A Semantic Term of Interest
posted by Gerard Magliocca
In the graduate-student murder that occurred at Yale last week, media reports indicate that the police are looking at a “person of interest.” I guess this term has now officially replaced “suspect” in the lexicon. As far as I can tell, this change started with the case of Richard Jewell, the alleged Olympic bomber, who was cleared of any wrongdoing but successful sued various news outlets for calling him a suspect.
Does this distinction mean anything or is it just a feel-good change? Is someone is falsely or incorrectly labeled as a “person of interest,” are they barred from recovering because that sounds more innocuous? I doubt it, but input from people who know would be welcome.
My favorite example of semantic failure, BTW, is when governments officials in the early 1930s decided that using “panic” to describe economic downtowns was a mistake. So they came up with “depression.” Quite the pick-me-up.
UPDATE: I really should have called this post “Round Up The Usual Persons of Interest.” Oh well.
September 15, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Posted in: Criminal Law, Current Events
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Responses (3)
michael webster - September 15, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Reasonable thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×1935663
Robert Heverly - September 15, 2009 at 7:01 pm
There are a few of cases that discuss “person of interest” in relation to defamation or reputation, but two are messy and not particularly helpful (one is the “anthrax doctor” case, which was primarily a convoluted federal claims case – Hatfill v. Ashcroft, 404 F.Supp.2d 104 (D.D.C. 2005) – the other involved a claim of privilege that was upheld – Kelley v. Tanoos, 865 N.E.2d 593 (Ind. 2007)). One case that does seem to address the question, though without much discussion, is Dicus v. State of Washington Dept. of Natural Resources (unpublished; 100 Wash.App. 1063, 2000 WL 669654):
“Mr. Dicus failed to establish a prima facie case of defamation. First, he was unable to produce specific, material facts that any of the alleged defamatory statements were false. Admittedly, Mr. Dicus presented declarations and affidavits of persons to whom Mr. Wruble allegedly made statements regarding Mr. Dicus’s status as a person of interest in the arson investigations. However, statements that communicate ideas or opinions cannot support a defamation claim, because false ideas are not actionable. [citation omitted]. The court found and the record supports that Mr. Dicus was, at one time, being investigated as an arson suspect.”
Not much help, really; I’m not sure why “person of interest” conveys an idea or opinion (or how that analysis would differ from “suspect”), but if we ignore that, it seems like the court is saying that if the person was actually a “person of interest” then that person can be identified as a “person of interest” and such identification will not be defamatory.
Interesting (sorry, I couldn’t resist).
Bruce Boyden - September 16, 2009 at 12:39 pm
It’s not too early to speculate about what the *next* term will be, after “person of interest” acquires secondary meaning. I nominate: “Person-we’re-interested-in-talking-to, just-curious-really, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary, carry-on.”
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