Alabama attorney Rob Riley, who has a curious history of cashing in on the Don Siegelman prosecution, recently announced a $109-million settlement in a fraud lawsuit involving HealthSouth Corporation. But sources tell Legal Schnauzer that Riley himself is involved in a company that faces allegations it practices health-care fraud.
Riley, the son of Alabama governor and former Siegelman opponent Bob Riley, announced that HealthSouth investors had reached a settlement with the accounting firm Ernst & Young. The suit alleged that Ernst & Young failed to detect a fraud that almost destroyed Birmingham-based HealthSouth.
"We think it is a good settlement for the shareholders, many of whom thought they would never see any return on their investment," Riley told The Birmingham News.
Riley is a curious choice to be lead counsel in a lawsuit alleging health-care fraud. That's because, according to our sources, he is an officer in a company that appears to have engaged in health-care fraud--and perhaps still is.
Sources tell Legal Schnauzer that Riley is an owner and officer in a Birmingham-based company that provides physical-therapy services. The company is facing allegations that it has repeatedly defrauded federal health-care programs.
Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, has received extensive information about the alleged fraud scheme involving Riley's company, sources say. But Martin, a George W. Bush appointee and a long-time ally of Bob Riley, has refused to intervene in the case.
As we reported back in January, Martin has a history of providing favorable treatment to politically connected parties who have allegedly engaged in health-care fraud. She appears to be doing that again with the case involving Rob Riley's company.
Riley's connections to the HealthSouth lawsuit first came to light in April 2008, thanks to some expert reporting by Sam Stein, of Huffington Post.
Let's review some of the key points from the Stein article:
* Months before Siegelman was charged, court documents show, Riley knew an indictment was coming and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy would be drawn into it;
* In what appears to be a case of legal-political "insider trading," Riley managed to maneuver himself into a hugely profitable role as lead local counsel in a massive lawsuit against Scrushy, HealthSouth, Ernst & Young, and others;
* Riley snagged the lead counsel role even though most of his legal experience was in the area of medical malpractice. He had little or no experience in complex securities litigation;
* When the HealthSouth litigation began in 2003, Riley's name was nowhere to be found. He joined the fray in January 2005, representing the New Mexico State Investment Council, a relatively new player in the case;
* Why did Riley rise to play a central role in the HealthSouth lawsuit? Almost certainly it was because of his ties to U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, whom Riley knew held a grudge against Siegelman and would be the perfect hanging judge in the criminal case;
* Riley surely knew that his ties to Fuller would pay off in the civil case. That apparently happened in May 2006 when an investment banker testifying in the criminal case said HealthSouth had pressured him to come up with $250,000 for Siegelman's education lottery fund;
* Shortly after this revelation in the criminal case, HealthSouth agreed to pay $445 million to settle its portion of the civil case. It was one of the largest settlements in securities-litigation history. And it appears that Rob Riley engineered it.
So what is the current status of the HealthSouth lawsuit? The $109 million payment from Ernst & Young appears to be set. An appeal issue has delayed disbursement of the $445 million from the 2006 settlement involving HealthSouth and several former officers and directors. Riley says a shareholder lawsuit still is pending against Scrushy and investment bank UBS AG.
Let's do a little quick Schnauzer math. At least $554 million is waiting to be dispersed to multiple shareholders and plaintiffs' attorneys. How massive is this litigation? The case file includes almost 1,600 documents, and roughly 150 plaintiffs' lawyers have been involved.
Out of all of these attorneys, representing powerhouse firms from both coasts and some of the most prominent firms in Alabama, who was designated as "liaison counsel for shareholder lead plaintiff"? Whose name was front and center on a motion for settlement filed on March 23, 2009?
Why, none other than Rob Riley, who just happened to have all kinds of connections to the Siegelman/Scrushy criminal case.
Here are a couple of questions to ponder:
* Did any of the 150-plus lawyers who apparently allowed Riley to take a lead position in the HealthSouth lawsuit ever wonder if he might have more than a few conflicts of interest in the case? Were they concerned about the appearance of impropriety caused by Riley's connections to the Siegelman criminal case? Or were they simply interested in the fact that Riley could help rake in big bucks--for them and for himself?
* Did any of these lawyers know--or did they even care--that Riley was an officer in a company that itself appeared to be engaged in health-care fraud? Would any of these 150 plaintiffs' lawyers--or perhaps the numerous defense attorneys--think it relevant that lead counsel in the HealthSouth fraud litigation was himself an apparent actor in a fraud case connected to the delivery of health-care services?
* Aside from alleged fraud committed by Riley's company, consider the conflict Riley appears to have in the HealthSouth case. Riley is an owner in a company that provides rehabilitation services. That's the same area of medicine in which HealthSouth has made its name. If HealthSouth is greatly weakened in the rehabilitation field, do Riley and his business partners stand to profit?
Would some of these multimillion-dollar settlements fall apart if it is shown that Rob Riley has a massive conflict of interest--and is an owner in a company that allegedly engaged in health-care fraud while he purported to be fighting for victims of health-care fraud?
Stay tuned to Legal Schnauzer. We are going to be looking into all of these questions--and providing details about the case against Rob Riley's company.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A Plan for Fixing Our Broken Justice Department
Barack Obama is not the first U.S. president to inherit a Justice Department that was soiled by his predecessor. Thomas Jefferson faced a similar mess, and he took decisive steps to fix it--reviewing abusive prosecutions, terminating cases, pardoning those who had been wrongfully convicted. A prominent legal-affairs reporter says new attorney general Eric Holder should follow Jefferson's approach.
What kind of Justice Department did Holder inherit? Let's just say it's as if Holder returned home one night to find someone had left the rusting hulk of an automobile, resting on concrete blocks in his backyard.
Is the "old girl" beyond repair? No. But her prognosis is dire. And Holder is going to need lots of grit and elbow grease to get her running again.
Fortunately, Holder can turn to a pretty fair shade-tree mechanic, of the legal sort. Goes by the name of Scott Horton. Writes for Harper's magazine. Works for Columbia University School of Law. Has good rates.
Horton has taken a gander at the mess in Holder's backyard. And he has a few ideas, five to be exact, on how to tune her up and get her running again.
First, Horton notes, Holder is going to need the support of those above him. And President Barack Obama presented encouraging remarks at Holder's installation ceremony last week. A sampling:
And that's what's always distinguished this nation--that we are bound together not by a shared bloodline or allegiance to any one leader or faith or creed, but by an adherence to a set of ideals. That's the core notion of our founding--that ours is a "government of laws, and not men." It is the motto inscribed on the library of my law school alma mater: "Not under man but under God and law."
I encourage Schnauzer readers to examine all five of Horton's recommendations for breathing life back into our Justice Department. But here's the one that jumped out at me:
Instigate a thorough review of political prosecutions, overturn prosecutions that were abusive, and take appropriate disciplinary actions with respect to those who instigated them. Following the path of the lowliest authoritarian dictatorships, the Bush Administration used the Justice Department to bring criminal prosecutions against political adversaries for partisan political purposes. That’s no longer debatable. It’s an established fact. Yet the Justice Department has yet to lift a finger to correct these abuses. Victims of the worst of these prosecutions languish in prison, and the prosecutors who disgraced their offices remain on the job—indeed, this weekend I read that one was just promoted in an act of calculated “burrowing.” When Thomas Jefferson came to office following the elections of 1800 he was forced to deal with a situation almost exactly like the one that Holder now faces. He called the two-year terror-spree of political prosecutions by the Federalists the “Reign of Witches.” Jefferson and his attorney general quickly reviewed the abusive prosecutions, terminated cases, and issued pardons to the substantial number of people who had been wrongfully convicted in our still highly imperfect criminal justice system. Eric Holder would do well to study the precedent Jefferson furnished. He needs to take this legacy of abuse of the powers of the Justice Department and confront it directly.
