Court Opinion

ID: 9586685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:14:04.908013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.556985
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Judge,
concurring specialy. While I agree with everything that is said in the majority opinion of my colleagues with reference to the first two editorials as published by the defendant in this case, I cannot agree with the conclusion and holding in the majority opinion with reference to the third editorial under consideration in this case. Code § 26-4201 provides: “Any two or more persons who shall conspire or agree to defraud, cheat, or illegally obtain from the State, or any county thereof, or from any public officer of this State, or any county *66thereof, or any person exercising the duties of any such office, any property belonging to the State or county, or under the control or possession of said officers as such, shall be punished by imprisonment and labor in the penitentiary for not less than two nor more than 10 years.” The third editorial, exhibit “C”, not only imputes to the plaintiff a lack of proper conduct on his part in that he was actuated by corrupt, selfish, personal political motives, but more than that, the language used charging him with inducing and participating with State officials in a “flagrant waste of $120,000” of public funds, constituted and amounted under section 26-4201, supra, to charging him with the commission of a crime.
Although it might be argued that the acts and doings the editorial charges the plaintiff with having committed, and which form the basis for this law suit might not be sufficient to support an indictment, by a grand jury under § 26-4201, supra, nevertheless the law of libel does not contemplate nor require the same technical ingredients that are necessary for an indictment, by a grand jury, to be present in a newspaper article in order for same to be libelous per se, where, as in this case, the language employed in the editorial charges the plaintiff with having violated a criminal statute. It is libel per se to charge a person with a crime. Atlanta Journal Co. v. Doyal, 82 Ga. App. 321 (60 S. E. 2d 802); Davis v. Macon Telegraph Publishing Co., 93 Ga. App. 633 (92 S. E. 2d 619); Yelle v. Cowles, 46 Wash. 2d 105 (278 P. 2d 671, 53 A. L. R. 2d 1).
Accordingly, I am of the opinion that the third editorial published by the defendant was libelous per se.