into an exception.

A

The First Amendment states, in relevant part: “Congress
shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . .”
U.S. CONST. amend. I. “As a general matter, the First Amend-
ment means that government has no power to restrict expres-
sion because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11885
content.” United States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 1584
(2010) (alteration and quotation marks omitted) (quoting Ash-
croft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 573 (2002)). A content-based
restriction of constitutionally protected speech “can stand
only if it satisfies strict scrutiny,” United States v. Playboy
Ent. Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000), meaning that it
“is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is
narrowly drawn to achieve that end,” Perry Educ. Ass’n v.
Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983).

But not all speech is entitled to First Amendment protec-
tion. Rather, “[t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly
limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of
which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional
problem” because “such utterances are no essential part of
any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as
a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them
is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and
morality.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-
72 (1942). Included among these “classes of speech” are “ob-
scenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to
criminal conduct.” Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1584 (citations omit-
ted); see also Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572.

“Defamation” as a class of speech falls within the unpro-
tected category of speech that the Court has referred to as
“false statements of fact.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418
U.S. 323, 340 (1974). In Gertz, the Court explained the differ-
ence between false statements of fact and false ideas: “Under
the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea.
. . . But there is no constitutional value in false statements of
fact.” Id. at 339-40. It then held that “the erroneous statement
of fact is not worthy of constitutional protection.” Id. at 340.
The Supreme Court has regularly repeated, both inside and
outside of the defamation context, that false statements of fact
are valueless and generally not within the protection of the
First Amendment. See, e.g., BE & K Constr. Co. v. N.L.R.B.,
536 U.S. 516, 531 (2002) (“[F]alse statements [are] unpro-
11886 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
tected for their own sake.”); Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485
U.S. 46, 52 (1988) (“False statements of fact are particularly
valueless; they interfere with the truth-seeking function of the
marketplace of ideas . . . .”); Keeton v. Hustler Magazine,
Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 776 (1984) (false statements of fact have
“no constitutional value” because they “harm both the subject
of the falsehood and the readers of the statement” (quotation
marks omitted)); Bill Johnson’s Rest., Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 461
U.S. 731, 743 (1983) (“[F]alse statements are not immunized
by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.”); Her-
bert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153, 171 (1979) (“Spreading false
information in and of itself carries no First Amendment cre-
dentials.”); see also Cox Broad. Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469,
499 n.3 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring) (“[T]he First Amend-
ment affords no constitutional protection for false statements
of fact.”). Because false statements of fact do not enjoy the
protection of the First Amendment, such statements may ordi-
narily be regulated by the government. Congress, for exam-
ple, has provided criminal penalties for any number of false
statements of fact uttered in a variety of contexts. See, e.g., 18
U.S.C. pt. I, ch. 47 passim (“Fraud and false statements”).

Thus, the general rule is that false statements of fact are not
protected by the First Amendment.1 There is, however, an
1
The majority disagrees with my characterization of Gertz’s principle as
a “general rule” and of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254
(1964), and its progeny as “exceptions.” The majority argues that “[t]he
fundamental rule is found in the First Amendment itself: ‘Congress shall
make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.’ ” Maj. Op. at 11860
(ellipsis in original) (quoting U.S. CONST. amend. I). Thus, the majority
continues, “[a]ny rule that certain speech is not protected by this founda-
tional principle is the exception, which may in turn be subject to other
exceptions to protect against such exceptions swallowing the rule.” Id.
The majority has misunderstood the concept of unprotected speech. It
is not true, as the majority states, that “we presumptively protect all
speech against government interference.” Id. The First Amendment does
not protect all “speech” but rather “the freedom of speech,” which does
not include those categories of speech traditionally considered outside of
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11887
important exception to this principle: where protecting a false
statement is necessary “in order to protect speech that mat-
ters.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341; see also BE & K, 536 U.S. at
531 (“[W]hile false statements may be unprotected for their
own sake, ‘[t]he First Amendment requires that we protect
some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.’ ”
(emphasis omitted) (second alteration in original) (quoting
Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341)). In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,
376 U.S. 254 (1964), the seminal case in this area, the Court
extended limited First Amendment protection to libelous
statements “critical of the official conduct of public officials.”
Id. at 268. Because “erroneous statement is inevitable in free
debate, and . . . must be protected if the freedoms of expres-
sion are to have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need to sur-
vive,’ ” the Court feared that permitting public officials to
bring tort claims against their critics based on a false state-
ment of fact would “lead[ ] to . . . ‘self-censorship,’ ” deter-
ring such critics “from voicing their criticism[ ] even though
it is believed to be true and even though it is in fact true.” Id.
at 271-72, 279 (ellipsis omitted). In order to protect against
such “self-censorship,” the Court adopted “a federal rule that
prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a
defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he
proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’—that
is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard

First Amendment protection. See John Paul Stevens, The Freedom of
Speech, 102 YALE L. J. 1293, 1296 (1993) (“I emphasize the word ‘the’
as used in the term ‘the freedom of speech’ because the definite article
suggests that the draftsmen intended to immunize a previously identified
category or subset of speech. That category could not have been co-
extensive with the category of oral communications that are commonly
described as ‘speech’ in ordinary usage. . . . The Amendment has never
been understood to protect all oral communication.” (emphasis added)).
Thus, the lack of protection afforded false statements of fact is no more
of an “exception” to the First Amendment than the lack of First Amend-
ment protection afforded the pulling of a gun trigger. Neither of these
activities is considered part of “the freedom of speech,” so neither should
be characterized as an exception to the First Amendment.
11888 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
of whether it was false or not.” Id. at 279-80. The Court has
extended the New York Times “actual malice” rule to “public
figures” even if they are not “public officials,” Curtis Publ’g
Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 155 (1967), but has “refus[ed] to
extend the New York Times privilege to defamation of private
individuals,” even with respect to matters of public concern,
Gertz, 418 U.S. at 351.2

Consistent with the principle set forth in New York Times,
the Court held, in Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64 (1964),
that “the knowingly false statement and the false statement
made with reckless disregard of the truth, do not enjoy consti-
tutional protection.” Id. at 75 (emphasis added); see also id.
(“Calculated falsehood falls into that class of utterances which
‘are no essential part of any exposition of ideas . . . .’ ” (quot-
ing Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572)). In Gertz, the Court con-
firmed that knowing lies are excluded from the limited First
Amendment protection New York Times established for false
statements of fact: “[T]he intentional lie . . . [does not] materi-
ally advance[ ] society’s interest in ‘uninhibited, robust, and
wide-open’ debate on public issues.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340
(quoting New York Times, 376 U.S. at 270). Although Garri-
son and Gertz both involved defamation, the Supreme Court
and our court have extended Garrison’s rule beyond the defa-
mation context, as will be discussed in Part I.B.2.

There is, however, an important caveat to the principle that
knowingly false statements of fact are not entitled to constitu-
tional protection. See Maj. Op. at 11874. The Court has recog-
nized that some statements that, literally read, are technically
“knowingly false” may be “no more than rhetorical hyperbo-
le,” Greenbelt Coop. Publ’g Ass’n v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 14
2
Although the Court in Gertz “allow[ed] the States to impose liability
on the publisher or broadcaster of defamatory falsehood on a less demand-
ing showing than that required by New York Times,” the Court held that
damages are limited to “compensation for actual injury.” Gertz, 418 U.S.
at 348-49.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11889
(1970), or “lusty and imaginative expression,” Nat’l Ass’n of
Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264, 286
(1974), such as satire or fiction. In Hustler, the Supreme
Court held that the First Amendment protects defamatory
statements about a public figure “that could not reasonably
have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public
figure involved.” 485 U.S. at 50. And in Milkovich v. Lorain
Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990), the Court clarified that such
protection “provides assurance that public debate will not suf-
fer for lack of imaginative expression or the rhetorical hyper-
bole which has traditionally added much to the discourse of
our Nation.” Id. at 20 (quotation marks omitted)); see also
Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068, 1074 (9th Cir. 2005) (stating
that “[t]he First Amendment protects statements that cannot
reasonably [be] interpreted as stating actual facts about an
individual” because of “the reality that exaggeration and non-
literal commentary have become an integral part of social dis-
course” (quotation marks omitted) (second alteration in origi-
nal)). In a sense, the Court has established that “lies” made in
the context of satire and imaginative expression are not really
lies at all and perhaps not really even statements of “fact,”
because no reasonable listener could actually believe them to
be stating actual facts.

