AUSTIN, Texas -- A news weekly's fictional article about a 6-year-old girl getting arrested over a book report was recognizable as satire and did not libel two officials involved in a similar real-life case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Under the 8-0 decision, Denton County Court-at-law Judge Darlene Whitten and District Attorney Bruce Isaacks will get nothing in their lawsuit against the Dallas Observer.
The weekly's 1999 article, headlined "Stop the Madness," parodied the judge's decision weeks earlier to jail a 13-year-old student for reading a graphic Halloween story in class. The fictional article was about a girl jailed for a school report on the Maurice Sendak picture book "Where the Wild Things Are."
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"Any implication of violence in a school situation, even if it was just contained in a first-grader's book report, is reason enough for panic and overreaction," the newspaper had Whitten saying. "It's time for you to grow up, young lady, and it's time for us to stop treating kids like children."
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