Stolen Valor Act Case Study

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On July 23,2007 Xaiver Alvarez a member of the Three Valleys Water District of Directors was asked to speak at one of the headquarter meetings. While giving his speech he 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.” this made headlines around the world. His statement was soon recognized as being false, he had never served in the United States Armed Forces at any time. Months later, on September 26, 2007 he was charged in the Central District of California with two counts of false representations and was sentenced to three years of probation. This decision was made based on The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 in which he broke after making …show more content…
law addressing the unauthorized wear, manufacture, sale of any military decorations and medals, or any false claims. Although, he does make a false statement toward the military, he is still protected under the First Amendment. The problem comes in with the idea that this law does not limit a person’s protective speech in any way. The law is not specific enough to stand against this amendment, there for people could still criticize medal recipients, or military policy. Meaning from a person’s point of view they can make false claims about receiving an award from the military without any trouble. According to Street Law Inc.2012, “The justices in the plurality said that’s protecting the integrity of the military honor system was indeed a compelling interest of the government. However, this law was not necessary to protect that interest was not written specially enough, and could have accomplished its goals through other means.” The first amendment is broad enough to cover intentional falsehood so long as no one is being defrauded and the claimant is not under oath before a court of
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