August 15th, 2011

Hosni Mubarak, O.J. Simpson, and Cameras in the Courtroom

Why am I not surprised? A judge killed the live televised trial feed of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Why? Because “after a chaotic session in which lawyers pushed, shoved and scuffled to get on television.”

We’ve seen this act before. The never-ending O.J. Simpson trial seemed to go on forever for similar reasons: the lure of the camera. And the chief culprit at that time seemed to be Judge Lance Ito, enjoying the fame of the trial, and being incapable of shutting down the circus when a cross-exam that should have gone on for an hour or two, went on for days.

From the article on the Mubarak trial:

Lawyers for the victims’ families bickered over their turns to address the judge and came close to exchanging blows with Mubarak supporters, all in front of the television cameras. Some among them just waved and smiled to the cameras.

“The decision is meant to stop the lust (that) people in the courtroom are showing for getting on television,” said lawyer Mukhtar Noah, who represents the families of more than 200 victims.

Here’s a suggestion: Get a judge that knows how to create a schedule for the courtroom, and when people don’t obey them, find them in contempt of court. While there may be other problems with television cameras (such as the effect on witnesses), the effect on lawyers is far easier to control. Judges always have the tools to govern their courtroom at their disposal. They should use them.

June 20th, 2011

Rakofsky Lawyer Asks To Quit Suit (Updated x3; Motion Granted)

The lawyer for Joseph Rakofsky — who sued me and 80 other people/companies and other entities for defamation — has asked the Court for permission to withdraw as counsel. Richard Borzouye, counsel for Rakofsky, asserts in his moving papers that he had been threatened by Marc Randazza (seeking pro hac vice admission on my behalf and that of 34 other named defendants) with a wiretapping criminal complaint. This is a copy of the motion papers:Borzouye Motion to Withdraw

A copy of Mr. Randazza’s affidavit in reply to another motion gives a fuller recitation of the conversation(s) at issue. My own affidavit in another motion also discusses the problematic issue of Mr. Rakofsky’s corporation as a party to this suit, and the difficulties Mr. Rakofsky will have trying to act as its counsel.

For the out of town readers, under New York law an attorney can withdraw by asking the court to be relieved as counsel or with a stipulation substituting new counsel. But one cannot simply walk away from a case.

I will leave the commentary to others.

Update – 6/27/11: We have submitted an Affidavit in partial opposition to Borzouye’s motion to be relieved as counsel. The opposition is limited to making sure that the corporate plaintiff (Joseph Rakofsky, P.C.) has proper counsel before the court since a corporation can only proceed with a lawyer:Turkewitz-PartialOpp; also ExhibitB-PartialOpp

Update – 7/1/11: Mr. Borzouye has put in a Reply that is substantially identical to his moving affirmation. But the moving affirmation was apparently pulled from this motion and submitted in the pro hac vice motion. The details of how that occured can be read here.

Update – 7/23/11: The court grants Borzouye’s motion to be relieved with this language (though it disregards the Borzouye’s Reply Affirmation for this reason:”Not accepted as it was not filed”):Decison-RelievedAsCounsel

Upon the foregoing papers, the motion for an order permitting Richard D. Borzouye, of the law firm of Borzouye Law Firm, P.C., to withdraw as attorney of record for Plaintiffs, to which Plaintiffs do not object (and to which movant represents Plaintiffs consent), but to which some of the Defendants object, is granted in accordance with the following. Although Defendants objection to movant’s withdrawal is limited to their concern that new counsel should be substituted because a corporate defendant must appear by counsel, that is Plaintiffs concern, not theirs. It is hereby

ORDERED that the motion to withdraw is granted to the extent that Richard D. Borzouye, of the law firm of Borzouye Law Firm, P.C., is relieved as counsel for Plaintiffs, upon service of a copy of this Decision and Order, upon Plaintiffs by August 3, 2011, and service upon all appearing parties, with proof of service faxed to the court at 212-401-9045, and it is further

ORDERED that this action is stayed until September 14, 2011 for Plaintiffs to locate new counsel. Argument will be heard on the motion to admit pro hac vice on September 15, 2011 at 3PM.

This constitutes the Decision and Order of the Court.

December 1st, 2010

Hot Coffee Goes Sundancing

Everyone has heard about the McDonald’s hot coffee case where Stella Liebeck was scalded with third degree burns. And almost everyone has an opinion. Every so often, someone knows the actual details. Most though, just know that some lady spilled hot coffee on herself and sued McDonalds for millions. A Google search for hot coffee Stella Liebeck turns up over 11,000 hits, and hot coffee lawsuit turns up 60 million.