This is powerful stuff from Horton. It is a valuable history lesson, showing that our Justice Department has been abused before. Thomas Jefferson took decisive steps to repair the mess he inherited. Horton suggests that Holder make history repeat itself.
I would add one other step: Ensure that those who soiled our Justice Department are held accountable, criminally if that is appropriate. And be sure a civil mechanism is available so that victims have a chance to be made whole.
Is Holder up to the task? Obama, after making a joke about his friend's abilities on the basketball court, said the answer is yes:
Now, I can't vouch for Eric's skills on the basketball court--(laughter)--but I can confirm that he is thoroughly prepared to take on the law enforcement challenges of this new century. As a student of history, he also knows history's lessons about what happens when we let politics and ideology cloud our judgment -- and let fear and anger, rather than reason, dictate our policy. These are mistakes he will not repeat. Because in the end, Eric comes to this job with only one agenda: to do what is right under the law.
What kind of Justice Department did Holder inherit? Let's just say it's as if Holder returned home one night to find someone had left the rusting hulk of an automobile, resting on concrete blocks in his backyard.
Is the "old girl" beyond repair? No. But her prognosis is dire. And Holder is going to need lots of grit and elbow grease to get her running again.
Fortunately, Holder can turn to a pretty fair shade-tree mechanic, of the legal sort. Goes by the name of Scott Horton. Writes for Harper's magazine. Works for Columbia University School of Law. Has good rates.
Horton has taken a gander at the mess in Holder's backyard. And he has a few ideas, five to be exact, on how to tune her up and get her running again.
First, Horton notes, Holder is going to need the support of those above him. And President Barack Obama presented encouraging remarks at Holder's installation ceremony last week. A sampling:
And that's what's always distinguished this nation--that we are bound together not by a shared bloodline or allegiance to any one leader or faith or creed, but by an adherence to a set of ideals. That's the core notion of our founding--that ours is a "government of laws, and not men." It is the motto inscribed on the library of my law school alma mater: "Not under man but under God and law."
I encourage Schnauzer readers to examine all five of Horton's recommendations for breathing life back into our Justice Department. But here's the one that jumped out at me:
Instigate a thorough review of political prosecutions, overturn prosecutions that were abusive, and take appropriate disciplinary actions with respect to those who instigated them. Following the path of the lowliest authoritarian dictatorships, the Bush Administration used the Justice Department to bring criminal prosecutions against political adversaries for partisan political purposes. That’s no longer debatable. It’s an established fact. Yet the Justice Department has yet to lift a finger to correct these abuses. Victims of the worst of these prosecutions languish in prison, and the prosecutors who disgraced their offices remain on the job—indeed, this weekend I read that one was just promoted in an act of calculated “burrowing.” When Thomas Jefferson came to office following the elections of 1800 he was forced to deal with a situation almost exactly like the one that Holder now faces. He called the two-year terror-spree of political prosecutions by the Federalists the “Reign of Witches.” Jefferson and his attorney general quickly reviewed the abusive prosecutions, terminated cases, and issued pardons to the substantial number of people who had been wrongfully convicted in our still highly imperfect criminal justice system. Eric Holder would do well to study the precedent Jefferson furnished. He needs to take this legacy of abuse of the powers of the Justice Department and confront it directly.
This is powerful stuff from Horton. It is a valuable history lesson, showing that our Justice Department has been abused before. Thomas Jefferson took decisive steps to repair the mess he inherited. Horton suggests that Holder make history repeat itself.
I would add one other step: Ensure that those who soiled our Justice Department are held accountable, criminally if that is appropriate. And be sure a civil mechanism is available so that victims have a chance to be made whole.
Is Holder up to the task? Obama, after making a joke about his friend's abilities on the basketball court, said the answer is yes:
Now, I can't vouch for Eric's skills on the basketball court--(laughter)--but I can confirm that he is thoroughly prepared to take on the law enforcement challenges of this new century. As a student of history, he also knows history's lessons about what happens when we let politics and ideology cloud our judgment -- and let fear and anger, rather than reason, dictate our policy. These are mistakes he will not repeat. Because in the end, Eric comes to this job with only one agenda: to do what is right under the law.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Some Pointed Questions for the Head of Alabama University System
Malcolm Portera, chancellor of the University of Alabama System, announced last week that the system is likely to lose at least 1,000 jobs over the next 18 months during the Bush recession.
As a former employee at one of Portera's campuses, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), this news raised some interesting questions in my mind. In fact, I would suggest that all Alabamians need to ask some pointed questions of the man who leads the three-campus system.
Here are a few questions your dogged Legal Schnauzer has for Portera:
* You say these are lean times for the UA System. So how much money is the system wasting on discrimination lawsuits that could have been avoided? At UAB alone, numerous legal actions recently have been brought by veteran employees--people who have invested 20 to 35 years in the university and clearly do not have histories of being troublesome employees. What has happened under the "leadership" of President Carol Garrison to make UAB unable to manage long-time employees?
* When's the last time you checked into the Office of Counsel at UAB? If my memory is correct, the office answers directly to you, so I assume you are familiar with how it operates. Recent activities indicate you have been "out to lunch" on legal matters, so let me clue you in on how an Office of Counsel should work. Numerous law firms in Alabama focus on defense of employment-related lawsuits. If you check the Web sites for most any of these firms--here's one from Baker Donelson, as an example--you notice that one of their primary services is "litigation avoidance." They offer training and assistance with the development of policies and procedures that are designed to ensure their clients abide by federal laws and, in the process, avoid litigation.
* So why doesn't UAB's Office of Counsel practice litigation avoidance? I possess a document that indicates two members of that office--apparently John Daniel and Lisa Huggins--reviewed my termination letter before it was presented to me by Dale Turnbough, associate vice president for public relations and marketing. Anyone with a few functioning brainwaves in their cranium should have been able to detect about 197 red flags in this letter. But Daniel and Huggins apparently approved it without batting an eye. Do your "legal experts" ever bother to ask questions of supervisors who are making stupid HR decisions? If not, why are they employed at UAB? What purpose do they serve?
* Times are so lean, you say, that regular folks are going to be losing their jobs in the UA System. But documents in Birmingham federal court indicate that UAB cheated federal taxpayers out of $300 to $600 million through canny use of research fraud. That should have created a nice rainy-day fund to tide the Birmingham campus over during rough times. So where is it? Where is UAB's dirty money?
* You note that we are experiencing the worst recession in 75 years. But you fail to mention an important fact: This recession, like the Great Depression, was brought on by the actions of a Republican administration. And yet you are a prominent member of the Business Council of Alabama (BCA), which is run by one of Alabama's most prominent Republicans, Bill Canary. In fact, Mr. Canary has well-documented ties to Karl Rove, who has been celebrated as "Bush's Brain" and played a major role in leading our country to the brink of economic collapse. Since you support the very people who led us into this mess, why should Alabamians have any confidence in your ability to lead our flagship university system during times of economic stress--or during any other times, for that matter?