In sum, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on false state-
ments of fact involves a general rule with certain exceptions
and exceptions-to-exceptions. In general, “there is no consti-
tutional value in false statements of fact,” and so “the errone-
ous statement of fact is not worthy of constitutional
protection.” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340. However, this general
principle is subject to certain limited exceptions where First
Amendment protection is necessary “to protect speech that
matters,” id. at 341, and to ensure that the “freedoms of
expression . . . have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need to
survive,’ ” New York Times, 376 U.S. at 271-72 (alteration
omitted). Accordingly, a defamatory false statement of fact
made about a public figure is constitutionally protected if it is
made without “knowledge that it was false or with reckless
11890 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id. at 280. On the
other hand, “the knowingly false statement and the false state-
ment made with reckless disregard of the truth, do not enjoy
constitutional protection.” Garrison, 379 U.S. at 75. The only
qualifier to this rule is that statements that are technically
“knowingly false” receive constitutional protection when they
“c[an]not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual
facts.” Hustler, 485 U.S. at 50.

B

Notwithstanding the Court’s pronouncements on the unpro-
tected status of false statements of fact, the majority “find[s]
no authority holding that false factual speech, as a general cat-
egory unto itself, is among [the historically unprotected
classes of speech],” Maj. Op. at 11861, and concludes that
“we presumptively protect . . . false statements,” id. at 11881.
The majority believes that, when the Supreme Court has said
that “false statements of fact” are unprotected by the First
Amendment, what the Court actually meant was that defama-
tion is unprotected by the First Amendment. See id. at 11864
(“[W]e believe the historical category of unprotected speech
identified in Gertz and related law is defamation, not all fac-
tual speech.”). From this premise, and after refusing to “ex-
tend” the unprotected category of speech (defamation) to false
statements generally, id. at 11865, the majority suggests that
false statements of fact are generally entitled to full constitu-
tional protection, even if they are knowingly false, unless they
are defamatory, fraudulent, or integral to criminal conduct,
see id. at 11870-73.

The majority has effectively overruled Gertz and inverted
the whole scheme. The Supreme Court has told us consis-
tently that the general rule is that false statements of fact are
unprotected, and has carved out certain limited exceptions to
this principle in certain contexts. The majority flips this
framework around and suggests that false statements of fact
are generally unprotected only in contexts like defamation and
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11891
fraud, and that outside these contexts they are fully protected.
See id. at 11873 (“[T]he historical and traditional categories
of unprotected false factual speech have thus far included
only certain subsets of false factual statements . . . .”); id. at
11875 (finding that only “certain subsets of false factual
speech have been declared unprotected,” and that “[t]he Act
does not fit neatly into any of those . . . classes”). In other
words, the majority limits the general rule to its exceptions.
In my view, the majority is wrong for a number of reasons.

1

As a general matter, the majority’s principle rests on a line
of reasoning that I cannot endorse: that our jurisprudence
should rest on what we think the Supreme Court “means”
rather than what it actually says, and thus, because the
Supreme Court means “defamation” when it says “false state-
ments of fact,” only the former represents an unprotected cat-
egory of speech. The majority even considers it “erroneous[ ]”
for me to “rel[y] on Gertz for its statement that false factual
speech is valueless and unprotected.” Id. at 11864.

With all due respect, I believe that reliance on Gertz’s
statement (and the Court’s numerous other statements to the
same effect) is not only far from “erroneous[ ]” but obliga-
tory. We do not have the authority as a lower court to limit
the Court’s statements to what we believe they mean rather
than what they actually say. Gertz could have used the terms
“defamation” or “libel” rather than “false statements of fact”
to describe the unprotected category of speech—it presum-
ably knew what these terms mean—but it did not. Because the
Court has told us unambiguously that “false statements of
fact” are generally unprotected by the First Amendment, this
principle should be the starting point for our analysis, not the
point for the majority’s departure from the principle.3
3
The majority’s reliance on Justice Stevens’s opinion in Nike, Inc. v.
Kasky, 539 U.S. 654 (2003), see Maj. Op. at 11855, gives away its true
11892 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
2

Even if we had the authority to limit the Supreme Court’s
statements to what we think they mean rather than what they
actually say, the Supreme Court did (and does) mean that
“false statements of fact” are generally unprotected and that
(non-satirical and non-theatrical) knowingly false statements
of fact are always unprotected. Supreme Court precedent,
Ninth Circuit precedent, and logic compel this conclusion.

The Supreme Court has used the same framework for ana-
lyzing false statements of fact in cases involving neither defa-
mation nor fraud as it did in New York Times, Garrison, and
Gertz; these cases demonstrate that the Court’s statements
regarding the general unprotected nature of “false statements
of fact” and its even more conclusive statements regarding
knowingly false statements of fact apply to cases outside the
defamation/fraud context. In these cases involving neither
defamation nor fraud, the Court began with the premise that
false statements of fact are unprotected, and its entire analysis
was directed toward deciding whether the application of New
York Times’s “actual malice” standard was necessary in that
case to protect speech that matters. Although the Court at
times decided that the non-defamation case before it was such
a case where New York Times’s “actual standard” was neces-
sary, it was careful to emphasize, consistent with Garrison,
that false statements made with actual malice fall outside of
First Amendment protection. In other words, the only reason
that there was even a need for discussion was because the
statement in question was arguably made without “actual mal-
ice”; if the statement in question had been clearly uttered with

intentions. In that case, Justice Stevens concurred in the Court’s dismissal
of the grant of certiorari and, in a parenthetical, suggested that Gertz’s
statement that there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact
was “(perhaps overbroad[ ]).” Id. at 664. Justice Stevens stopped far short
of suggesting that Gertz should be overruled, but that is the implication the
majority takes away.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11893
actual malice, the statement would be unprotected irrespective
of whether New York Times applied.

In Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967), for example, the
Court held that an award of damages under New York’s “right
of privacy” law based on “allegations that [defendant] falsely
reported that a new play portrayed an experience suffered by
[plaintiff],” id. at 376-77, could not be sustained without
“proof that the defendant published the report with knowledge
of its falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth,” id. at 388.
After careful analysis, rather than “through blind application
of New York Times,” id. at 390, the Court concluded that
“sanctions against either innocent or negligent misstatement
would present a grave hazard of discouraging the press from
exercising constitutional guarantees,” id. at 389. At the same
time, the Court was careful to stress, relying on Garrison, that
“ ‘[t]he use of calculated falsehood . . . would put a different
cast on the constitutional question.’ ” Id. at 390 (emphasis
added) (quoting Garrison, 379 U.S. at 75). The Court
declared that “the constitutional guarantees can tolerate sanc-
tions against calculated falsehood without significant impair-
ment of their essential function.” Id. at 389; see also id. at 390
(“What we said in Garrison . . . is equally applicable [here].”
(emphasis added)).

And in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563
(1968), the Court applied the New York Times framework to
a case involving a teacher who claimed that his First Amend-
ment rights were violated when he was terminated for sending
to a local newspaper a letter containing false statements of
fact critical of the district superintendent. See id. at 572-74.
As in Time, the Court in Pickering started from the premise
that false statements of fact are unprotected, and the only
question was whether the context it was dealing with was sim-
ilar enough to defamation to merit the application of New
York Times’s “actual malice” rule. See id. at 574. The Court
concluded that the potential for self-censorship was sufficient
to warrant New York Times’s “actual malice” requirement, but
11894 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
made clear that the extent of constitutional protection was
limited: “[I]n a case such as this, absent proof of false state-
ments knowingly or recklessly made by him, a teacher’s exer-
cise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may
not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employ-
ment.” Id. (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).4

Nothing in the Court’s recent decision in Stevens is to the
contrary. The majority believes that, “[s]ince the Stevens
Court saw fit to name defamation specifically, rather than
false statements of fact generally, as the historical category
excluded from constitutional protection, . . . the historical cat-
egory of unprotected speech identified in Gertz and related
law is defamation, not all factual speech.” Maj. Op. at 11890.
But Stevens’s use of the word “defamation” is nothing new.
As far back as Chaplinsky, the Court has frequently used the
words “defamation” and “libel” to describe one of the catego-
ries of unprotected speech. See 315 U.S. at 572 (including
among the unprotected “classes of speech” “the lewd and
obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fight-
ing’ words” (emphasis added)). Then, in Gertz, the Court used
the broader term “false statements of fact” to describe this cat-
egory. 418 U.S. at 340; see also BE & K, 536 U.S. at 531;
Hustler, 485 U.S. at 52. Because most of the Court’s opinions
in this historically unprotected category have dealt with defa-
mation, and because the Court has used both the terms “defa-
mation” and “false statements of fact” to describe speech
within the unprotected category, there is nothing interesting
about Stevens’s use of the term “defamation.” If Stevens truly
4
Although BE & K and Bill Johnson’s did not involve the freedom of
speech per se but rather the First Amendment right to petition, these deci-
sions are further examples of the Court’s reliance on Gertz’s principle out-
side of the defamation context. See BE & K, 536 U.S. at 531 (“[F]alse
statements [are] unprotected for their own sake . . . .” (citing Gertz, 418
U.S. at 341)); Bill Johnson’s, 461 U.S. at 743 (“Just as false statements
are not immunized by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech,
baseless litigation is not immunized by the First Amendment right to peti-
tion.” (citations omitted) (citing Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340)).
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11895
stands for the proposition that only defamatory statements—
and not false statements of fact generally—constitute the
unprotected category, then Stevens overruled sub silentio
every Supreme Court case using the general term “false state-
ments of fact” and every case applying the New York Times-
Gertz-Garrison framework outside of the defamation context.
I find this hard to believe.

