Ian Lake will face a misdemeanor charge of criminal libel for referring to his principal as "the town drunk," naming girls at his high school as "sluts" and making derogatory remarks about the intelligence of several teachers.

In typical civil libel suits, if an individual is libeled that person can only recover monetary damages from the person who defamed them. In the rarely used criminal libel charge, the state can prosecute a person for libel and impose jail time.

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a journalist and First Amendment advocacy group, said criminal libel laws are almost never used anymore because most states find them unnecessary and even unconstitutional.

"It is a highly unusual thing to do," Dalglish said. "There is no reason to [use it] because there's a remedy -- if you libel an individual that individual can recover damages."

The last time a journalist was charged with criminal libel in Utah was in 1895, but the statute was used in 1987 to send then-Salt Lake County Attorney Ted Cannon to jail for 30 days for derogatory remarks he made about a TV journalist.

Dalglish said Utah is definitely not the norm in its use of the criminal libel statute.

"I find it curious that they would prosecute a high school student under a criminal statute," Dalglish said. "Utah is definitely in the minority. "

Lake created his Web site in response to other, similar sites made by fellow classmates that contained derogatory remarks about his friends and girlfriend. His father, David Lake, said his son spent time researching libel statutes to ensure he was within the parameters of the law.

"I'm not condoning what he did morally, or socially even, but he did look at all legal issues involved," David Lake said. "He tried to construct his Web site in such a way that even though it was trash, it was legal trash."

Ian was released from the juvenile detention center to live with a grandparent in California. The date for his arraignment has not yet been scheduled.