Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Judgment of the Court of Appeal, London
• 29 Oct 1987: Bare-Faced Messiah is published.
• 1 Nov 1987: The Sunday Times begins serialising extracts from the book over three weekends. A Bristolbased
private detective in the pay of the Church is exposed trying to smear Miller and link him to the CIA, and
retaliates by attacking the reporter with a .357 pistol.
Cult's private detective fires at journalists - The Times, xx Nov 1987
• 2 Dec 1987: Canadian court refuses to block publication in Canada: 'The publisher should not be tarnished
with the avowed determination of the Church to "use" the Courts or harass one in Court.'
Order of the Federal Court of Canada
• Spring 1988: 12,000 copies of the U.S. Edition of Bare-Faced Messiah are printed. The publisher has
amended the manuscript in a futile attempt to avoid threatened lawsuits.
The Amended U.S. Edition
• 4 May 1988: Scientology sues the U.S. publisher in New York, alleging 211 instances of copyright
infringement, and asks for a temporary restraining order to block publication. The TRO is denied on a technicality
(laches). However, a second printing of 10,000 copies is delayed, and 44 quotes are found to be slightly infringing
(37 from the teenaged Hubbard's 1927 "Asia Diaries").
Summary of New Era v. Holt - by David R. Tucker
Opinion and Order of the U.S. District Court
• 19 Apr 1989: The U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the ruling of the lower court, but on narrow technical
grounds. The opinion casts "in concrete" a doctrine that gives unpublished writings nearly total protection from fair
use quotation.
'Salinger' Haunts Ruling on Hubbard Biography - Publishers Weekly, 12 May 1989
Opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals
In 1988, Miller wrote a rueful article for The Listener magazine on the bizarre experiences which he had had in writing
Bare-Faced Messiah. The nadir was probably the attempt by persons unknown to frame him for an axe murder in
South London. Things could only get better after that...
See You In Court - Punch, 19 February 1988