* Jill Simpson, an Alabama attorney and former Republican operative, has testified to Congress, under oath, that Bill Canary helped arrange a bogus prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. If this is proven to be true, Mr. Canary has committed myriad federal crimes. If Mr. Canary committed these crimes while acting in his role as BCA president, and apparently he did, doesn't that make the BCA a glorified criminal syndicate? Have you considered distancing yourself from such an organization? As the head of Alabama's flagship university system, shouldn't you at least be asking a few hard questions about actions that are taking place in the name of the BCA?
* While we have your attention, let's include one final question: What do you know about my unlawful termination at UAB? Sources tell me that you are one of President Carol Garrison's primary supporters. And news reports indicate you are concerned about people losing jobs in the UA System? So are you concerned about the fact that Carol Garrison signed off on a plan to cheat me out of my job? Have you asked her about it? UAB's own grievance committee found that I should not have been terminated, and evidence at my grievance hearing showed I should not have been disciplined at all, much less terminated. And yet, your gal pal, Carol Garrison, upheld a termination that her own committee found was wrongful. You don't need a Ph.D. to realize that doesn't make much sense. And substantial evidence indicates someone external to UAB pushed the university to fire me, for political reasons having to do with a blog I write on my own time. Do you know who these people are? Are you aware that, if a conspiracy to cheat me out of my job is proven--and it involved use of the U.S. mails or wires--that constitutes a federal crime? Does that concern you in the least?
More importantly, would you be willing to sit down for an interview with me, the Legal Schnauzer, to examine these issues?
We will give you that opportunity.
As a former employee at one of Portera's campuses, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), this news raised some interesting questions in my mind. In fact, I would suggest that all Alabamians need to ask some pointed questions of the man who leads the three-campus system.
Here are a few questions your dogged Legal Schnauzer has for Portera:
* You say these are lean times for the UA System. So how much money is the system wasting on discrimination lawsuits that could have been avoided? At UAB alone, numerous legal actions recently have been brought by veteran employees--people who have invested 20 to 35 years in the university and clearly do not have histories of being troublesome employees. What has happened under the "leadership" of President Carol Garrison to make UAB unable to manage long-time employees?
* When's the last time you checked into the Office of Counsel at UAB? If my memory is correct, the office answers directly to you, so I assume you are familiar with how it operates. Recent activities indicate you have been "out to lunch" on legal matters, so let me clue you in on how an Office of Counsel should work. Numerous law firms in Alabama focus on defense of employment-related lawsuits. If you check the Web sites for most any of these firms--here's one from Baker Donelson, as an example--you notice that one of their primary services is "litigation avoidance." They offer training and assistance with the development of policies and procedures that are designed to ensure their clients abide by federal laws and, in the process, avoid litigation.
* So why doesn't UAB's Office of Counsel practice litigation avoidance? I possess a document that indicates two members of that office--apparently John Daniel and Lisa Huggins--reviewed my termination letter before it was presented to me by Dale Turnbough, associate vice president for public relations and marketing. Anyone with a few functioning brainwaves in their cranium should have been able to detect about 197 red flags in this letter. But Daniel and Huggins apparently approved it without batting an eye. Do your "legal experts" ever bother to ask questions of supervisors who are making stupid HR decisions? If not, why are they employed at UAB? What purpose do they serve?
* Times are so lean, you say, that regular folks are going to be losing their jobs in the UA System. But documents in Birmingham federal court indicate that UAB cheated federal taxpayers out of $300 to $600 million through canny use of research fraud. That should have created a nice rainy-day fund to tide the Birmingham campus over during rough times. So where is it? Where is UAB's dirty money?
* You note that we are experiencing the worst recession in 75 years. But you fail to mention an important fact: This recession, like the Great Depression, was brought on by the actions of a Republican administration. And yet you are a prominent member of the Business Council of Alabama (BCA), which is run by one of Alabama's most prominent Republicans, Bill Canary. In fact, Mr. Canary has well-documented ties to Karl Rove, who has been celebrated as "Bush's Brain" and played a major role in leading our country to the brink of economic collapse. Since you support the very people who led us into this mess, why should Alabamians have any confidence in your ability to lead our flagship university system during times of economic stress--or during any other times, for that matter?
* Jill Simpson, an Alabama attorney and former Republican operative, has testified to Congress, under oath, that Bill Canary helped arrange a bogus prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. If this is proven to be true, Mr. Canary has committed myriad federal crimes. If Mr. Canary committed these crimes while acting in his role as BCA president, and apparently he did, doesn't that make the BCA a glorified criminal syndicate? Have you considered distancing yourself from such an organization? As the head of Alabama's flagship university system, shouldn't you at least be asking a few hard questions about actions that are taking place in the name of the BCA?
* While we have your attention, let's include one final question: What do you know about my unlawful termination at UAB? Sources tell me that you are one of President Carol Garrison's primary supporters. And news reports indicate you are concerned about people losing jobs in the UA System? So are you concerned about the fact that Carol Garrison signed off on a plan to cheat me out of my job? Have you asked her about it? UAB's own grievance committee found that I should not have been terminated, and evidence at my grievance hearing showed I should not have been disciplined at all, much less terminated. And yet, your gal pal, Carol Garrison, upheld a termination that her own committee found was wrongful. You don't need a Ph.D. to realize that doesn't make much sense. And substantial evidence indicates someone external to UAB pushed the university to fire me, for political reasons having to do with a blog I write on my own time. Do you know who these people are? Are you aware that, if a conspiracy to cheat me out of my job is proven--and it involved use of the U.S. mails or wires--that constitutes a federal crime? Does that concern you in the least?
More importantly, would you be willing to sit down for an interview with me, the Legal Schnauzer, to examine these issues?
We will give you that opportunity.
How Many Ways Can UAB Screw Up Its Basketball Program?
The University of Alabama yesterday named Anthony Grant as its new men's basketball coach. Grant, the former coach at Virginia Commonwealth University and a longtime assistant at two-time national champion University of Florida, was generally hailed as an excellent hire.
All of which reminds us of how my former employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), seems to be doing everything in its power to screw up its once-proud basketball program. And published reports indicate dark days might be ahead for UAB hoops fans.
What does Anthony Grant's hiring have to do with UAB? Kevin Scarbinsky, sports columnist for The Birmingham News does a nice job of laying it out.
Scarbinsky notes that while Grant seems to enjoy immense respect across the college-basketball world, UAB blew a chance to hire him three years ago. Instead, UAB officials hired Mike Davis, who now seems to be leading the Blazer program over a cliff.
Davis, the former head coach at Indiana University, has done fairly well on the court at UAB. But he apparently has made it clear to a number of people (including players, would-be players, and fellow coaches) that he does not want to be at UAB for long. That seems to have caused a once-promising recruiting class to fall apart. Three highly regarded prospects who once were headed to UAB--DeMarcus Cousins, Jon Kreft, and Casey Mitchell--now appear to be headed elsewhere.
With just four returning players for next year, and two early signees, UAB will need to sign seven players this spring to fill out its allotted 13 roster spots. That means the next year or two could see some awfully rough seas on the court for UAB.
