Dodrill v. Arkansas Democrat Co.

Darrell Hickman, Justice, dissenting. The majority, as it is reconstituted, has decided to take a restrictive approach to the problem presented in this case.

It now literally applies some language from United States Supreme Court decisions, notably the cases of Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 , 94 S. Ct. 2997 , 41 L. Ed 2d 789 (1974), and Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U.S. 448 , 96 S. Ct. 958 , 47 L. Ed 2d 154 (1975). It also chooses to ignore some language from those cases and not apply that language I quoted from the Gertz case which recognizes that an individual can become a public figure for a “limited range of issues.”

While the majority recognizes that a belly dancer and a football coach can be a public figure, it holds that a lawyer, whose license to hold a position of public trust is in issue, is not a public figure. Who, then, is a public figure? Apparently, aside from elected officials who are recognized by all of us as public figures, only notorious criminals or controversial figures of the highest order. It is regrettable the majority has elected to literally and restrictively apply the standard of law applicable. It is always easier to make such an application. It takes no flexibility, tolerance or ingenuity to do so. It is a haven often sought when tough decisions must be made. It is safer.

Whether Dodrill’s status as a lawyer affects the majority, I cannot say. He was not representing a client as was Gertz. He was not in litigation over a private personal matter as was Mrs. Firestone. He was, as we said in our original opinion, in the public eye because of his breach of a public trust. Would a physician, seeking return of his license after losing it for improperly authorizing drugs, become a public figure? Would a druggist become a public figure under the same circumstances? Such individuals, like Dodrill, would not be ordinary professional people minding their own business, practicing their trade, unwittingly subject to the glare of publicity. They would be individuals who had violated their public trust because of their own misdeeds and were, for good or ill, about to resume their roles as individuals having a public trust. The public in every such instance has a right to know about such a situation and that is a consideration that must be given when deciding such cases.

What right or need does the public have to know about the goings on of a belly dancer or a football coach? Less, I dare say, than about a lawyer whose license has been suspended for unethical conduct.

Finally, and most importantly, the effect of the majority’s decision is to limit the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. That is the substantive issue before us. Any limitation of the freedoms contained in that Amendment, for whatever good intentions, should be made only after careful consideration of the consequences. Any limitations, against whoever, for whatever reasons, cut across everyone’s right (with some limitations, of course) to say what he pleases, about whom he pleases — an American tradition that no other nation has enjoyed nor any government permitted. It is a freedom that ought to be preserved and it is limited in Arkansas by the majority’s decision to grant a rehearing in this case.

I respectfully dissent from this decision and would deny the petition for rehearing.

I am authorized to state that George Rose Smith and Holt, JJ., join in this dissent. I