Similar considerations demonstrate why the majority is
misguided in relying upon Stevens’s statement that “ ‘[o]ur
decisions [following Chaplinsky] cannot be taken as establish-
ing a freewheeling authority to declare new categories of
speech outside the scope of the First Amendment.’ ” Maj. Op.
at 11866 (second alteration in original) (quoting Stevens, 130
S. Ct. at 1586); see also id. at 11864-65 (“Unlike our dissent-
ing colleague, we are not eager to extend a statement (often
quoted, but often qualified) made in the complicated area of
defamation jurisprudence into a new context . . . .”). Stevens
involved the potential creation of a truly “new” category of
unprotected speech: “depictions of animal cruelty.” 130 S. Ct.
at 1584. This case, in contrast, involves a preexisting category
of unprotected speech: false statements of fact. Thus, no “ex-
pansion” of First Amendment jurisprudence is necessary to
hold that Alvarez’s false statements are not protected.

Our own cases are in accord with the principle that false
statements of fact (not just defamatory or fraudulent false
statements) are generally unprotected by the First Amend-
ment, although we have recognized that “constitutional pro-
tection is afforded some false statements.” Johnson v.
Multnomah County, 48 F.3d 420 (9th Cir. 1995) (emphasis
added). We have often applied the New York Times-Garrison-
Gertz framework outside of the defamation and fraud context.

In Clipper Exxpress v. Rocky Mountain Motor Tariff
Bureau, Inc., 690 F.2d 1240 (9th Cir. 1982), for example, we
held that “[t]here is no first amendment protection for furnish-
ing with predatory intent false information to an administra-
11896 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
tive or adjudicatory body,” and thus the First Amendment did
not shield the defendants from antitrust liability. Id. at 1261;
see also id. (“The first amendment has not been interpreted to
preclude liability for false statements. . . . ‘[T]here is no con-
stitutional value in false statements of fact.’ ” (quoting Gertz,
418 U.S. at 340)). We “recogniz[ed] that under certain cir-
cumstances allowing the imposition of liability for statements
can hamper debate, see New York Times,” which “may sug-
gest that a court should adopt a stricter standard of proof,” but
we determined that defendants’ statements were unprotected
regardless of the correct standard of proof because “defen-
dants knew the falsity of their statements.” Id. at 1262
(emphases added). In other words, the defendants’ knowledge
of the falsity of their statements placed the defendants’ state-
ments clearly outside of the First Amendment. Thus, unlike in
Time and Pickering, there was no need for any further discus-
sion of whether the New York Times “actual malice” require-
ment applied. See id.

More recently, in Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 255
F.3d 1180 (9th Cir. 2001), we applied the New York Times
framework to a case in which the plaintiff claimed that his
common law right of publicity had been violated by the
defendant’s publication of an altered photograph of the plain-
tiff’s name and likeness, see id. at 1183, which “create[d] a
false impression in the minds of the public that they were see-
ing [the plaintiff’s] body,” id. at 1186 (quotation marks omit-
ted). Regarding the defendant’s First Amendment defense, we
determined that the question was whether the district court
correctly held that the First Amendment did not protect the
defendant’s publication because the defendant “published that
image knowing it was false and intending that the readers
believe the falsehood.” Id. (emphasis added). Although we
eventually concluded that the district court erred in finding
that “actual malice” existed, id. at 1189, the important point
is that a finding of knowledge as to falsity would have meant
that the defendant’s publication was not protected by the First
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11897
Amendment, irrespective of the fact that the purported false-
hood was not defamatory or fraudulent.5

Under the majority’s view, the Supreme Court’s decisions
in Time and Pickering, and our decisions in Clipper Exxpress
and Hoffman, are all disapproved, if not overruled. But even
putting aside these precedents, I do not believe that the major-
ity’s principle is logical. Given that the Court has clearly rec-
ognized defamation as one of the exceptional situations where
protecting certain false statements is necessary to “protect
speech that matters,” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340, I cannot see how
Gertz could have meant “defamation” when it said that “false
statements of fact” are unprotected. If that were true, there
would be nothing left of Gertz’s statement that false state-
ments of fact fall outside of First Amendment protection. In
other words, the majority interprets Gertz the following way:
defamation is unprotected by the First Amendment, but it is
necessary to protect defamation in order to protect speech that
matters. Under the majority’s logic, Gertz is internally incon-
sistent, and the exception has swallowed up the rule.

3

Although I believe that it is clear that the Supreme Court’s
statements regarding false statements of fact extend outside of
the defamation and fraud context, I nevertheless find it neces-
sary to respond to the majority’s misguided “bona fide harm”
theory. The majority asserts that the Supreme Court has
extended the New York Times-Garrison-Gertz framework
only to false statements “likely to cause a bona fide harm,”
such as those that constitute fraud. Maj. Op. at 11870. In other
5
The majority is “not persuaded that Hoffman . . . is anything more than
a variation on defamation jurisprudence.” Maj. Op. at 11865 n.10. But
although the false statements in Hoffman were arguably more like defama-
tion than the false statements in Alvarez’s case, Hoffman and similar cases
nevertheless demonstrate that “false statements of fact” means “false
statements of fact,” not simply “defamation,” and that the former repre-
sents the historically unprotected category of speech, not the latter.
11898 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
words, the majority suggests that a false statement loses First
Amendment protection only if it is likely to cause a
cognizable—indeed, “irreparable”—harm. Id. at 11863.
Based on this premise, the majority might assert that the
Court applied the New York Times-Garrison-Gertz framework
in Time, Pickering, Clipper Exxpress, and Hoffman because
the false statements in those cases were likely to cause a cog-
nizable harm, but the false statements punished by the Stolen
Valor Act are fully protected because these statements do not
generally produce what the majority considers to be a “bona
fide harm.” See id. at 11871 n.12. I respectfully disagree.

a

The likelihood of a “bona fide harm” has nothing to do
with whether a category of speech loses First Amendment
protection. Stevens rejected the notion that the First Amend-
ment protection afforded a class of speech depends on a con-
sideration of the “societal costs” of the class of speech. 130
S. Ct. at 1585. Rather, whether a category of speech is consti-
tutionally protected is a historical question that depends on
whether a class of speech has traditionally been thought to be
of low First Amendment value. As the Supreme Court reiter-
ated in Stevens:

From 1791 to the present, . . . the First Amendment
has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech
in a few limited areas, and has never include[d] a
freedom to disregard these traditional limitations.
These historic and traditional categories long famil-
iar to the bar . . . are well-defined and narrowly lim-
ited classes of speech, the prevention and
punishment of which has never been thought to raise
any Constitutional problem.

Id. at 1584 (emphases added) (quotation marks and citations
omitted) (alteration in original); see also id. at 1586 (noting
that the Court’s First Amendment cases regarding speech out-
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11899
side First Amendment protection have “grounded [their] anal-
ysis in a previously recognized, long-established category of
unprotected speech” (emphasis added)); Chaplinsky, 315 U.S.
at 572 (describing unprotected classes of speech as “utter-
ances [that] are no essential part of any exposition ideas, and
are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any bene-
fit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by
the social interest in order and morality” (emphases added)).
Once again, decades of Supreme Court case law make clear
that false statements of fact are one of those classes of speech
that are generally considered to be of low First Amendment
value and therefore have traditionally fallen outside First
Amendment protection.

