Newspapers Need Not Report Arresting Development
By Amy E. Feldman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Do you have a right to be forgotten? Legally, not by your miserable kids on your birthday.
Lorraine Martin was arrested in Connecticut in 2010 and charged with drug offenses. The charges were dropped, and the records related to the arrest were, pursuant to Connecticut law, erased.
The law is very specific. A person whose record was erased is deemed never to have been arrested, and can swear under oath that she was never arrested. Which is awesome for her. Except that the local newspaper reported on the arrest, but never followed up to say that the charges were dropped. So she sued the newspaper, claiming that the article became false and defamatory.
In this day and age when Google can never really let bygones be bygones, is she right? Does a newspaper have a duty to correct an article that leaves out a crucial fact, namely that the charges were dropped?
The Second Circuit Court of appeals said no.
Like courts in Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey which have decided the same way, the court found that while Ms. Martin's criminal record has been wiped clean, the newspaper has no legal duty to correct the record or update the story.