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Comment by jcranmer | Hacker News Reader

Sure, there's actually a chasm of difference between a protective order and a full criminal conviction. That's enough to meet the falsehood requirement of defamation.

However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask.

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> However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask

If I was a defendant in such a thing, I'd point to numerous cases where police departments have claimed, and courts have agreed, that police are not expected to be experts on the law.

"If law enforcement officers can be held by the court to not have to have a nuanced understanding of the law, how could I possibly?"

A comparison is not relevant. The threshold is whether or not the person making the claim knew, independent of anything anyone else in the world does or doesn't know, and the burden is on the other side to prove that they did.

That's a little reductive. If that were so, there'd barely be a need for defense in our criminal system, just "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you've heard the prosecution's case - do you believe they've established guilt?". Instead, regardless of the ostensible burden, statements like this by the defense work to erode any claims of "beyond reasonable doubt".

You're conflating the civil and criminal judicial systems when the reality is they're quite separate, and defamation has its own special corner of the civil realm where plaintiffs have a very steep hill to climb.

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