Yesterday the Appeals Court issued a decision that was probably correct, but disappointing.  The gist of it is that we have a law in Mass that if you get sued for “public participation,” you can file a motion to dismiss and make the big bully pay your legal fees.  The idea is that people with deep pockets (like Wal*Mart) shouldn’t be able to use the legal system to intimidate their political opponents (like local people who oppose building a new Wal*Mart).  These suits are called SLAPP suits, for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.  The idea of the SLAPP suit isn’t necessarily to win–it’s to distract your detractors, divert their resources from activism to litigation, and make them shut up.
After the jump, read how one SLAPP plaintiff carved out a loophole

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Posted by AndyCowan on February 24th, 2010 :: Filed under In the News, Law for the Layman
Tags :: old fashioned beatdown, SLAPP, Tactics and Trial Strategies, the wealthy and their wealthy lawyers, things that are wrong

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Newspapers should have a bigger consciousness of the effect that they have on the court of public opinion.  Journalism students and the journalistic community should put a higher standard on objectivity.  Yes, objectivity is impossible.  But that doesn’t mean we should just throw up our hands and forget that pursuit.

Failure to do this leads to a breakdown in the system.

Take for example the following story.  Just last week Andrew Klyman, head of the CPCS Springfield Superior Court office, won a rape trial in Hampden Superior.  Guy was charged with five counts of rape, and some other stuff besides (kidnapping etc.)  I was unable to see any of the case because I was in Holyoke court all last week, so my knowledge of the case is pretty limited to what I’ve read on Masslive.  Which isn’t really all that good.

Just reading that you think to yourself: Holy crapola!  Venturing a little further south into the comments you can see this outrage: Five restraining orders!  Registered sex offender!  Indecent A&B!  He should be locked up for life!

But I also have another source of information about the trial: my colleagues who actually sat through and watched it.  And heard the complaining witness when she testified, in open court, to being a heroin addict, who regularly stole from and cheated her family out of money in order to support her drug habit.

There’s no mention of that in the story, of course.  One poster in the comments does bring up the fact that she was a “crackhead”, but his presentation leaves something to be desired.

Where’s the objectivity here?  The man was found not guilty, he shouldn’t be condemned for it.  I can understand posters feeling frustration at the larger system, but when the journalist, implicitly (through inaction or simple ineptitude), or explicitly, asks for this type of response, it’s simply inexcusable.

Buffy Spencer represents the worst form of journalism, and should be removed from this position.  (Notably, this is not the first time I’ve criticised Spencer before.)  People need to hear the whole story, not some cherry picked version of the truth.

(My particularly favorite commenter was carolinamom, whose “heart goes out to the poor woman” who was allegedly raped.  I’m sure she’d feel a whole hell of a lot less sorry for her if she found out she was, in fact, a drug addict.  But then… that’s kind of the point isn’t it?)

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Posted by Alex Ramos on August 17th, 2009 :: Filed under In the News
Tags :: bad journalism, law in the media, newspapers

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A prominent black Harvard professor was arrested in Cambridge in his own home, because someone thought he had broken in.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Yup.  I think I’ll leave this one without comment.

Edit: Actually, I’ll add my favorite line from the story as a little added je ne sais quois.

[Harvard professor of medicine S. Allan Counter], who had called Gates from the Nobel Institute in Sweden (emphasis added – ed), where Counter is on sabbatical, said that Gates was “shaken” and “horrified” by his arrest.

Counter has faced a similar situation himself. The well-known neuroscience professor, who is also black, was stopped by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect as he crossed Harvard Yard. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.

…Seriously.

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Posted by Alex Ramos on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under In the News
Tags :: unbelievable

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Gwen Filosa, of the New Orleans Times Picayune, reports:

An Orleans Parish judge today held a public defender and a newly hired investigator in contempt of court for trying to interview a 12-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister in connection with a rape case without the permission of the children’s mother.

My favorite choice quote: “This matter is not new today,”[ADA Joe] Meyer said. “Every judge in this building has confronted this issue of there are people dying out there because of irresponsible activities by defense attorneys. There are people every day refusing to testify.”

He seems to have confused “zealous advocacy” with “irresponsible activities.”  Interviewing witnesses is what we’re *supposed* to do!  Not interviewing witnesses, especially in a case as serious as rape, could variously be called “malpractice,” “ineffective assistance of counsel,” or “a violation of the attorney’s duty of zeal.”¹

Brethren, every time a judge or an ADA pisses you off, be thankful you don’t have to deal with what our comrades in New Orleans do.

Edit Thursday, 7/15/09, 9:29 PM.  See how I make a note that I’m editing my story when I do it?  Gwen Filosa and nola.com don’t do that.  In the nola.com story as it existed this morning, it said that the investigator spoke with the children while they were out with a sitter as the mother rested after a medical procedure.  That section has since been removed.  WIth the facts as they are currently presented, it looks like the investigator just took the kids. Not so, according to Filosa’s own prior reporting.  This edit earns the “bad journalism” and “media criticism” tags, which were already in the dictablog tag cloud, but hadn’t yet been applied to this post.

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¹Of course, there are cases where counsel might make a strategic decision not to interview a particular witness or witnesses. Likelihood of the defense team being arrested should not be a factor in this equation.

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Posted by AndyCowan on July 16th, 2009 :: Filed under A Day in the Life, Client Service, In the News
Tags :: almost but not quite entirely unlike law, bad journalism, first amendment, media criticism, things that are wrong

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Nawaz Sharif restored to political life; Proposition 8 upheld; Right to Counsel threatened.  Full details after the break.

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Posted by AndyCowan on May 27th, 2009 :: Filed under In the News, Judicial Pearls of Wisdom, Law for the Layman
Tags :: bad law, carolene products fn4, foreign law, right to counsel, sixth amendment, things that don't quite make sense

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