I agree with the majority that the Court’s statements in this
regard cannot be interpreted as “absolute proposition[s],”
Maj. Op. at 11855, because the Court has established that,
although “false statements may be unprotected for their own
sake,” BE & K, 536 U.S. at 531, the Constitution “requires
that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that
matters,” Gertz, 418 U.S. at 341 (emphasis added). But the
protection the Court has afforded for “some falsehood” has
been limited to narrow subsets within the historically unpro-
tected category—certain false statements of fact critical of
public figures if made without “knowledge that [they are]
false or with reckless disregard of whether [they are] false or
not,” New York Times, 376 U.S. at 280; certain false state-
ments of fact in contexts similar to defamation, such as intru-
sions on a public figure’s privacy, see Time, 385 U.S. at 376-
77, 388, and criticisms of one’s superior, see Pickering, 391
U.S. at 572-74; and certain false statements of fact that “c[an-
not] reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts,”
Hustler, 485 U.S. at 50. The fact that the Supreme Court has
extended limited constitutional protection to some false state-
ments of fact in defamation and defamation-like cases and
that these cases generally involve a cognizable harm to a par-
ticular party does not demonstrate that a cognizable harm is
a prerequisite before a false statement of fact loses its First
11900 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
Amendment protection. Rather, the spheres of protection
carved out in New York Times, Hustler, and like cases repre-
sent limited exceptions to the general rule that false state-
ments of fact are not protected by the First Amendment,
irrespective of a cognizable harm to a specific person. See
Keeton, 465 U.S. at 776 (false statements of fact have “no
constitutional value” because they “harm both the subject of
the falsehood and the readers of the statement” (first emphasis
added) (quotation marks omitted)). If a false statement of fact
does not fall within one of these exceptions, it falls within the
general historically unprotected category of speech, and the
absence of “harm” is irrelevant.

b

The Court’s obscenity jurisprudence is an embarrassment
to the majority’s newly-minted “harm” requirement. The
Court has long held that obscene speech is not protected by
the First Amendment, see Chaplinsky, 315 U.S. at 572,
because it is “utterly without redeeming social importance,”
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484 (1957), and not
because the states have satisfied some “proof of harm”
requirement. In Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), the
Supreme Court defined works that are “obscene” and there-
fore fall outside the protection of the First Amendment, and
“bona fide harm” is notably absent as a requirement under its
definition. The Court stated:

[W]e now confine the permissible scope of [obscen-
ity] regulation to works which depict or describe
sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically
defined by the applicable state law, as written or
authoritatively construed. A state offense must also
be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal
to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual
conduct in a patently offensive way, and which,
taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artis-
tic, political, or scientific value.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11901
Miller, 413 U.S. at 24 (footnote omitted).

We might say, of course, that obscenity is generally harm-
ful, or that obscenity has traditionally been thought to be
harmful given that obscenity regulations represent a legisla-
tive determination that obscene materials generally degrade
our morals or endanger public safety. But the majority holds
the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional because it does not
require proof that any particular statement causes harm. While
acknowledging Congress’s finding that false claims like Alva-
rez’s “damage the reputation and meaning of [military] deco-
rations and medals,” Stolen Valor Act of 2005, Pub. L. No.
109-437, § 2(1), 120 Stat. 3266 (2005) (the “Findings”); Maj.
Op. at 11867, the majority emphasizes that the Findings “do
not actually limit the application of the Act” because “[t]here
is no requirement in the Act that the government bear the bur-
den to prove that the defendant’s speech or writing proxi-
mately caused damage to the reputation and meaning of
military decorations and medals,” Maj. Op. at 11867 (second
emphasis added).6

The problem is that this is true of obscenity regulations as
well; although obscenity laws are generally targeted at some
cognizable harm, they do not explicitly require that the gov-
ernment even identify, much less prove, a cognizable harm in
every case. Indeed, it was of no concern to the Court that
“there [wa]s no conclusive proof of a connection between
antisocial behavior and obscene material,” because “[n]othing
in the Constitution prohibits a State from reaching such a con-
clusion and acting on it legislatively simply because there
[wa]s no conclusive evidence or empirical data.” Paris Adult
Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 60-61, 63 (1973). Thus, the
Court’s obscenity jurisprudence demonstrates that a “harm”
requirement simply does not exist in terms of the protection
afforded a category of speech.
6
I return to this point in Part II.C.
11902 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
c

The majority places great weight on the Court’s decision in
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), in which the
Court famously held that “[t]he question in every case is
whether the words used are used in such circumstances and
are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger
that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress
has a right to prevent.” Id. at 52. The majority even suggests
that the “clear and present danger” rule is the test “for defin-
ing the relevant subset of false speech that is historically
unprotected.” Maj. Op. at 11875-76; see also id. at 11877
(“Following Schenck, . . . we might articulate the class of
false factual speech unprotected by the First Amendment to
be that false factual speech which creates a clear and present
danger of a harm Congress has a right to prevent.”).

The majority is wrong. The Court has never used the “clear
and present danger” test to determine whether a category of
speech is protected in the first instance. Much to the contrary,
the Court has specifically held that the existence of a “clear
and present danger” of harm is irrelevant in the context of
unprotected categories of speech. In Beauharnais v. Illinois,
343 U.S. 250 (1952), the Court stated:

Libelous utterances not being within the area of con-
stitutionally protected speech, it is unnecessary,
either for us or for the State courts, to consider the
issues behind the phrase “clear and present danger.”
Certainly no one would contend that obscene speech,
for example, may be punished only upon a showing
of such circumstances. Libel, as we have seen, is in
the same class.

Id. at 266.

Schenck dealt with a content-based restriction of a category
of speech that would now be considered clearly entitled to
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11903
First Amendment protection—indeed, there are few catego-
ries of speech more valuable in terms of First Amendment
principles than opinions critical of the government on matters
of national security, such as military conscription. See
Schenck, 249 U.S. at 51; see also Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395
U.S. 444, 448-49 (1969); Elena Kagan, The Changing Faces
of First Amendment Neutrality: R.A.V. v. St. Paul, Rust v.
Sullivan, and the Problem of Content-Based Underinclusion,
1992 SUP. CT. REV. 29, 39 (1992) (providing “seditious advo-
cacy” as an example of “constitutionally protected speech”
(emphasis added)). Schenck and cases like it did not consider
whether a category of speech is protected by the First
Amendment—again, that question depends on whether the
speech has historically been considered of low First Amend-
ment value. Rather, the question in those cases was whether
the government’s interest in preventing lawless action—that
is, in preventing the harm potentially produced by protected
speech—was sufficient to overcome the First Amendment
interests in a particular context, see Kagan, 1992 SUP. CT. REV.
at 39 (“In deciding [a case involving seditious advocacy,] . . .
the Court will ask . . . whether the government has a sufficient
reason to restrict the speech actually affected.”), which
depended on whether the speech at issue “create[d] a clear
and present danger,” Schenck, 249 U.S. at 52.

d

Finally, the majority’s reliance on statutes criminalizing
fraud and similar crimes, see Maj. Op. at 11870-73, is both
flawed and puzzling. Although fraud statutes generally
require that the fraudulent statement cause an injury, and
although the Supreme Court has held that fraudulent state-
ments are not entitled to First Amendment protection, see,
e.g., Ill. ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., Inc., 538
U.S. 600, 612 (2003), it stretches logic to conclude from these
holdings that a cognizable injury is necessary for a category
of speech to fall outside First Amendment protection. That is,
just because fraud statutes may require some proof of harm,
11904 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
and such statutes have been held constitutional, does not mean
that in order for a statute such as the Stolen Valor Act to be
constitutional, it too must require proof of harm.7 To so hold
is a formal error in logic. The notion that a regulation of
unprotected speech requires individualized proof of a cogni-
zable harm is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s First
Amendment jurisprudence.

*****

In sum, the better interpretation of the Supreme Court’s
cases and those of our court is that false statements of fact—
as a general category—fall outside of First Amendment pro-
tection except in certain contexts where such protection is
necessary “to protect speech that matters.” If a false statement
does not fall within one of these exceptions, the general rule
applies. And even in the exceptional contexts, a false state-
ment that is neither satirical nor theatrical is unprotected if it
is made with knowledge or reckless disregard of falsity.