Meanwhile, Scarbinsky raises this interesting question: Why did Alabama hire Grant instead of former UAB head coach Mike Anderson, who just led the University of Missouri to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament? Anderson, a Birmingham native who enjoyed considerable success on the court at UAB, was a favorite of many Crimson Tide fans and probably would have returned to his home state for the $2 million or so that Alabama is paying Grant.
But Scarbinsky hints that all was not well off the court at UAB under Anderson. And that might be why Alabama turned away from him:
Sources said that at least one influential Alabama trustee had an issue with the academic state of the UAB program Anderson left behind and the off-court problems experienced by some of his Missouri players.
It's true that UAB basketball suffered a hit in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate, in part because of players Anderson brought to campus, but a mid-major like UAB has to take more academic risks in recruiting to compete with the likes of Memphis.
It's also true that the UAB administration as a whole didn't take the academic affairs of its athletes as seriously as it should have until the school was embarrassed by its low APR numbers.
Published reports indicate that an NCAA investigation, possibly centering on academic fraud, could be brewing at UAB. Scarbinsky seems to be saying that UAB's leadership, with President Carol Garrison at the top, probably is complicit in any academic problems that surface at UAB.
Scarbinsky also includes this interesting nugget:
One source close to UAB said the school's President Carol Garrison is no fan of Anderson's and that she made her feelings known to other officials in the university system.
Why would University of Alabama officials listen to Carol Garrison about anything? Abundant evidence indicates Garrison can't manage her own campus, much less one 60 miles down the road. Her tenure at UAB has been marked by one fiasco after another. Her handling of human-resources issues, including my unlawful termination, has been atrocious--so much so that UAB's human resources director recently left for what appears to be a lesser job at Wake Forest.
And a source tells Legal Schnauzer that numerous business leaders in Birmingham are unhappy with Garrison's leadership. We understand that an article on that subject will be appearing soon in a local publication.
One thing is for certain: If academic fraud is found to have occurred in UAB's men's basketball program, it will be most fitting that it is uncovered during the Carol Garrison era. Various forms of fraud have been a hallmark of Garrison's leadership from the earliest days.
It started with reports of Garrison's unseemly dalliance with former University of Tennessee President John Shumaker. It continued with reports of massive research fraud at UAB, in which federal taxpayers were cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to court documents. It continued with reports of UAB employees using state-owned equipment to send racist and anti-gay e-mails--a clear violation of university policy that resulted in little or no punishment.
And of course, you have the unlawful termination of your humble blogger. On the surface, that appears to raise a number of civil issues--age and gender discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, defamation, First Amendment violations, etc.
But it almost certainly raises criminal issues, too. If UAB officials bowed to external pressures and cheated me out of my job--and used the U.S. mails or wires in furtherance of that scheme--it constitutes honest-services fraud. And that's a federal crime.
If Barack Obama appoints a tough U.S. attorney for Birmingham--and that appears to be a mighty big if at this point--that person could have a field day checking into the sleaze that emanates from UAB and the University of Alabama System.
Regardless of what our new U.S. attorney does, we certainly will be investigating UAB sleaze here at Legal Schnauzer. Interesting leads are coming in from readers on an almost daily basis.
Before the smoke clears, problems in men's basketball might be the least of Carol Garrison's worries.
All of which reminds us of how my former employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), seems to be doing everything in its power to screw up its once-proud basketball program. And published reports indicate dark days might be ahead for UAB hoops fans.
What does Anthony Grant's hiring have to do with UAB? Kevin Scarbinsky, sports columnist for The Birmingham News does a nice job of laying it out.
Scarbinsky notes that while Grant seems to enjoy immense respect across the college-basketball world, UAB blew a chance to hire him three years ago. Instead, UAB officials hired Mike Davis, who now seems to be leading the Blazer program over a cliff.
Davis, the former head coach at Indiana University, has done fairly well on the court at UAB. But he apparently has made it clear to a number of people (including players, would-be players, and fellow coaches) that he does not want to be at UAB for long. That seems to have caused a once-promising recruiting class to fall apart. Three highly regarded prospects who once were headed to UAB--DeMarcus Cousins, Jon Kreft, and Casey Mitchell--now appear to be headed elsewhere.
With just four returning players for next year, and two early signees, UAB will need to sign seven players this spring to fill out its allotted 13 roster spots. That means the next year or two could see some awfully rough seas on the court for UAB.
Meanwhile, Scarbinsky raises this interesting question: Why did Alabama hire Grant instead of former UAB head coach Mike Anderson, who just led the University of Missouri to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament? Anderson, a Birmingham native who enjoyed considerable success on the court at UAB, was a favorite of many Crimson Tide fans and probably would have returned to his home state for the $2 million or so that Alabama is paying Grant.
But Scarbinsky hints that all was not well off the court at UAB under Anderson. And that might be why Alabama turned away from him:
Sources said that at least one influential Alabama trustee had an issue with the academic state of the UAB program Anderson left behind and the off-court problems experienced by some of his Missouri players.
It's true that UAB basketball suffered a hit in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate, in part because of players Anderson brought to campus, but a mid-major like UAB has to take more academic risks in recruiting to compete with the likes of Memphis.
It's also true that the UAB administration as a whole didn't take the academic affairs of its athletes as seriously as it should have until the school was embarrassed by its low APR numbers.
Published reports indicate that an NCAA investigation, possibly centering on academic fraud, could be brewing at UAB. Scarbinsky seems to be saying that UAB's leadership, with President Carol Garrison at the top, probably is complicit in any academic problems that surface at UAB.
Scarbinsky also includes this interesting nugget:
One source close to UAB said the school's President Carol Garrison is no fan of Anderson's and that she made her feelings known to other officials in the university system.
Why would University of Alabama officials listen to Carol Garrison about anything? Abundant evidence indicates Garrison can't manage her own campus, much less one 60 miles down the road. Her tenure at UAB has been marked by one fiasco after another. Her handling of human-resources issues, including my unlawful termination, has been atrocious--so much so that UAB's human resources director recently left for what appears to be a lesser job at Wake Forest.
And a source tells Legal Schnauzer that numerous business leaders in Birmingham are unhappy with Garrison's leadership. We understand that an article on that subject will be appearing soon in a local publication.
One thing is for certain: If academic fraud is found to have occurred in UAB's men's basketball program, it will be most fitting that it is uncovered during the Carol Garrison era. Various forms of fraud have been a hallmark of Garrison's leadership from the earliest days.
It started with reports of Garrison's unseemly dalliance with former University of Tennessee President John Shumaker. It continued with reports of massive research fraud at UAB, in which federal taxpayers were cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to court documents. It continued with reports of UAB employees using state-owned equipment to send racist and anti-gay e-mails--a clear violation of university policy that resulted in little or no punishment.
And of course, you have the unlawful termination of your humble blogger. On the surface, that appears to raise a number of civil issues--age and gender discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, defamation, First Amendment violations, etc.
But it almost certainly raises criminal issues, too. If UAB officials bowed to external pressures and cheated me out of my job--and used the U.S. mails or wires in furtherance of that scheme--it constitutes honest-services fraud. And that's a federal crime.
If Barack Obama appoints a tough U.S. attorney for Birmingham--and that appears to be a mighty big if at this point--that person could have a field day checking into the sleaze that emanates from UAB and the University of Alabama System.
Regardless of what our new U.S. attorney does, we certainly will be investigating UAB sleaze here at Legal Schnauzer. Interesting leads are coming in from readers on an almost daily basis.
