Reasonable to who?
It seems they were able to parse out all of the claims and readily dismissed the vast majority of the ridiculous stuff that the cops were claiming, while acknowledging that the assertion that the officer was a "wife abuser" could veer into defamation was plausible and merits a trial (where both sides are perfectly entitled to build their case). Seems reasonable!
But mostly, two armed men terrorized a 19 year old and are now attempting to sue this 19 year old for the meany-mean things that 19 year old said while being terrorized. Is that reasonable, really, to anyone?
If someone is robbing your house and you say they probably beat their wife, should the robber be allowed to sue you? Other than a badge, what's the difference between these two scenarios?
The law should work the same for and against everyone, regardless of how much you like them.
Juries and Judges are the real wildcard. How would they interpret this?
Studies have shown that 40% of cops beat their wives, and other research suggests that DV doesn't get reported at all roughly half of the time, so the number of police officers beating their wives is going to be much greater than 40%. For any random police officer you could claim they beat their wives and be right more often than not. It's not an entirely unfair assumption to start with. This officer's ex had a protective order against him granted by the district court which was then extended on at least three occasions. It might not be proof of abuse, but it's pretty strong evidence.
My guess is that this kid found information about the protective order and just got his terminology wrong, assuming that there was a conviction when there wasn't one. It's statistically likely that he wasn't wrong and abuse was taking place. Seems like the courts could give some slack to the teenager whose rights were violated by a corrupt cop who likely abused his ex even if there was never a conviction.
That is the same as going around calling every man who looks creepy a pedo. You might be right once in a while, but that doesn’t entitle you to smear people without facts.
He was clearly wrong about the conviction, there's a pretty good chance he wasn't wrong about the abuse. Maybe that's a good enough standard of evidence to demand from the youtube video of a justifiably pissed off 19 year old? It'd be best if he uploaded a correction, or even a corrected re-upload of his video, but I think it's fair to say that this kid has been screwed over by the legal system enough already. He should probably get a pass for getting the fact about the conviction wrong and not maintaining the highest levels of journalistic integrity in the youtube video documenting the violation of his rights.
It doesn’t. One is criminal, the other civil. Totally different standards.
That isn’t how free speech works.
Also, they weren’t generic insults. They were specific.
How about if publicly I claim: “ofslidingfeet was fired for embezzling money”? Is that covered under free speech?