The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1905-11-29
UPHOLDS RIGHT OF NEWSPAPER
PUBLIC OFFICIAL,
Superior Judge Decides Libel Suit
Brought Against Seattle Newspa-
per in Favor of Defendant

At Seattle recently Judge Hatch
rendered a decision in the libel suit in
stltuted against the st-Intelligen-
Ger by ex-Jailer Mcleod, in favor of
the newspaper In the decision the
court held that a newspaper mas the
, right to criticize the act of public Of
fetal. The decision was as follows:
Il have listened to the arguments
upon the legal question involved in this
case with a good deal of pleasure, be-
cause it Is one of those questions that
always interest a court where the
court is called upon to some extent to
be a pioneer in the announcing Of the
law on a new proposition.
Our supreme court has never gone
into this Identical proposition, the
privilege of the individual or a news
paper to criticise a public official. 1
agree with counsel that newspaper
has no more privilege upon this sub
ject than any individual; it certainly
has no less.
What Was Alleged.
"The alleged libelous articles in this
then a jailer of King county, at one
time perm tied a prisoner to escape
from him; at another time it alleges
that he permitted a prisoner to be
taken out Of Jail without any author
ity. the prisoner escaping, and alleges
substantially, the same thing as to an
other criminal, and also that he car
ried on the books Of the Jail a charge
against the county for the board Of
prisoner that he had discharged that
was not boarding in the Jail
THE entire tone of the article is
consistent with the theory that it was
a criticism of the competency rather
than the honesty of the plaintiff. 1
do not agree with the plaintiff that the
allegations of the complaint, or rather
with the theory of Judge Bell, plain
tiff's attorney, that there is any charge
in this case of anything more than
incompetency.
Nov the only way the plaintiff can
recover in this case is because of the
alleged libelous articles being of that
nature that they are termed in law Ii
belous per Sc. 1t has long been the rule
Of the common law that to charge a
man with a felony or with a crime
is of itself libelous per Sc, and that the
law will assume that if an individual
or a newspaper publishes of a person
that he is a criminal and that is false
that it is malicious, that from the very
is upon the theory that the common
law mas arrived at the conclusion that
statements-o ia man may be libelous
per Sc, and that no proof of actual
that the mere publication of the false
statements-of a man may be libelous
that nature are implicitly malicious
and that the only thing that it is neces-
sary to do is to prove the publication
of the article and if then it is as a
matter of law per Sc libelous the law
implies malice and it is not necessary
to prove it.
No Proof in the Evidence.
Now, in this case. there is no proof
in the evidence of any express malice
and while Judge Bell is of the opinion
and says he will argue to the jury
that the acknowledgement because
another paper got the article published
first about the Jail break. that they
published this article as a matter of
spitework, because of their having
been "scooped" by the other paper, I
can't see any proof upon which to
found any sucn an argument 1t would
be a mere argument, nothing else.
There is no proof in this case Of actual
damage flowing from this publication,
and as 1 have said before, it would not
be per Sc libelous to an individual, an