Last week, government lawyers in California asked the full 9th Circuit to reconsider the ruling, calling it a decision of "exceptional importance." Prosecutors noted that the three-judge panel was split 2-1 with sharply differing views, and that the law is also under challenge in Colorado.
The 9th Circuit hasn't said whether it will take a second look.
In Colorado, prosecutors announced last week they would ask the 10th Circuit to overturn the district court decision. That appeal is expected to be filed in early November.
The Stolen Valor Act, which breezed through Congress in 2006, revised and toughened an existing statute that forbade anyone to wear a military medal that was not earned.
The California and Colorado cases were among the early prosecutions under the newly strengthened law.
Xavier Alvarez, a local water board official from Pomona, Calif., was indicted in 2007 after saying at a public forum that he was a retired Marine who received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration. Alvarez apparently never served in the military.
Alvarez pleaded guilty on condition that he be allowed to appeal on First Amendment grounds. The 9th Circuit ruled in his favor in August.
His attorney, Jonathan Libby, said Friday he believes both the full 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court would also find the law unconstitutional
Rick Glen Strandlof, who founded a veterans group in Colorado Springs, was arrested in 2009 after claiming he was an ex-Marine who was wounded in Iraq and had received the Purple Heart and. The Marine Corps said it had no record that Strandlof ever served.
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