NY Const, art I, § 8 · Article I. Bill of Rights
Freedom of speech and press; criminal prosecutions for libel
Text — Law content up to date as of June 5, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 8. Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. In all criminal prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury; and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous is true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of June 5, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/CNSA1S8
- Text hash
- sha256 8946ad7b6898dfc6cb70cc0a8607a2cee661a02d412a415c365777c4cb4735a4
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
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