II

With these principles in mind, I now turn to Alvarez’s as-
applied challenge.
7
Numerous statutes are called into question by the majority’s opinion.
The following are just some of the statutes that punish false statements and
do not appear to require proof of harm (including that the false statement
be “material”): 18 U.S.C. § 1011 (punishing “any false statement . . . relat-
ing to the sale of any mortgage, to any Federal land bank”); 18 U.S.C.
§ 1015(a) (punishing “any false statement under oath, in any case, pro-
ceeding, or matter relating to . . . naturalization, citizenship, or registry of
aliens”); 18 U.S.C. § 1026 (punishing “any false statement for the purpose
of influencing in any way the action of the Secretary of Agriculture . . .
in connection with . . . farm indebtedness”); 18 U.S.C. § 1027 (punishing
“any false statement” made “in any document required by [ERISA]”).
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11905
A

In a public meeting, Alvarez stated: “I’m a retired marine
of 25 years. I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded
many times by the same guy. I’m still around.” Alvarez does
not deny that his statement that he received the Congressional
Medal of Honor was a statement of fact, that this statement
was false, and that he made the statement with full knowledge
of the statement’s falsity. He does not attempt to defend his
actions as hyperbole or imaginative expression, nor does he
claim that he was misunderstood in context. Alvarez also
knew when he uttered the statement that his claim to have
been a Marine was false, that he had not served in any branch
of the armed forces for twenty-five years, and that no one had
shot and wounded him while he was in the service of his
country.

All things considered, Alvarez’s self-introduction was nei-
ther a slip of the tongue nor a theatrical performance; it was
simply a lie. Under the rules announced in Garrison and its
progeny, Alvarez’s knowingly false statement is excluded8
from the limited spheres of protection carved out by the
Supreme Court for false statements of fact necessary to pro-
tect speech that matters, and it is therefore not entitled to con-
stitutional protection. See Garrison, 379 U.S. at 75 (“[T]he
8
I emphasize the fact that the Supreme Court has affirmatively excluded
knowingly false statements from First Amendment protection rather than
simply failed to include them. The majority argues that, “even if one
agrees with the dissent that Gertz and its progeny require[ ] the historical
category of unprotected speech at issue here [to] be defined as knowingly
false factual speech per se, that is simply not enough to make the [Stolen
Valor] Act immune from First Amendment analysis,” and that we would
need to “guess what rule the Court would adopt for [knowingly false state-
ments].” Maj. Op. at 11865 n.9. The majority seems to suggest that the
Supreme Court has not yet decided what degree of constitutional protec-
tion will be afforded knowingly false statements of fact. For the reasons
I have explained above, I think the matter is quite to the contrary.
11906 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
knowingly false statement . . . do[es] not enjoy constitutional
protection.”); Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340 (“[T]he intentional lie
. . . [does not] materially advance[ ] society’s interest in ‘unin-
hibited, robust, and wide-open’ debate on public issues.”
(quoting New York Times, 376 U.S. at 270)); Time, 385 U.S.
at 389 (“[T]he constitutional guarantees can tolerate sanctions
against calculated falsehood without significant impairment of
their essential function.”).9 Thus, there is no need to apply
strict scrutiny.10

B

The Supreme Court’s clear rules are sufficient to doom
Alvarez’s as-applied challenge,11 but even apart from these
9
The majority is “concern[ed] . . . because of [the Act’s] potential for
setting a precedent whereby the government may proscribe speech solely
because it is a lie.” Maj. Op. at 11850. The majority fears that, under my
interpretation, the government could “criminaliz[e] 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 alco-
holic beverages, is a virgin, or has not exceeded the speed limit while driv-
ing on the freeway.” Maj. Op. at 11851. Alvarez provides a similar parade
of horribles, arguing that Congress could prohibit lying to one’s children
about the existence of Santa Claus.
But the fact that we might find the majority’s and Alvarez’s hypotheti-
cal laws troubling from a policy perspective is irrelevant to the First
Amendment question. Garrison, Gertz, and Time could not have been
clearer: knowing lies are unprotected by the First Amendment. Until the
Supreme Court tells us otherwise, the proper target for the majority’s con-
cerns is the legislature, not this court.
10
I agree with the majority that if the Stolen Valor Act were subjected
to strict scrutiny, the Act would not satisfy this test. See Maj. Op. at
11877-80. I simply do not agree that the Act should be subjected to strict
scrutiny.
11
The majority points out that, if I am correct, “the opinion in this case
would need be no more than a few paragraphs in length,” and asserts that
“the First Amendment requires more.” Maj. Op. at 11864 n.9. The major-
ity is correct that, in the Supreme Court’s cases involving false statements
of fact, “the First Amendment analysis [wa]s . . . rigorous,” id., in spite
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11907
rules, none of the concerns that animated New York Times and
its progeny should shield Alvarez’s statement. New York
Times imposed an “actual malice” requirement on defamation
suits brought by public figures trying to suppress criticism of
them as public figures. See 376 U.S. at 282 (“We hold today
that the Constitution delimits a State’s power to award dam-
ages for libel in actions brought by public officials against
critics of their official conduct.” (emphasis added)); Gertz,
418 U.S. at 334 (discussing “a constitutional privilege
intended to free criticism of public officials from the restraints
imposed by the common law of defamation” (emphasis
added)). In particular, the New York Times Court found that
the “actual malice” standard was necessary to prevent defa-
mation from being used by public officials as a civil substitute
for criminal sedition: “What a State may not constitutionally
bring about by means of a criminal statute is likewise beyond
the reach of its civil law of libel” because “damage awards . . .
may be markedly more inhibiting than the fear of prosecu-
tion.” 376 U.S. at 277 (footnote omitted). The Court was
determined not to let public officials suppress or chill criti-
cism of their official actions by threat of a lawsuit. And the
Court was confident that public officials, because of their
public position, would “have a . . . realistic opportunity to
counteract false statements” due to their “significant[ ] . . .
access to the channels of effective communication.” Gertz,
418 U.S. at 344.

The principles in New York Times do not extend to false
self-promotion. Nor do these principles extend to false self-

of the general unprotected nature of false statements of fact. But as dis-
cussed above, this “rigor” was necessary only to determine whether the
Court was faced with one of the unique situations where New York
Times’s “actual malice” standard was necessary in order to protect speech
that matters. See, e.g., Pickering, 391 U.S. at 574; Time, 385 U.S. at 389-
90; New York Times, 376 U.S. at 271-72. Here, there is no need to con-
sider whether New York Times’s standard applies because Alvarez indis-
putably did act with “actual malice.”
11908 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
promotion by public officials—that is, to officials who por-
tray themselves in a false but positive light. Public discourse
requires that citizens are equally free to praise or to condemn
their government and its officials, but I can see no value in
false, self-aggrandizing statements by public servants. Indeed,
the harm from public officials outright lying to the public on
matters of public record should be obvious. If the Stolen
Valor Act “chills” false autobiographical claims by public
officials such as Alvarez, our public discourse will not be the
worse for the loss.

C

The majority provides two main reasons for why the Act is
unconstitutional as applied to Alvarez. First, the majority rea-
sons that the Act is unconstitutional because it “does not
require a malicious violation, nor does it contain any other
requirement or element of scienter . . . . Without a scienter
requirement to limit the Act’s application, the statute raises
serious constitutional concerns . . . because the First Amend-
ment clearly prohibits criminally punishing negligent speech
about matters of public concern.” Maj. Op. at 11866 (citing
Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340, 347).

For one thing, Gertz does not stand for this proposition; in
Gertz, the Supreme Court “refus[ed] to extend the New York
Times privilege to defamation of private individuals,” even
though the subject matter was a matter of public concern.
Gertz, 418 U.S. at 350 (emphasis added). But even accepting
that false statements of fact made about oneself can be pun-
ished only if they are made with “actual malice” (a principle
that is not clearly true), this requirement is irrelevant to Alva-
rez’s as-applied challenge because there is no dispute that
Alvarez did make his false statement with “actual malice”—
that is, knowingly.12 If anything, the lack of a malice require-
12
Unlike the government, I do not propose that a scienter requirement
be read into the Act.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11909
ment is relevant only to Alvarez’s facial challenge, which I
will discuss in Part III.13

Second, the majority holds that the Act is unconstitutional
because it does not require that the false statement proxi-
mately cause an “irreparable” harm. Maj. Op. at 11863. As
discussed above, the First Amendment contains no such
requirement, see Part I.B.3, supra, and thus the Act’s failure
to require harm is irrelevant to the determination of whether
it is unconstitutional.