Now a movie has been made called, appropriately enough, Hot Coffee. And this movie explains why you know about this suit, why it’s part of the discussion over the civil justice system, and how it was used (and misused) for propaganda purposes. This is the blurb from the Hot Coffee site (which also has a trailer for the film):

Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his top ten list. And more than fifteen years later, its infamy continues. Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this documentary film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.

Why write about this now? Because the documentary was selected today to play at the Sundance Film Festival. The festival picked just 16 films out of 861 submissions.

The Sundance site had this blurb on the film:

(Director: Susan Saladoff) Following subjects whose lives have been devastated by an inability to access the courts, this film shows that many long-held beliefs about our civil justice system have been paid for by corporate America.

The incident occurred in 1992, 18 years ago, and this one case still fuels debate. Why? It may because there are continuing attempts by the corporate world to gain immunity for negligent acts by calling it tort “reform.” And the way the argument is made is by looking for outlier suits, and trying to use those outliers as a means of changing the system as a whole. (Whether the McDonald’s case is an outlier will depend on your own viewpoint after reading the facts, but that is how “reform” politics fundamentally works.)

The debate rages on.

November 24th, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing one and all a happy and healthy holiday with the family.

Last year at this time, I did a Blawg Review based on Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree. If you listen around noon tomorrow, you ought to hear it come around on the radio. The song, that is, not the blog post. Because Alice’s Restaurant is the name of the song. Not the blog.

So give a listen and feel free to sing along. With feeling. In four part harmony if you like. Or not. It’s gonna be played anyway.

Go off and have a Thanksgiving dinner that can’t be beat, and at the end of the day, don’t forget to take out the garbage, using such shovels, rakes and implements of destruction as you see fit. To the cans. Not the dump. Which will be closed on Thanksgiving. Though I’d never heard of a dump being closed on Thanksgiving.

But you get the idea. If you’re sitting down with family, as I hope you are, look around the table and count your blessings.

November 22nd, 2010

Chandra Levy and The Rush to Judgment

A guilty verdict came today in the murder trial of Chandra Levy. She was an intern in Washington who might (or might not) have had an affair Congressman Gary Condit ten years ago. She was murdered while in Washington’s Rock Creek Park. Fox News, at the time, turned this into its summer story as All-Levy-All-The-Time trying to force Condit from office.

But that isn’t why I write on the subject. I write because, according to this article, the evidence at the trial of Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique, who was arrested last year and charged with the murder, was reported as thin:

Prosecutors Amanda Haines and Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez obtained a conviction even though they had no eyewitnesses and no DNA evidence linking Guandique to Levy. And Guandique never confessed to police. Prosecutors hung their hopes in large part on a former cellmate of Guandique, Armando Morales, who testified that Guandique confided in him that he killed Levy.

But that news blurb doesn’t mean I have an opinion on guilt. I wasn’t in the courtroom hearing the evidence. By contrast, peruse the comments of the article and look at the rush to judgment in so many different comments. People make up their minds, not on hearing evidence over the course of a trial, but on how some reporter distills it all down to a few sentences. Here are a few samples from the last 10 minutes (there area already over 2,000 comments):

This sounds fishy. No direct evidence—I doubt that this guy would have been convincted if he was a smiling white guy without tattoos. Yes, he committed other crimes, but that doesn’t make him guilty of this one by default. I’m ashamed of our justice system for this decision and I hope it is appealed and overturned.

I think it is weird there is no DNA evidence but at least this guy is going to jail so he won’t attack any more people, just think about what his other victims went through, very glad he is going to jail!

This guy is innocent and the justice system is guilty!!!!!!….what a bunch of stupid attorneys, judges and jury group…seriously??…any fool can see that he did NOT kill her based on NO evidence…the Levy family did not put closure in anyway on this situation…it just reopened the wound!

so how did he become the murderer…wheres the evidence?! I’d love to see it!

another sacco and vanzetti trial

This man didnot do it. The DNA belongs to the middleman of Condit. Fear for his life and bribe for his family made him accept the verdict.

Those knee-jerk reactions are familiar with anyone that has picked a jury. It’s the rush to judgment over “these kinds of cases” if you happen to have a routine sort of fact pattern, such as a car accident. There are many who have already made up their minds. Facts aren’t really important to some people, because they have already made an emotional investment by forming an opinion on the case.

And the job of the trial lawyer is to find out who these people are before they get a chance to sit.