Copeland v. State

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING BY STATE.

MARTIN, Judge.

It is vigorously insisted by the state on motion, for rehearing that the offense of slander cannot be committed by the use of defamatory language in writing. “Slander is the general and original word for all kinds of defamation and at an early day in the history of the common law the term applied to both oral and written defamations of character.” 36 C. J. 1145. Until the enactment of our present slander statute, the act therein defined as a crime was not punishable unless it fell within the terms of the then existing libel law. Plainly the class…