Before the smoke clears, problems in men's basketball might be the least of Carol Garrison's worries.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Alabama Corruption Fighter is Corrupt Himself
David Estes recently became the face of the fight against public corruption in Alabama. And that is rich with irony because Estes himself, based on public reports, has corruption oozing from every pore.
That's what happens when Bush-appointed prosecutors are in charge of the federal "justice" apparatus in your state. And two-plus months into the Barack Obama administration, Bushies still rule on the justice front in Alabama.
God only knows how much longer that is going to be the case. We certainly understand that Team Obama arrived with onerous chores on its plate. But the federal justice system is in crisis, in Alabama and elsewhere, and we would respectfully suggest that someone dismiss Bush prosecutors like Alice Martin and Leura Canary pronto.
Martin and Canary are going about their corrupt business as if we had held no election in November. Perhaps someone from Team Obama needs to clue them in--if for no other reason than to ensure people like David Estes can do no more damage.
Who is David Estes? He is an assistant U.S. attorney working for Martin in the Northern District of Alabama. He recently was quoted in the local press as saying the investigation into Alabama two-year colleges, which has focused almost entirely on Democrats, remains in high gear.
Evidence suggests that the two-year system indeed has problems and needs to be cleaned up. But charges of "double dipping" and the like surely cross party lines, though you would never know it from Alice Martin's investigation. And an individual like David Estes has no business looking into someone else's alleged corruption.
That's because Estes himself is nauseatingly corrupt. We know that thanks to the superb reporting of Lynda Edwards, who wrote "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi" a few months back for the ABA Journal.
Latifi is a Huntsville defense contractor whose business was ruined by a bogus federal investigation. Alice Martin and David Estes led the investigation of Latifi and his company, Axion Corp.
Latifi's defense lawyers quote Estes as saying, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."
That quote should send a chill down the spine of every citizen. And it did send a chill down the spines of Birmingham lawyers Henry Frohsin and James Barger. They filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against Martin and Estes.
Is anyone in the Justice Department taking steps to punish Martin and Estes for their thuggish behavior? Apparently not. Estes now is being touted as the point man for the investigation of Alabama two-year colleges.
This is the same guy who said he didn't care about the facts and the law in a criminal investigation. He just wanted to ruin a man's business, a man who happened to be of Iranian descent and a supporter of the Democratic Party.
Is anyone in the Obama administration paying attention to what is going on in Alabama?
As a devoted basketball player, Obama should be familiar with the phrase that hoopsters around the globe holler when their ball rolls off toward guys on another court:
"Little help?"
That's what we need down in Dixie. And probably in quite a few other states, based on the new documentary, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove.
That's what happens when Bush-appointed prosecutors are in charge of the federal "justice" apparatus in your state. And two-plus months into the Barack Obama administration, Bushies still rule on the justice front in Alabama.
God only knows how much longer that is going to be the case. We certainly understand that Team Obama arrived with onerous chores on its plate. But the federal justice system is in crisis, in Alabama and elsewhere, and we would respectfully suggest that someone dismiss Bush prosecutors like Alice Martin and Leura Canary pronto.
Martin and Canary are going about their corrupt business as if we had held no election in November. Perhaps someone from Team Obama needs to clue them in--if for no other reason than to ensure people like David Estes can do no more damage.
Who is David Estes? He is an assistant U.S. attorney working for Martin in the Northern District of Alabama. He recently was quoted in the local press as saying the investigation into Alabama two-year colleges, which has focused almost entirely on Democrats, remains in high gear.
Evidence suggests that the two-year system indeed has problems and needs to be cleaned up. But charges of "double dipping" and the like surely cross party lines, though you would never know it from Alice Martin's investigation. And an individual like David Estes has no business looking into someone else's alleged corruption.
That's because Estes himself is nauseatingly corrupt. We know that thanks to the superb reporting of Lynda Edwards, who wrote "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi" a few months back for the ABA Journal.
Latifi is a Huntsville defense contractor whose business was ruined by a bogus federal investigation. Alice Martin and David Estes led the investigation of Latifi and his company, Axion Corp.
Latifi's defense lawyers quote Estes as saying, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."
That quote should send a chill down the spine of every citizen. And it did send a chill down the spines of Birmingham lawyers Henry Frohsin and James Barger. They filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against Martin and Estes.
Is anyone in the Justice Department taking steps to punish Martin and Estes for their thuggish behavior? Apparently not. Estes now is being touted as the point man for the investigation of Alabama two-year colleges.
This is the same guy who said he didn't care about the facts and the law in a criminal investigation. He just wanted to ruin a man's business, a man who happened to be of Iranian descent and a supporter of the Democratic Party.
Is anyone in the Obama administration paying attention to what is going on in Alabama?
As a devoted basketball player, Obama should be familiar with the phrase that hoopsters around the globe holler when their ball rolls off toward guys on another court:
"Little help?"
That's what we need down in Dixie. And probably in quite a few other states, based on the new documentary, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Siegelman's Second Appeal Focuses on "Explicit" Nature of Bribery Law
Attorneys for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy have filed papers asking the full 12-judge U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear their case.
Glynn Wilson, of Locust Fork News-Journal, reports that the request for rehearing focuses primarily on the contention that the alleged quid pro quo bribery in the case was based on an "implied" agreement, not an "explicit" agreement as required by federal law.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit upheld the Siegelman and Scrushy convictions on corruption-related charges in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama. But attorneys for Sieglman and Scrushy argue that trial-judge Mark Fuller did not issue jury instructions that require an explicit "something for something" agreement, and evidence presented to the jury showed that no such agreement existed.
If the three-judge panel's ruling is allowed to stand, Siegelman said, prosecutors will be able to pick and choose their targets among contributors and elected officials. In a written statement, Siegelman said:
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the McCormick case made it clear, that in this area of First Amendment rights, before a jury could convict an elected official or a contributor on bribery, there had to be an "explicit" not an "implied" agreement.
My three-judge panel has allowed my conviction and my seven-and-a-half-year sentence to stand basically by defining "explicit" to be something that can be inferred or implied by the jury from the mind and actions of the actors.
The petition for an en banc hearing of the full court, plus an appendix, can be viewed at the following links through Locust Fork News-Journal:
* Petition for rehearing
* Appendix
Our understanding is that the government has 21 days to file a response brief. If the full court agrees to hear the case, a date will be set for oral arguments.
Interestingly, the Siegelman appeal focuses almost exclusively on the bribery, quid pro quo issue. My review of the three-judge panel's ruling indicates it made errors in at least three or four other areas.
I'm not an expert on federal appellate procedure, but there must be a reason why the Siegelman team is focusing almost totally on one issue. Perhaps federal rules prohibit the length of briefs and the amount of time for oral argument, so the Siegelman team chose to focus on the central issue in the case. Also, it might be considered bad form in legal circles to point out the multiple ways the three-judge panel screwed up its ruling--and almost certainly did it intentionally.
It's interesting to recall that in oral argument before the three-judge panel, a Siegelman attorney was cut off when he tried to argue on the quid pro quo issue, and the panel asked questions mostly on relatively minor issues. The Siegelman team probably feels the central issue in the case has never been appropriately explored at the appellate level.
In his statement, Siegelman got the core of the issues at stake:
Yes, this is about my personal freedom, but it is even more important that this First Amendment issue be clarified so the law won't be a trap for the unwary.
Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever the people see things that are wrong, the people can be relied upon to set those wrongs to right.” We need to get a message to the U.S.Department of Justice to help get this wrong set right.
If the three-judge panel's new definition changing an "explicit" to an "implied "quid pro quo is allowed to stand, not only am I up the creek without a paddle but federal prosecutors will be able to pick and choose contributors and elected officials seeking convictions based solely on a jury's view of what was in the minds of the elected official, not based on any express communication.
Glynn Wilson, of Locust Fork News-Journal, reports that the request for rehearing focuses primarily on the contention that the alleged quid pro quo bribery in the case was based on an "implied" agreement, not an "explicit" agreement as required by federal law.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit upheld the Siegelman and Scrushy convictions on corruption-related charges in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama. But attorneys for Sieglman and Scrushy argue that trial-judge Mark Fuller did not issue jury instructions that require an explicit "something for something" agreement, and evidence presented to the jury showed that no such agreement existed.
If the three-judge panel's ruling is allowed to stand, Siegelman said, prosecutors will be able to pick and choose their targets among contributors and elected officials. In a written statement, Siegelman said:
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the McCormick case made it clear, that in this area of First Amendment rights, before a jury could convict an elected official or a contributor on bribery, there had to be an "explicit" not an "implied" agreement.
My three-judge panel has allowed my conviction and my seven-and-a-half-year sentence to stand basically by defining "explicit" to be something that can be inferred or implied by the jury from the mind and actions of the actors.
The petition for an en banc hearing of the full court, plus an appendix, can be viewed at the following links through Locust Fork News-Journal:
* Petition for rehearing
* Appendix
Our understanding is that the government has 21 days to file a response brief. If the full court agrees to hear the case, a date will be set for oral arguments.
Interestingly, the Siegelman appeal focuses almost exclusively on the bribery, quid pro quo issue. My review of the three-judge panel's ruling indicates it made errors in at least three or four other areas.
I'm not an expert on federal appellate procedure, but there must be a reason why the Siegelman team is focusing almost totally on one issue. Perhaps federal rules prohibit the length of briefs and the amount of time for oral argument, so the Siegelman team chose to focus on the central issue in the case. Also, it might be considered bad form in legal circles to point out the multiple ways the three-judge panel screwed up its ruling--and almost certainly did it intentionally.
It's interesting to recall that in oral argument before the three-judge panel, a Siegelman attorney was cut off when he tried to argue on the quid pro quo issue, and the panel asked questions mostly on relatively minor issues. The Siegelman team probably feels the central issue in the case has never been appropriately explored at the appellate level.
In his statement, Siegelman got the core of the issues at stake:
Yes, this is about my personal freedom, but it is even more important that this First Amendment issue be clarified so the law won't be a trap for the unwary.
Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever the people see things that are wrong, the people can be relied upon to set those wrongs to right.” We need to get a message to the U.S.Department of Justice to help get this wrong set right.
If the three-judge panel's new definition changing an "explicit" to an "implied "quid pro quo is allowed to stand, not only am I up the creek without a paddle but federal prosecutors will be able to pick and choose contributors and elected officials seeking convictions based solely on a jury's view of what was in the minds of the elected official, not based on any express communication.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Karl Rove and Some Curious Ground Rules
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee chose to take unsworn testimony from former Bush White House strategist Karl Rove in a private session so that members could have ample time to question him, according to a published report.
But an Alabama attorney and Republican Party whistleblower says Rove's unsworn testimony will be worthless for the purposes of law enforcement.
Two aides to the House Judiciary Committee told Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story that the decision to have Rove testify behind closed doors was not a concession to the Bush administration:
According to two Judiciary Committee aides, the committee opted for the private testimony so that they could depose Rove for an extended period of time. During a public hearing, each committee member would have only a few minutes to ask questions.
“We could question him for 12 hours if we choose to,” said one of the aides.
The two aides confirmed that Rove would not be sworn in for his testimony, but they said testimony before Congress is de facto sworn, meaning any false statements could bring perjury charges:
Asked why in that case Congress bothers to swear people in during public hearings, one of the aides quipped, “Because it looks good.”
That argument did not sit well with Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, whose sworn testimony about a conference call involving GOP operatives indicated Rove was involved in a plan to bring a bogus prosecution against former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.
"It is important for Karl Rove to be sworn under oath because others may assert he wasn't, and therefore the testimony isn't admissible in a court of law against them," Simpson says. "Congress is a fool not to swear Mr Rove under oath. I, however, suspect they know exactly why it was agreed he not be sworn."
Simpson has repeatedly pointed a finger of suspicion at Greg Craig, White House Counsel for the Obama administration and a former member of Williams & Connolly, a major Washington, D.C., law firm. Craig represented Rove on a book deal and has been friendly socially with the former Bush advisor, Simpson says. Also, Williams & Connolly represents a number of former Bush administration officials, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"I am sure that Greg Craig would know that unsworn testimony isn't worth the paper it is written on in a court of law," Simpson says. "Maybe we should hear from Mr Craig, as President Obama's lawyer, and from his former partner (Emmet Flood), who is President Bush's lawyer.
"They are the ones who struck the deal for Karl Rove to testify unsworn. What were they thinking, and why was this done in this fashion? Who are they protecting by taking unsworn testimony from Karl Rove?"
Simpson had one final thought about the ground rules for Rove's testimony:
"Since the aide for the House Judiciary Committee says the oath to tell the truth is for show only, then why don't they, for show, have Karl Rove take the oath? After all, why would he avoid it? If it truly is just for show, then Rove could take the oath, and that would once and for all put this issue behind him.
"Karl has repeatedly spouted off that he can't wait for the grilling, so why would he not agree to testify under oath? That way, there would be no question about his testimony."
But an Alabama attorney and Republican Party whistleblower says Rove's unsworn testimony will be worthless for the purposes of law enforcement.
Two aides to the House Judiciary Committee told Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story that the decision to have Rove testify behind closed doors was not a concession to the Bush administration:
According to two Judiciary Committee aides, the committee opted for the private testimony so that they could depose Rove for an extended period of time. During a public hearing, each committee member would have only a few minutes to ask questions.
“We could question him for 12 hours if we choose to,” said one of the aides.
The two aides confirmed that Rove would not be sworn in for his testimony, but they said testimony before Congress is de facto sworn, meaning any false statements could bring perjury charges:
Asked why in that case Congress bothers to swear people in during public hearings, one of the aides quipped, “Because it looks good.”
That argument did not sit well with Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, whose sworn testimony about a conference call involving GOP operatives indicated Rove was involved in a plan to bring a bogus prosecution against former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.
"It is important for Karl Rove to be sworn under oath because others may assert he wasn't, and therefore the testimony isn't admissible in a court of law against them," Simpson says. "Congress is a fool not to swear Mr Rove under oath. I, however, suspect they know exactly why it was agreed he not be sworn."
Simpson has repeatedly pointed a finger of suspicion at Greg Craig, White House Counsel for the Obama administration and a former member of Williams & Connolly, a major Washington, D.C., law firm. Craig represented Rove on a book deal and has been friendly socially with the former Bush advisor, Simpson says. Also, Williams & Connolly represents a number of former Bush administration officials, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"I am sure that Greg Craig would know that unsworn testimony isn't worth the paper it is written on in a court of law," Simpson says. "Maybe we should hear from Mr Craig, as President Obama's lawyer, and from his former partner (Emmet Flood), who is President Bush's lawyer.
