Ever since Fox News was hit with a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit over reports falsely accusing a voting-machine company of rigging the 2020 presidential election, the conservative network has invoked the broad protections of the First Amendment in its defense.

But the constitutional right to free speech doesn’t automatically protect the spreading of false facts, especially bogus allegations of criminal conduct, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis said Friday in a ruling denying a bid by Fox News to avoid a trial in the suit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc.

“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote, using capital letters as well as bold and italic fonts for emphasis.

The Fox reports falsely accused Dominion of rigging its software to flip votes away from Donald Trump and paying government officials to use its machines — on top of claiming it was founded in Venezuela “to rig elections for dictator Hugo Chavez,” Davis said. Those claims were defamatory because they were false and struck at the integrity of Dominion’s business, he said.

“The statements also seem to charge Dominion with the serious crime of election fraud,” the judge said. “Accusations of criminal activity, even in the form of opinion, are not constitutionally protected.”

The ruling wasn’t a total win for Dominion, which asked the judge to grant the company a...

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