Talk:United States v. Alvarez

Aftermath

The section should only have to do with the aftermath of the decision. It is irrelevant whether the name of the respondent redirects here. The article is about the Supreme Court decision, not him; that's an important distinction. Lord Roem (talk) 03:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the DA was prosecuting a case against Alvarez well before SCOTUS handed down the decision. Clarification is needed as to what he was initially charged with and by whom (US or State of California). Followup needs to parse out the Stolen Valor charges vice other charges.--S. Rich (talk) 05:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:United States v. Alvarez/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ed! (talk · contribs) 00:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead does not adequately summarize the contents of the article. Include some of the background of the case, a quick line on the opinions, and some of the impact.

Background

• Where was the case introduced? What decision did that court take before this moved to the Ninth Circuit Court?
• Where was Alvarez from? Where is the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Board?
• When did the court grant Certotiari?

Supreme Court's decision

• What was the court's vote?
• Was Breyer's opinion a concurring opinion or some other form?

Subsequent developments

• Having followed this story on my own, I know there is a great deal of opinion and analysis by reliable sources. Look for opinions from publications like Stars and Stripes among others, as well as interviews from legal experts and opinions from military experts. They'll need to be included.
• There has also been a substantial amount of press coverage about subsequent attempts to introduce similar legislation with more refined wording recently. I added a link to this article about valor.defense.gov, which was created in response to the move being struck down.

General

• The article needs some serious copy editing. I'd suggest bringing a copy editor in to review it.
• I have added several citation needed tags in places where sourcing is essential. I know there is a lot of press coverage surrounding this event -- the sources do exist.
• Typically on Supreme Court decision articles there is some trouble finding images, and so the answer is to include images of the justices who wrote the majority and dissenting opinions. You'll need to do this here to satisfy the illustration requirement.
• Dab link tool shows no problems. However, duplicate link tool returns one result: Anthony Kennedy
• One of the references is returning a 404 error and needs to be fixed or replaced.

I'll be honest: This article needs a huge amount of work to get to GA standard. I've noted some of the major problems with content, sourcing and style and await your response. —Ed!^(talk) 00:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll be honest with you as well. I saw the giant backlog in the GAN#Law section and figured I could work on this over the course of the next few days. Could we agree on a short delay before further review? I think I can bring this up considerably by Wednesday/Thursday. Cheers, Lord Roem (talk) 00:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That's fine. Ping me when you've made some of the improvements. —Ed!^(talk) 01:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The article is coming along nicely. I'm seeing a lot more sourcing and a more concise article. There is still drastic need for improvement in the "subsequent developments" section, but you seem to be on the right track. —Ed!^(talk) 13:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your fixes. There are just two more things I think are essential for passing the review. First and foremost, you need to discuss the new legislation that has appeared in the time since this act was shot down. I believe John McCain has spearheaded an effort to narrow the language per the court's instruction. Second, you should expand the lead to update it with the new information and summarize the whole article. Here are some links to the McCain legislation: [1] [2] —Ed!^(talk) 02:38, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done -- Lord Roem (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Great work. Passing the article for GA. —Ed!^(talk) 13:22, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

"Judge Smith" dissent from denial of en banc rehearing confusion

A lot of problems with this passage about the Ninth Circuit's denial of rehearing en banc:

A rehearing en banc by the Ninth Circuit was denied over the dissent of seven judges. Judge Smith, one of the dissenters, argued that the panel "incorrectly rested its laurels on Supreme Court rulings in defamation cases that false facts did not receive First Amendment protections." Smith argued that this was not a defamation case, because even if the act was intended to prevent injury to military personnel, "the right against defamation belongs to natural persons, not to governmental institutions or symbols."

References

Given the context here, there are two Ninth circuit cases:

• U.S. v. Alvarez, 617 F.3d 1198 (9th Cir. 2010). (the original 2010 three-judge panel appeal)

• U.S. v. Alvarez, 638 F.3d 666 (9th Cir. 2011). (the 2011 order, with concurring and dissenting opinions, denying rehearing en banc)

So here are all my points of confusion:

• "Judge Smith" is not fully identified. His name should be given in full and wikilinked. (This is actually the I-thought-would-be-simple task I started out on, which led me down this rabbit-hole.)
• But there were two Judges Smith on the Ninth Circuit at the time: Milan Smith and N. Randy Smith; and both were on this case.
• Neither of the Judges Smith wrote a dissenting opinion in the denial:
  • Milan Smith is the judge in the original 2010 three-judge panel who wrote the opinion sought to be vacated. Unsurprisingly, he did not dissent from the decision not to overturn his own decision. In fact, he authored a concurrence in the 2011 rehearing decision that it should not be overturned. ("M. SMITH, Circuit Judge, with whom KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, joins, concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc".)
  • N. Randy Smith was among the judges who dissented from denial; but there is no dissenting opinion by him in the published case. He joined the dissent authored by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain ("O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge, joined by GOULD, BYBEE, CALLAHAN, BEA, IKUTA, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc".)
• The quote attributed to "Judge Smith" (presumably intended to mean N. Randy Smith, who did at least dissent, even if he didn't write an opinion) is "incorrectly rested its laurels on Supreme Court rulings in defamation cases that false facts did not receive First Amendment protections". But this text does not appear anywhere in the published en banc denial opinions (or for that matter, as far as I can find, anywhere apart from this Wikipedia article and mirrors of it).
• The reference for that quote from a dissent is simply "638 F. 3d 666, 669 (2011)". But that page 669 isn't even in the dissent... It's in Milan Smith's concurrence (and as noted above, the quote doesn't appear there; unsurprising since that opinion is by Milan Smith, and (if true) the quote criticizes Milan Smith's 2010 opinion).
• Then the paragraph goes on, seeming to continue this same Judge Smith's comments with the quote "the right against defamation belongs to natural persons, not to governmental institutions or symbols." But look at the cite here: it's to "617 F. 3d at 1205". That is the original 2010 decision, and in fact is the opinion by Milan Smith; and not the dissent that the article says it is.

I'm tagging this for clarification for now. Perhaps the best thing is to just cut the whole bit, but maybe someone can shed some light on the mysterious missing quote. TJRC (talk) 03:55, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I've cut the paragraph. TJRC (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2023 (UTC)