In almost every situation, slander is not a criminal offense. It’s a civil wrong, meaning the person harmed sues for money damages rather than the government bringing charges. About two dozen states still have criminal defamation statutes on their books, but prosecutions are rare, several of those laws have been struck down on First Amendment grounds, and there is no federal criminal defamation law at all. If someone has spread false spoken statements about you, your realistic path is a civil lawsuit, not a call to the police.
Why Slander Is a Civil Matter
Slander is the spoken form of defamation. Libel is the written or published form. Both sit inside defamation law, which the legal system treats as a civil tort: the injured person is the one who files the case, the remedy is compensation, and the government is not a party. The theory is that when someone lies about you and it costs you something, the right fix is making you financially whole, not jailing the speaker.
Courts balance reputation against free speech. The civil system lets individuals seek redress for reputational harm without handing the government direct power to punish speech. That balance is why slander claims nearly always run through civil court even when the lie is deliberate and damaging.
The Criminal Defamation Exception
Roughly two dozen states still have criminal defamation statutes in their criminal codes. That number overstates the real picture. Several of those statutes have been declared unconstitutional by state or federal courts. Others haven’t been enforced in decades. But the laws haven’t been formally repealed in every state, and in a small number of states, prosecutors have brought charges in recent years, often involving online speech or criticism of public officials.
Any prosecution faces heavy First Amendment constraints. In Garrison v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that a criminal defamation statute must incorporate the “actual malice” standard — the speaker had to know the statement was false or act with reckless disregard for the truth. In Ashton v. Kentucky, the Court struck down a vaguely worded criminal libel definition as unconstitutionally broad.1Cornell Law School. Defamation – Amdt1.7.5.7 Penalties in the states that still enforce these statutes range from modest fines to possible jail time, but the trend over the last several decades has been toward repeal and nonenforcement.
The bottom line: unless you live in one of the handful of states where criminal defamation is still occasionally charged, and unless the facts fit a statute that would survive a constitutional challenge, you should not expect a slander complaint to result in criminal prosecution.
Crimes That Involve False Statements but Aren’t Slander
People often assume slander must be criminal because other lies about them clearly are. The distinction is that the following crimes punish what the false statement does beyond harming reputation. If your situation fits one of these, the criminal justice system may actually be the right door.
False Police Reports
Falsely accusing someone of a crime to law enforcement can lead to criminal charges in most states, typically as a misdemeanor. The harm here isn’t just reputational. A false report wastes law enforcement resources and can lead to the wrongful arrest or prosecution of an innocent person. Penalties vary by state but commonly include fines and potential jail time.
Perjury
Lying under oath in a court proceeding or sworn declaration is a federal crime carrying up to five years in prison.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1621 – Perjury Generally The false statement must be material to the proceeding. Perjury targets obstruction of the justice system, though it can overlap with slander when a witness lies about another person on the stand. Even then, the privilege rules for judicial proceedings generally block a civil defamation claim based on in-court testimony.
Extortion and Blackmail
Using threats to expose someone’s secrets or accuse them of a crime in order to extract money is a federal offense. Transmitting a threat to injure someone’s reputation across state lines with intent to extort carries up to two years in prison.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 875 – Interstate Communications Federal blackmail, where someone demands payment in exchange for not reporting a legal violation, carries up to one year.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC Chapter 41 – Extortion and Threats State statutes can carry significantly longer sentences. The crime isn’t the damaging statement by itself; it’s using the statement as leverage to take someone’s money.
Fraud
Fraud is intentional misrepresentation for financial gain. It punishes deception used to take someone’s money, not lies that ruin a reputation. The overlap with slander is slim.
What a Civil Slander Case Requires
If criminal charges aren’t available, a civil suit is the real option. To win, you have to prove four elements.
First, the defendant made a false statement of fact. Opinions, loose hyperbole, and figurative language generally don’t qualify; a reasonable person has to understand the statement as asserting something provably true or false. Second, the statement was communicated to at least one other person who understood it. An insult shouted only at you with no one else around isn’t slander. Third, the defendant was at fault. Private individuals have to prove negligence — that the speaker failed to take reasonable care to check the truth. Public figures face the higher “actual malice” standard the Supreme Court set in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.5Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Defamation – Wex – US Law Fourth, you have to show actual harm.
That last element is where many slander cases get difficult. Spoken statements don’t leave the kind of paper trail that libel does, and quantifying what a single conversation cost you can be hard. The law carves out an exception for the most serious categories.
Slander Per Se
Some false statements are considered so inherently damaging that harm is presumed, and you don’t have to prove specific financial losses to recover. Four traditional categories fall under slander per se:
- Accusations of criminal conduct
- Statements attacking your competence or honesty in your trade, business, or profession
- Allegations of a loathsome disease, historically sexually transmitted infections or similar conditions
- Accusations of sexual misconduct or unchastity
If the statement fits one of these, you can pursue general damages for reputational harm, emotional distress, and humiliation without first putting a dollar figure on your losses.
Defenses the Other Side Will Raise
Truth is a complete defense. The statement doesn’t have to be accurate in every detail, only substantially true.5Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Defamation – Wex – US Law Many slander claims end here.
Pure opinion is protected. Context matters: a heated argument, a product review, or obvious exaggeration all push a statement toward opinion rather than fact.
Privilege can block the claim entirely. Absolute privilege protects statements made by judges, attorneys, parties, and witnesses during judicial proceedings, as well as legislators acting in their official capacity, even when the statements are false and malicious.6Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Absolute Privilege – Wex – US Law Qualified privilege is narrower and covers things like an employer’s good-faith reference about a former employee; it disappears if the speaker knew the statement was false or acted with malice.
Deadlines and Retraction Demands
Slander claims have short statutes of limitations. Most states give you one to three years from the date the statement was made, and some set a shorter window for slander than for libel. Missing the deadline ends the case no matter how strong it was. Narrow exceptions can pause the clock, such as when the plaintiff is a minor or incapacitated, or when the statement couldn’t reasonably have been discovered, but those are not something to rely on.
About 33 states have retraction statutes that affect defamation lawsuits. In some, a written demand for correction is required before you can file. Even where it isn’t mandatory, a retraction demand shapes the case: if the defendant promptly and publicly retracts, many states limit or eliminate punitive damages and allow the retraction to reduce overall damages. Sending one early and documenting it carefully protects your position whether you end up filing suit or not.