But even if the First Amendment demanded some proof of
harm, the majority has supplied no reason to question Con-
gress’s determination that “[f]raudulent claims surrounding
the receipt of . . . [military] decorations and medals awarded
by the President or the Armed Forces of the United States
damage the reputation and meaning of such decorations and
medals.” Stolen Valor Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-437,
§ 2(1), 120 Stat. 3266 (2006). When George Washington cre-
ated the Badge of Military Merit, the predecessor to the Pur-
ple Heart, he wished to honor those who performed
“singularly meritorious action” with “the figure of a heart in
purple cloth.” Those who demonstrated “unusual gallantry,
. . . extraordinary fidelity, and essential service in any way,
[would] meet with a due reward.” At the same time, he
ordered that, “[s]hould any who are not entitled to the honors,
have the insolence to assume the badges of them, they shall
be severely punished.” GENERAL ORDERS OF GEORGE
WASHINGTON ISSUED AT NEWBURGH ON THE HUDSON, 1782-
1783, at 34-35 (Edward C. Boynton, ed., 1883) (reprint 1909)
(Order of August 7, 1782). Such false representations not only
dishonor the decorations and medals themselves, but dilute
the select group of those who have earned the nation’s grati-
13
Indeed, because the majority does not hold that the Stolen Valor Act
is unconstitutionally overbroad, it is unclear what relevance the Act’s lack
of a scienter requirement has even to the majority’s holding with respect
to Alvarez’s facial challenge.
11910 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
tude for their valor. Every nation needs to honor heroes, to
thank them for their selflessness and to hold them out as an
example worthy of emulation. The harm flowing from those
who have crowned themselves unworthily is surely self-
evident.

The majority finds Congress’s purpose inadequate because
the Act is not expressly limited to statements that cause harm,
see Maj. Op. at 11867 (“[W]hile the ‘Findings’ identify the
injury the Act targets, they do not actually limit the applica-
tion of the Act.”), and because “[t]here is no requirement in
the Act that the government bear the burden to prove that the
defendant’s speech or writing proximately caused damage to
the reputation and meaning of military decorations and med-
als,” id. (emphases added). Because the majority finds “no
readily apparent reason for assuming, without specific proof,
that the reputation and meaning of military decorations is
harmed every time someone lies about having received one,”
the majority holds the Act unconstitutional. Id. (emphasis
added).

But the government does not have to prove, on a case-by-
case basis, that the statement of a single defendant damaged
the reputation of a military award. The obscenity cases are
again instructive. In Paris Adult Theatre I, the Court rejected
the cry for “scientific data . . . demonstrat[ing] that exposure
to obscene material adversely affects men and women or their
society.” 413 U.S. at 60. Instead, the Court said that legisla-
tures could rely on “various unprovable assumptions,” the
same kinds of “assumptions [that] underlie much lawful state
regulation of commercial and business affairs,” such as fed-
eral securities laws, antitrust laws, environmental laws, and a
“host” of others. Id. at 61-62. Even in areas touched by the
First Amendment, “[t]he fact that a congressional directive
reflects unprovable assumptions about what is good for the
people, including imponderable aesthetic assumptions, is not
a sufficient reason to find that statute unconstitutional.” Id. at
62. Given the impossibility of proving the kind of “reputa-
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11911
tional harm” demanded by the majority, it is no wonder that
neither Congress nor the Constitution requires it.

What would Alvarez have had to say to satisfy the majori-
ty’s newfound harm standard? The majority itself concedes
that Alvarez’s statement was a “deliberate and despicable
[lie],” Maj. Op. at 11879, that it was a “worthless, ridiculous,
and offensive untruth[ ],” and that Alvarez “was proven to be
nothing more than a liar,”id. at 11881. He was indeed “more”
than that. The hubris of Alvarez’s claim to have received the
Congressional Medal of Honor in 1987 may not be apparent
to ordinary Americans, and it may not have been obvious at
the joint meeting of the water districts, but it would not have
been lost on the men and women who are serving or have
served in our armed forces. By his statement, Alvarez claimed
status in a most select group: American servicemen who lived
to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. No living sol-
dier has received the Congressional Medal of Honor since the
Vietnam War. Greg Jaffe and Craig Whitlock, Pentagon Rec-
ommends Medal of Honor for a Living Soldier, THE
WASHINGTON POST, July 1, 2010, available at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/
06/30/AR2010063005346.html (last visited July 6, 2010).
Indeed, no Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded to
any soldier participating in the Gulf War, and for our conflicts
over the past decade, only two were awarded for actions in
Somalia, four for actions in Iraq, and two for actions in
Afghanistan—all posthumously. Id. Alvarez’s statements dis-
honor every Congressional Medal of Honor winner, every ser-
vice member who has been decorated in any away, and every
American now serving. Such “insolence . . . [may] be . . . pun-
ished.”14
14
The government might well be able to supply further evidence of the
harm caused by false claims of military awards. The government did not
brief this matter because Alvarez never argued that false statements of fact
fall outside of First Amendment protection only if they produce a cogniza-
ble harm. Given the novelty of the majority’s holding, it is not surprising
that the government did not anticipate it.
11912 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
*****

Alvarez’s knowing lie is not entitled to constitutional pro-
tection. Thus, there is no need to subject the Stolen Valor Act
to strict scrutiny. I would hold that the Stolen Valor Act is
constitutional as applied to him. I turn now to Alvarez’s facial
challenge.

III

The majority holds that the Act is “facially invalid under
the First Amendment.” Maj. Op. at 11881. Some of the major-
ity’s analysis sounds in the overbreadth doctrine, but because
the majority does not actually apply this doctrine, its facial
holding is presumably based on the reasoning “that no set of
circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid.”
United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 746 (1987). This is
not surprising given that the majority believes that the Act is
unconstitutional as applied to Alvarez, who is perhaps the
prototypical candidate for a constitutional application of the
Act. Because I believe that the Act is constitutional as applied
to Alvarez, my conclusion regarding the facial constitutional-
ity of the Act necessarily rests on a discussion of Alvarez’s
overbreadth challenge. I would hold that because any over-
breadth of the Act can be eliminated by construction and is,
in any event, far from “substantial,” Broadrick v. Oklahoma,
413 U.S. 601, 615 (1973), the Act is facially constitutional.

The overbreadth doctrine is, literally, an extraordinary doc-
trine, because it represents an exception to the usual rules of
Article III standing. Ordinarily, “a person to whom a statute
may constitutionally be applied will not be heard to challenge
that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied
unconstitutionally to others, in other situations not before the
Court.” Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 610. However, the Supreme
Court has carved out an exception to this standing doctrine in
the First Amendment area because “the First Amendment
needs breathing space” and an overly broad statute can result
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11913
in intolerable self-censorship. Id. at 611. Thus, the Court has
“permitted [litigants] to challenge a statute not because their
own rights of free expression are violated, but because of a
judicial prediction or assumption that the statute’s very exis-
tence may cause others not before the court to refrain from
constitutionally protected speech or expression.” Id. at 612.
“If such an overbreadth challenge succeeds, the prosecution
fails regardless of the nature of the defendant’s own conduct,”
Wurtz v. Risley, 719 F.2d 1438, 1440 (9th Cir. 1983), because
a successful overbreadth challenge renders a statute unconsti-
tutional and, therefore, “invalid in all its applications,” Bd. of
Trs. of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 483 (1989).
Thus, the doctrine is employed “sparingly and only as a last
resort.” Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 613.