"They are the ones who struck the deal for Karl Rove to testify unsworn. What were they thinking, and why was this done in this fashion? Who are they protecting by taking unsworn testimony from Karl Rove?"
Simpson had one final thought about the ground rules for Rove's testimony:
"Since the aide for the House Judiciary Committee says the oath to tell the truth is for show only, then why don't they, for show, have Karl Rove take the oath? After all, why would he avoid it? If it truly is just for show, then Rove could take the oath, and that would once and for all put this issue behind him.
"Karl has repeatedly spouted off that he can't wait for the grilling, so why would he not agree to testify under oath? That way, there would be no question about his testimony."
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove: An Update
We posted yesterday about the Project Save Justice video, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove, which can be viewed through three clips at YouTube.
The video notes that former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is at the center of the best known political prosecution under the George W. Bush Justice Department. But it spotlights numerous lesser-known Democratic officials who were targeted on criminal charges that appear to be flimsy or not based on the law.
Since writing our post yesterday, we have learned more about The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove. And it is good news for folks who hope to see the appropriate people held accountable for turning the Department of Justice into a political weapon.
First, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove is not just a series of YouTube clips. It is a full-length documentary that is available in a video format and can be downloaded on the Web. The complete documentary is only 22 minutes long, so it packs a lot of vital information into a relatively small package.
Second, the documentary is a first-class piece of work. From watching the YouTube clips, it's easy to tell this wasn't put together by some schlub with a Web cam. You can tell this was artfully done, and there is a reason for that. The documentary was put together by John McTiernan, whose directing credits include Die Hard, Predator, and The Hunt for Red October, along with a number of other Hollywood blockbusters.
McTiernan has firsthand experience with the justice system through the Anthony Pellicano case, and that might help explain his interest in the Bush DOJ.
I believe the documentary will be available soon in a video format through Project Save Justice. We will keep you posted here at Legal Schnauzer.
The video notes that former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is at the center of the best known political prosecution under the George W. Bush Justice Department. But it spotlights numerous lesser-known Democratic officials who were targeted on criminal charges that appear to be flimsy or not based on the law.
Since writing our post yesterday, we have learned more about The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove. And it is good news for folks who hope to see the appropriate people held accountable for turning the Department of Justice into a political weapon.
First, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove is not just a series of YouTube clips. It is a full-length documentary that is available in a video format and can be downloaded on the Web. The complete documentary is only 22 minutes long, so it packs a lot of vital information into a relatively small package.
Second, the documentary is a first-class piece of work. From watching the YouTube clips, it's easy to tell this wasn't put together by some schlub with a Web cam. You can tell this was artfully done, and there is a reason for that. The documentary was put together by John McTiernan, whose directing credits include Die Hard, Predator, and The Hunt for Red October, along with a number of other Hollywood blockbusters.
McTiernan has firsthand experience with the justice system through the Anthony Pellicano case, and that might help explain his interest in the Bush DOJ.
I believe the documentary will be available soon in a video format through Project Save Justice. We will keep you posted here at Legal Schnauzer.
Do Judges Deserve To Be Called "Your Honor"?
We started this blog in June 2007 after Mrs. Schnauzer and I had witnessed six-plus years of corrupt actions by judges in Shelby County, Alabama.
The judges in our case happened to be Republican and they happened to be in Alabama. But evidence suggests that judicial corruption is a bipartisan problem that goes from coast to coast.
Still, it's a rarity for a national news outlet to examine the subject. But such a rarity surfaced recently when Dahlia Lithwick, legal affairs contributor for Newsweek and Slate, wrote "When Judges Behave Badly."
Lithwick reports that the first few months of 2009 have been a dark, and most revealing, time for judges. She spotlights:
* The federal judge in Texas who pleaded guilty to obstruction-of-justice charges in exchange for the state dropping sex-crimes charges;
* The Texas appellate judge who was charged with five counts of violating her duty and discrediting the court;
* The West Virginia judge who refused to remove himself from a case even though he had benefitted from $3 million worth of campaign spending from one of the parties;
* U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who is set to hear a case involving the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which plans to merge with Pfizer--and Roberts owns stock in Pfizer.
Lithwick doesn't even mention the ugliest case of all: Two Pennsylvania judges have pleaded guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending juveniles to private detention facilities.
While Lithwick raises important issues, she tends to focus on cases where judges have potential conflicts or exhibit poor behavior outside the courtroom. She largely leaves untouched the issues of judges who intentionally and knowingly cheat parties before them.
Efforts to control the judiciary often run afoul of the ideal of judicial independence. Whenever the public attempts to tell judges or justices how to monitor their conduct, they run headlong into the argument that judges warrant special deference because what they do transcends politics and public opinion.
It's not a matter of "controlling" the judiciary. But judges clearly need to be answerable to someone. Accountability is grossly lacking in our justice system, and Lithwick seems to know it. But in the end, she wimps out:
The problem is that mixed in with legitimate grievances about judges, there are often many sore losers or litigants who didn't get what they wanted.
Judges are not gods. But we must be honest enough to admit that what looks like bias and corruption to us might just be a fallible human being doing her job. If we create too many systems that monitor the judiciary, we are really saying that we trust their judgment only when they agree with us. We need to separate the real problems of policing the judiciary from the generalized griping that they are old or elitist or out of touch. And in the end . . . we must trust the judges to judge, or do away with the institution altogether.
Where does Lithwick's analysis go off the tracks? It's with this phrase: "What looks like bias and corruption to us might just be a fallible human being doing her job."
Lithwick appears to be talking about discretionary matters, where a judge has the right to make what he believes is the best decision under the circumstances before him. Those kinds of decisions will always be with us, and we will sometimes disagree about them.
But our courts are riddled with judges who intentionally cheat parties on non-discretionary matters. We have judges who knowingly ignore black-letter law in order to favor a particular party.
We've seen it in the Don Siegelman case in Alabama. We've seen it in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi. I've seen it in my own Legal Schnauzer case.
Lithwick fails to mention that the case of Samuel Kent, the federal judge in Texas who first got into hot water over sex-related charges, wound up involving charges of favoritism. Jonathan Turley reports that the Kent investigation included charges that the judge favored certain attorneys over others.
And Sharon Keller, the Texas appellate judge who was charged with violating her duty, habitually favored prosecutors over defendants, essentially substituting her own opinions for the actual law--frightening stuff indeed.
Judges are like teenagers who have been given privileges and freedoms they obviously cannot handle. We are the parents who need to take back the car keys and lay down some serious ground rules. Instead, we are like parents who have checked out emotionally and allowed all hell to break out in the courthouses around us.
I applaud Lithwick for at least bringing up a subject that too often remains stuffed in our collective closet. But in the end, she doesn't treat the problem with the seriousness that it deserves, and she offers no real solutions.
The judges in our case happened to be Republican and they happened to be in Alabama. But evidence suggests that judicial corruption is a bipartisan problem that goes from coast to coast.
Still, it's a rarity for a national news outlet to examine the subject. But such a rarity surfaced recently when Dahlia Lithwick, legal affairs contributor for Newsweek and Slate, wrote "When Judges Behave Badly."
