Court Opinion

ID: 9586562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:12:52.14312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:43.037017
License: Public Domain

*292Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with the majority opinion, I add the following comments.
“The privilege of poisoning one’s enemy is not a thing of value,” Foster v. State, 8 Ga. App. 119, 123 (68 SE 739) (1910), but it may be a constitutional right, even where the poisoning is verbal, vociferous, and vexatious, and the victim is a public figure. However, notwithstanding the liberties afforded in the course of political zeal and public debate about public figures, poison falsely served with actual malice is still actionable. A factual issue exists over the determinative question of actual malice in the instant case.
“Malice in the constitutional sense is distinguished from the common law sense of ill will, hatred, or ‘charges calculated to injure’ . . . Constitutional malice does not involve the motives of the speaker or publisher, though they may be wrong, but rather it is his awareness of actual or probable falsity, or his reckless disregard for their falsity.” Williams v. Trust Co. of Ga., 140 Ga. App. 49, 55-56 (230 SE2d 45) (1976). (Emphasis supplied.) Our Georgia rule has been amended or modified to the extent that now a mini, modicum, or moderate amount of evidence concerning motive, which specifically bears a relationship to the actual malice inquiry, may be considered. Harte-Hanks Communications v. Connaughton,_U. S._(109 SC 2678, 105 LE2d 562) (57 LW 4846) (1989). In the instant case, it was uncontroverted that Perdue intended to injure Barber’s reputation; it is all apparent from his acts of affirmative action in seeking assistance of the attorney general in formulating part of the letter, and having the governor’s press secretary edit the letter, that he was deleterious, dedicated, and deliberate in designing his attack on Barber’s integrity, impartiality, image, and independence. The head of the special prosecution division stated in his deposition (albeit 16 months after the letter was published) that it would be dangerous to send out this type letter. He explained his use of the word “dangerous” as meaning there was a potential for a lawsuit.
That desire, deliberation, and design to injure, alone, would not suffice to prove libel or slander of a public figure. However, I believe that, considering facts such as the conspicuous juxtaposition of Per-due’s (a) accusation of Barber accepting a bribe with (b) the factually misleading statement that “[t]he trucking company official who gave Mac Barber the money was convicted and fined a total of $12,000.00,” along with (c) Perdue’s statement to Barber regarding Barber’s intention to run for re-election to the Public Service Commission, “We could sure use that seat,” combined with admissions as to his letter being intended to brand Barber as a “crook” and in the “same category as Sam Caldwell,” see Jordan v. Hancock, 91 Ga. App. 467 (86 SE2d 11) (1955) (liar, crook, thief, and cheat); Stone v. McMichen, *293186 Ga. App. 510 (367 SE2d 839) (1988) (crook and thief), Perdue misplaced his calculations and confidence in his cleverness and crossed over the line into constitutional malice. Implicit in the juxtaposition noted above is the representation that the trucking official was convicted of bribing Barber, which Perdue knew to be false or would have known absent a reckless disregard for the truth.
The dissent relies on Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U. S. 46, 53 (108 SC 876, 99 LE2d 41) (1988). Language used in this cited case suggested that Falwell is a public figure, and his first sexual experience was incest with his mother in an outhouse. These expressions, made in a sexual context, are about on par, or possibly stronger and more unsavory, than the letter sent out to some 350 city and county officials, done in a political context, in the instant case. The distinction, difference, and distinguishing discernment in the two being, the former made in a magazine, was labeled a “parody” and was facetious, felicitous, fanciful, and fictional, while the latter letter is sent out as, and in, a staunchly serious sophisticated scenario. While acknowledging that debate on public issues about public figures should not be curtailed or inhibited, the defense by a private citizen or an elected public official, be he legislator, judge, governor, or other public servant, who is called a “crook,” or is labeled guilty of violating our criminal code or of committing a crime, should likewise not be curtailed, chilled, censored, or shortchanged in seeking a jury trial in his challenge in the courts of our state to arrive at truth in the matter where factual matters are in dispute as to actual malice. In this situation, “[i]t would be monstrous to suppose that the arm of the Judiciary of Georgia was too short, or too weak, to reach and relieve. . . .” Rogers v. Atkinson, 1 Ga. 12, 25 (1846). Admittedly, this is a case which depends in large part on how one views the circumstances, but there are enough circumstances here for the jury to be doing the viewing regarding the correct viewpoint or point of view under existing law.