Court Opinion

ID: 9675842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:07:12.989587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:40.157398
License: Public Domain

WOODARD, Justice, concurring.
I concur with Chief Justice Osborn. It is a matter of common knowledge that drug dealers generally have a propensity for violence. They must operate their lucrative and cash laden businesses outside the law. They do not have the law’s protection from robbery, thefts and other crimes or from invasive acts of competitors. They have no legal recourse for unpaid debts. They must continually live with the potential for arrest from both honest and corrupt officials and with the possibility of assassination by other gangsters. From the alcohol gangsters of the Volstead Act era to the present day drug gangsters, the news reports are replete with acts of violence brought about to settle differences. This is true in Mexico, the United States and in other countries. Focusing public attention upon gangster activities increases the pressure of control by both honest and corrupt government. With due respect to my dissenting colleague, Justice Koehler, I believe that the danger of printing derogatory articles about a person conducting a business commonly associated with unlawful violence differs remarkably from any danger of printing derogatory articles about a politician or judge. I believe that an ordinary prudent reporter would want to know if the object of his assignment was a known gangster. I further believe that an ordinary prudent editor would want his reporter to know that the reporter was dealing with a known gangster. An extraordinary danger existed, and there was a duty to warn.