In Broadrick, the Court announced what has become the
fundamental rule in the First Amendment overbreadth analy-
sis: in order for a statute to be held unconstitutionally over-
broad, “the overbreadth of [the] statute must not only be real,
but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute’s
plainly legitimate sweep.” Id. at 615 (emphasis added).15
“[T]he mere fact that one can conceive of some impermissible
applications of a statute is not sufficient to render it suscepti-
ble to an overbreadth challenge. . . . [T]here must be a realis-
tic danger that the statute itself will significantly compromise
recognized First Amendment protections . . . for it to be
15
Broadrick dealt with a regulation of activities that had a First Amend-
ment component but that were not “pure speech.” 413 U.S. at 615. In New
York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), the Court extended Broadrick’s
requirement of substantial overbreadth to cases involving “pure speech.”
See id. at 772 (reasoning that Broadrick’s rationale “appears equally appli-
cable to the publication of books and films as it is to activities, such as
picketing or participation in election campaigns, which have previously
been categorized as involving conduct plus speech”); see also Brockett v.
Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U.S. 491, 503 n.12 (1985) (“The Court of
Appeals erred in holding that the Broadrick . . . substantial overbreadth
requirement is inapplicable where pure speech rather than conduct is at
issue. [Ferber] specifically held to the contrary.”).
11914 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
facially challenged on overbreadth grounds.” Members of City
Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S.
789, 800-01 (1984) (emphasis added). The Court elaborated
on the meaning of “substantial” overbreadth in New York
State Club Association v. City of New York, 487 U.S. 1
(1988), and held that the party challenging the law must dem-
onstrate not just from the text of the statute but also “from
actual fact that a substantial number of instances exist in
which the [l]aw cannot be applied constitutionally.” Id. at 14
(emphasis added). And in United States v. Williams, 553 U.S.
285 (2008), the Court suggested that Broadrick’s rule actually
involves two requirements, namely that the statute’s over-
breadth must be substantial (1) “in an absolute sense” and (2)
“relative to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Id. at 292
(“[W]e have vigorously enforced the requirement that a stat-
ute’s overbreadth be substantial, not only in an absolute
sense, but also relative to the statute’s plainly legitimate
sweep.”).

In sum, the party asserting the overbreadth challenge has a
difficult burden to satisfy: he must demonstrate that the stat-
ute is substantially overbroad both in an absolute sense and
relative to the legitimate sweep of the statute, id., and must
make such a showing based both on the text of the statute and
on actual fact, N.Y. State Club, 487 U.S. at 14.

Although the majority opinion does not formally apply
overbreadth analysis to the Stolen Valor Act, it does provide
a number of examples of speech potentially reached by the
Act that are not present in Alvarez’s particular case. Thus, I
will conduct my overbreadth analysis using these examples
and those provided by Alvarez. Based on the majority’s and
Alvarez’s examples, the Stolen Valor Act could arguably be
held unconstitutionally overbroad for two main reasons: (1)
the Act does not contain a scienter requirement and might,
therefore, reach inadvertent violations of the Act; and (2) the
Act could be applied to satire or imaginative expression. I
address each of these potential applications of the Act in turn.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11915
A

The majority proclaims that the Act is unconstitutional
because it “does not require a malicious violation, nor does it
contain any other requirement or element of scienter . . . .
Without a scienter requirement to limit the Act’s application,
the statute raises serious constitutional concerns . . . because
the First Amendment clearly prohibits criminally punishing
negligent speech about matters of public concern.” Maj. Op.
at 11866 (citing Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340, 347). It is not clear
from the majority’s opinion exactly what it means by a “negli-
gent” false claim of military honor, but the only plausible
instance of such negligence that I can conceive of is an
ambiguous statement that is incorrectly understood to have
claimed receipt of a military award, when in fact the person
did not actually make any such claim.16 For example, one
could imagine a person saying “I have a Medal of Honor” and
someone mistakenly interpreting him to mean that he has
been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, even
though the speaker means only that he merely possesses it,
perhaps as a family heirloom.

However, such mistaken false statements do not present a
constitutional problem for the Act. First, the Act is amenable
to a reasonable construction that precludes its application to
these kinds of statements. Second, even if the Act could be
interpreted to reach these kinds of mistaken false statements,
and even if such statements were entitled to constitutional
protection (which is not clear), this potential sweep of the Act
does not even come close to “substantial” overbreadth.
16
Another conceivable “negligent” or “mistaken” claim is one in which
the speaker mistakenly believes that he has won a military award, but I do
not consider it realistic that a person (let alone a substantial number of
people) would mistakenly believe that he has been awarded a “decoration
or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United
States.” 18 U.S.C. § 704(b).
11916 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
1

The first step in the overbreadth analysis is to determine
whether the Stolen Valor Act actually covers statements that
can be mistakenly interpreted to be false claims of military
awards. See Williams, 553 U.S. at 293 (“The first step in over-
breadth analysis is to construe the challenged statute; it is
impossible to determine whether a statute reaches too far
without first knowing what the statute covers.”). Crucially,
the Supreme Court has established that “[f]acial overbreadth
has not been invoked when a limiting construction has been
or could be placed on the challenged statute.” Broadrick, 413
U.S. at 613 (emphasis added); see also Hooper v. California,
155 U.S. 648, 657 (1895) (“[E]very reasonable construction
must be resorted to in order to save a statute from unconstitu-
tionality.”). In other words, even if the Act could possibly be
interpreted to reach some constitutionally protected speech,
the Act will not be held unconstitutionally overbroad if it is
also “ ‘readily susceptible’ ” to a construction that eliminates
such overbreadth. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1592 (quoting Reno
v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 884 (1997)).17

The Stolen Valor Act punishes a person who “falsely rep-
resents himself or herself” to have received a military award
authorized by Congress. 18 U.S.C. § 704(b) (emphasis
added). Webster’s first definition of the word “represent” is
“[t]o bring clearly before the mind: [to] cause to be known
. . . : [to] present esp. by description.” WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW
INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1926 (2002). Under this definition,
an ambiguous statement that could conceivably be misinter-
preted to claim receipt of a military award could not be pun-
ished under the Act because such a statement would not
17
Although a reasonable limiting construction saves a statute from being
held facially overbroad, the government’s promise of reasonable prosecu-
torial discretion does not. See Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1591 (“We would not
uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the Government prom-
ised to use it responsibly.”).
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11917
“bring clearly before the mind” of the listener that the speaker
has described himself as having won the award, particularly
when (as will almost always be the case) the context of the
statement makes it obvious that the speaker is not making
such a representation.

For example, Congress has made no attempt to preempt the
use of the phrase “medal of honor,” and any number of uni-
versities and high schools award some kind of a “medal of
honor.” The recipients may truthfully represent themselves as
“medal of honor” winners, but no one should fear prosecution
under the Stolen Valor Act. Congress was quite careful to
define “decoration[s] or medal[s]” as those “authorized by
Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States.” 18
U.S.C. § 704(b). And in the special case of the Medal of
Honor, Congress described it as “a Congressional Medal of
Honor”—presumably to distinguish it from other medals of
honor—and defined it as “a medal of honor awarded under
[10 U.S.C. §§ 3741, 6241, or 8741, or 14 U.S.C. § 491].” 18
U.S.C. § 704(c)(2)(A) (emphasis added). No one reading the
Act should have any question that he or she may continue to
use the term “medal of honor” to denote those medals of
honor awarded by our nation’s educational institutions. The
Stolen Valor Act reaches only those who claim to have
received the Congressional Medal of Honor, as defined in the
U.S. Code.

In sum, as long as the Act is correctly applied according to
a reasonable interpretation of the word “represents,” it will
not sweep in ambiguous statements that can merely be mis-
takenly interpreted as a false claim of a congressionally
authorized military award. Thus, because a reasonable “limit-
ing construction”— indeed, the most reasonable construction
—can be placed on the word “represent” that precludes its
application to such statements, the Act is not overbroad in this
regard. Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 613; see also Hooper, 155 U.S.
at 657.
11918 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
2

Even if mistaken false statements were theoretically subject
to punishment under the Stolen Valor Act, common sense
tells us that such punishment will be extraordinarily rare if not
nonexistent, both “in an absolute sense” and “relative to the
statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Williams, 553 U.S. at 292.
In an absolute sense, Alvarez cannot (and has not even
attempted to) demonstrate “from actual fact” that there is a
“realistic danger” or that “a substantial number of instances
exist in which” mistaken statements will be charged under the
Act. N.Y. State Club, 487 U.S. at 11, 14 (emphasis added);
Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 801. Both Alvarez and the
majority have failed to identify a single instance in which the
Act has been applied in a context other than Alvarez’s: a sim-
ple lie about receiving a military honor.

Any overbreadth of the Act is also far from substantial “rel-
ative to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep,” Williams, 553
U.S. at 292, because, “[i]n the vast majority of its applica-
tions, [the Act] raises no constitutional problems whatsoever,”
id. at 303. False claims of military valor have been increasing:
“The FBI investigated 200 stolen valor cases last year and
typically receives about 50 tips a month, triple the number
that came in before the September 2001 terrorist attacks.”
Christian Davenport, One Man’s Database Helps Uncover
Cases of Falsified Valor, THE WASHINGTON POST, May 10,
2010, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2010/05/09/AR2010050903363.html?hpid
=topnews (last visited July 6, 2010); see also Keith Rogers,
Prosecuting Fraud Cases: Military Imposters Targeted, LAS
VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, June 25, 2010, available at
http://www.lvrj.com/news/military-impostors-targeted-9714
1054.html (last visited July 6, 2010) (“The problem of [mili-
tary imposters] is fast reaching epidemic proportions.” (quota-
tion marks omitted)). And again, neither the majority nor
Alvarez has pointed to even one case involving a person who
was mistakenly interpreted to have claimed a military award.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11919
Thus, this seems to me “the paradigmatic case of a . . . statute
whose legitimate reach dwarfs its arguably impermissible
applications.” New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 773 (1982);
see also Magill v. Lynch, 560 F.2d 22, 30 (1st Cir. 1977)
(“Some sensitivity to reality is needed; an invalid application
that is far-fetched does not deserve as much weight as one
that is probable.”).

