New Hampshire lawmakers did not run afoul of the Constitution in making it a crime to ridicule people with false statements, the First Circuit held Tuesday, but a concurring judge said it's time for the Supreme Court to overrule its precedent in this area.

"The case could be a vehicle for the Supreme Court to revisit the doctrine of criminal defamation for the first time in more than 50 years," said Jeffrey Hunt, a First Amendment expert at Parr Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah.

It was in 1964 that the Supreme Court held defamation can be a crime while looking at the prosecution of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison for verbally attacking a number of judges. Garrison was famously portrayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.