This case falls far short of the level of overbreadth that the
Supreme Court has found to be “substantial.” In Ashcroft v.
Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), for example, the
Court was faced with a federal statute that “extend[ed] the
federal prohibition against child pornography to sexually
explicit images that appear[ed] to depict minors but were pro-
duced without using any real children,” thus “proscrib[ing] a
significant universe of speech” that fell within neither the
unprotected category of obscenity under Miller nor the unpro-
tected category of child pornography under Ferber. Id. at 239-
40. The Court held that the statute was “substantially over-
broad and in violation of the First Amendment.” Id. at 258. In
so holding, the Court reasoned that “teenage sexual activity
and the sexual abuse of children[ ] have inspired countless lit-
erary works,” both ancient and contemporary, which “explore
themes within the wide sweep of the statute’s prohibitions.”
Id. at 247-48 (emphasis added).

More recently, in Stevens, the Court addressed a statute
establishing a criminal penalty for anyone who knowingly
“create[d], s[old], or possesse[d] a depiction of animal cruel-
ty,” where a “depiction of animal cruelty” was defined as one
“in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated,
tortured, wounded, or killed.” 130 S. Ct. at 1582; 18 U.S.C.
§ 48(a), (c)(1). In holding that the statute was unconstitution-
ally overbroad, the Court “read § 48 to create a criminal pro-
hibition of alarming breadth,” emphasizing that the language
of the statute would sweep in the “enormous national market
for hunting-related depictions in which a living animal is
intentionally killed,” and that “[t]hose seeking to comply with
11920 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
the law [would] face a bewildering maze of regulations from
at least 56 separate jurisdictions.” Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1588-
89 (emphases added). “The demand for hunting depictions
exceed[ed] the estimated demand” for depictions that Con-
gress could legitimately proscribe. Id. at 1589; see also, e.g.,
Bd. of Airport Comm’rs v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569,
574-75 (1987) (invalidating an ordinance that, “by prohibiting
all protected expression [at Los Angeles International Air-
port], purport[ed] to create a virtual ‘First Amendment Free
Zone’ at [the airport],” potentially covering “virtually every
individual who enter[ed] [the airport]”).

The statutes that we have held to be facially overbroad have
also been significantly broader than the Stolen Valor Act. In
Wurtz, for example, we addressed the constitutionality of
Montana’s “intimidation statute,” which punished both consti-
tutionally proscribable threats and those protected by the First
Amendment. 719 F.2d at 1439, 1441. We held that the statute
was unconstitutionally overbroad because it would sweep in
“many relatively harmless expressions,” including such com-
mon expressions as “[t]hreats of sit-ins, marches in the street,
mass picketing and other such activities.” Id. at 1442 (empha-
sis added). We concluded that the statute “applie[d] so
broadly to threats of minor infractions, to threats not reason-
ably likely to induce a belief that they will be carried out, and
to threats unrelated to any induced or threatened action, that
a great deal of protected speech [wa]s brought within the stat-
ute.” Id. (emphasis added).

These cases illustrate the kind of significant overbreadth
that satisfies the Broadrick standard. If the requirement of
substantial overbreadth is to have any meaning, it compels the
conclusion that, because there is virtually no potential for
punishment of mistaken claims of military awards, the Act is
not unconstitutionally overbroad in this regard.

B

Second, the majority argues that the Act might be applied
to satire or other kinds of imaginative expression—such as a
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11921
person who claims he has received a military decoration sar-
castically, or while playing a role in a play or movie—and
thus criminalizes even those statements that are plainly
incredible and not worthy of actual belief. See Maj. Op. at
11874. The majority states: “[W]hether it be method actors
getting into character, satirists being ironic or sarcastic, poets
using hyperbole, or authors crafting a story, creative persons
often make factual statements or assertions which, as they are
fully aware, are entirely untrue.” Id. at 11874. The majority
presents examples of “[s]atirical entertainment such as The
Onion, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.” Id. at
11874.

Although the Supreme Court has never so held, I am quite
confident that satirical or theatrical statements claiming
receipt of a military award are protected under the First
Amendment. Provocative statements by satirists are not gen-
erally thought to come within the class of unprotected “false
statements of fact” because these statements “could not rea-
sonably [be] interpreted as stating actual facts.” Hustler, 485
U.S. at 50; see also Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20.

But claims about military decorations and medals made in
an artistic context are not subject to prosecution under the
most reasonable construction of the Act. Once again, “[f]acial
overbreadth has not been invoked when a limiting construc-
tion has been or could be placed on the challenged statute.”
Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 613. Since the first definition of the
word “represent” is “[t]o bring clearly before the mind,”
WEBSTER’S at 1926, the Act can plausibly be interpreted to
preclude its application to statements that cannot “reasonably
[be] interpreted as stating actual facts,” Hustler, 485 U.S. at
50, because statements that cannot reasonably be interpreted
to be true would not “bring clearly before the mind” of the lis-
tener that the speaker is stating actual facts about himself.

If, for example, Stephen Colbert mocked a president’s
statement that he had “won” an ongoing war by proclaiming,
11922 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ
sarcastically, “Right—and I won the Congressional Medal of
Honor,” I doubt that anyone would think that Colbert had
“represented” himself as a Medal of Honor winner. Or, to take
a second example, actor Tom Hanks “received” the Medal of
Honor in the movie Forrest Gump. In fact, Lieutenant Dan
could not have made it clearer in the movie that Forrest had
received the Congressional Medal of Honor:

Lt. Dan: They gave you the Congressional Medal of
Honor.

Forrest: Now that’s Lieutenant Dan. Lieutenant Dan!

Lt. Dan: They gave you the Congressional Medal of
Honor!

Forrest: Yes sir, they sure did.

Lt. Dan: They gave you[,] an imbecile, a moron who
goes on television and makes a fool out of himself
in front of the whole damn country, the Congressio-
nal Medal of Honor.

Forrest: Yes sir.

Forrest Gump (1994), available at http://www.generation
terrorists.com/quotes/.html (last visited July 6, 2010); see also
The Karate Kid (1984) (representing that Mr. Miyagi, played
by actor Pat Morita, had received the Congressional Medal of
Honor for his heroism in World War II); The Next Karate Kid
(1994) (showing Mr. Miyagi wearing the Congressional
Medal of Honor). But we all understood the context: Tom
Hanks qua Forrest Gump received the Medal of Honor. For-
rest Gump cannot be charged with violating the Act and, so
far as I am aware, Tom Hanks qua Tom Hanks has never
“represented himself” as a Medal of Honor recipient. I do not
believe it realistic that anyone would think to accuse Colbert
or Hanks of violating the Stolen Valor Act in these contexts.
 UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ 11923
Assuming, as I must, that the Act will be applied with some
modicum of common sense, it does not reach satire or imagi-
native expression.

*****

I would conclude that the Act is reasonably susceptible to
a limiting construction that eliminates any potential over-
breadth and, even if the Act did have some degree of over-
breadth, this overbreadth is not “substantial.” I would hold
that the Act is not overbroad and therefore facially constitu-
tional.

IV

The majority’s opinion is provocative, to say the least. It
effectively overrules Gertz and its progeny and holds that
false statements of fact generally receive First Amendment
protection. It effectively overrules Garrison by holding that
even knowingly false statements of fact are protected. It holds
that a false statement of fact must produce “irreparable harm”
in order to lose First Amendment protection, thus wholly con-
fusing the concept of unprotected speech and calling into
question the Supreme Court’s obscenity jurisprudence. And it
strikes down an act of Congress on its face despite the most
important consideration to this case: no person has ever been
subjected to an unconstitutional prosecution under the Stolen
Valor Act and, under any reasonable interpretation of the Act,
it is extremely unlikely that anyone ever will be.

I respectfully dissent.