Lithwick reports that the first few months of 2009 have been a dark, and most revealing, time for judges. She spotlights:
* The federal judge in Texas who pleaded guilty to obstruction-of-justice charges in exchange for the state dropping sex-crimes charges;
* The Texas appellate judge who was charged with five counts of violating her duty and discrediting the court;
* The West Virginia judge who refused to remove himself from a case even though he had benefitted from $3 million worth of campaign spending from one of the parties;
* U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who is set to hear a case involving the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which plans to merge with Pfizer--and Roberts owns stock in Pfizer.
Lithwick doesn't even mention the ugliest case of all: Two Pennsylvania judges have pleaded guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending juveniles to private detention facilities.
While Lithwick raises important issues, she tends to focus on cases where judges have potential conflicts or exhibit poor behavior outside the courtroom. She largely leaves untouched the issues of judges who intentionally and knowingly cheat parties before them.
Efforts to control the judiciary often run afoul of the ideal of judicial independence. Whenever the public attempts to tell judges or justices how to monitor their conduct, they run headlong into the argument that judges warrant special deference because what they do transcends politics and public opinion.
It's not a matter of "controlling" the judiciary. But judges clearly need to be answerable to someone. Accountability is grossly lacking in our justice system, and Lithwick seems to know it. But in the end, she wimps out:
The problem is that mixed in with legitimate grievances about judges, there are often many sore losers or litigants who didn't get what they wanted.
Judges are not gods. But we must be honest enough to admit that what looks like bias and corruption to us might just be a fallible human being doing her job. If we create too many systems that monitor the judiciary, we are really saying that we trust their judgment only when they agree with us. We need to separate the real problems of policing the judiciary from the generalized griping that they are old or elitist or out of touch. And in the end . . . we must trust the judges to judge, or do away with the institution altogether.
Where does Lithwick's analysis go off the tracks? It's with this phrase: "What looks like bias and corruption to us might just be a fallible human being doing her job."
Lithwick appears to be talking about discretionary matters, where a judge has the right to make what he believes is the best decision under the circumstances before him. Those kinds of decisions will always be with us, and we will sometimes disagree about them.
But our courts are riddled with judges who intentionally cheat parties on non-discretionary matters. We have judges who knowingly ignore black-letter law in order to favor a particular party.
We've seen it in the Don Siegelman case in Alabama. We've seen it in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi. I've seen it in my own Legal Schnauzer case.
Lithwick fails to mention that the case of Samuel Kent, the federal judge in Texas who first got into hot water over sex-related charges, wound up involving charges of favoritism. Jonathan Turley reports that the Kent investigation included charges that the judge favored certain attorneys over others.
And Sharon Keller, the Texas appellate judge who was charged with violating her duty, habitually favored prosecutors over defendants, essentially substituting her own opinions for the actual law--frightening stuff indeed.
Judges are like teenagers who have been given privileges and freedoms they obviously cannot handle. We are the parents who need to take back the car keys and lay down some serious ground rules. Instead, we are like parents who have checked out emotionally and allowed all hell to break out in the courthouses around us.
I applaud Lithwick for at least bringing up a subject that too often remains stuffed in our collective closet. But in the end, she doesn't treat the problem with the seriousness that it deserves, and she offers no real solutions.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
We Must Not Forget Our Political Prisoners
When commentators call for investigations of possible wrongdoing by members of the Bush administration, the discussions usually have an international focus. Subjects such as torture, illegal detentions, and spying tend to carry the day.
But a recent Gallup poll shows Americans are concerned more with domestic wrongdoing, such as politicization of the Justice Department, than with international issues. The poll showed that 71 percent of respondents favored a criminal investigation or independent probe of possible attempts to use the Justice Department for political purposes. By contrast, 62 percent favored investigations into torture and 63 percent on warrantless wiretaps.
While national opinionmakers tend to focus on war crimes, folks in the heartland seem to be more concerned about the notion that Bush officials have prosecuted and imprisoned people for political reasons, not because they committed crimes.
And so we take time here at Legal Schnauzer to send this vital message: We must not forget our political prisoners. And we must take all necessary steps under the law to see that they are vindicated--and that the appropriate people are held accountable for their suffering.
I can think of no better way to remember the victims of the Bush "justice" system than to spotlight a recent three-part documentary produced by Project Save Justice. It is titled "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove," and it is compelling viewing. My hope is that every American, in one forum or another, will see it and be moved to action.
The documentary opens by noting that many Americans have heard about the apparent political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. But most Americans do not know that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has received information about roughly 1,000 questionable prosecutions. And of the 700 investigations conducted by the Bush Justice Department since 2001, about 87 percent targeted Democrats. Here is Part I of "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove:"
Part II focuses on the methods used by the Bush DOJ, noting the critical role played by Republican-appointed judges and compliant mainstream news outlets. It also notes that supporters of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were frequent targets. One Edwards supporter, Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger, notes that his office was raided by 100 FBI agents. "You could rob a bank and murder someone and get maybe two or three agents on your tail," Fieger says. The raid on his office, he says, was "unprecedented in American history." Part II also spotlights the Paul Minor case in Mississippi and includes compelling interviews with former state Supreme Court justice Oliver Diaz and Myrna Teel, wife of imprisoned former state judge Wes Teel. "Wes was told, 'You resign and never run for public office again or you will be indicted,'" Myrna Teel says:
Part III focuses on the payoffs for the Republican officials who went along with political prosecutions. Many were rewarded with high-paying positions in the private sector or lifetime appointments in government posts. What about the victims of these prosecutions? The documentary concludes with a lengthy scroll, including their names, positions, and home areas--plus the charges they faced. Many of the victims or their loved ones wound up in financial ruin. Suicides, or deaths from natural causes to those under 70, have been common. "This is not the system of justice I fought for in World War II," says Bill Minor, father of Paul Minor. "This is not the system of justice that Paul fought for in Vietnam."
Who are the victims? Here are just a few of them. If you are like me, you probably are hearing many of these names for the first time:
* Meg Scott Phipps--agriculture commissioner, North Carolina (extortion)
* Matt McCoy--state senator, Iowa (extortion)
* Rev. Saundra McFadden-Weaver--city council, Kansas City, MO (mortgage fraud)
* Jerry Mezzatesta--state senator, West Virginia (vote buying)
* Garey Ballance--circuit judge, North Carolina (tax evasion)
* Tom Murphy--mayor, Pittsburgh, PA (vote buying)
* Katheryn Shields--county executive, Kansas City (mortgage fraud)
But a recent Gallup poll shows Americans are concerned more with domestic wrongdoing, such as politicization of the Justice Department, than with international issues. The poll showed that 71 percent of respondents favored a criminal investigation or independent probe of possible attempts to use the Justice Department for political purposes. By contrast, 62 percent favored investigations into torture and 63 percent on warrantless wiretaps.
While national opinionmakers tend to focus on war crimes, folks in the heartland seem to be more concerned about the notion that Bush officials have prosecuted and imprisoned people for political reasons, not because they committed crimes.
And so we take time here at Legal Schnauzer to send this vital message: We must not forget our political prisoners. And we must take all necessary steps under the law to see that they are vindicated--and that the appropriate people are held accountable for their suffering.
I can think of no better way to remember the victims of the Bush "justice" system than to spotlight a recent three-part documentary produced by Project Save Justice. It is titled "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove," and it is compelling viewing. My hope is that every American, in one forum or another, will see it and be moved to action.
The documentary opens by noting that many Americans have heard about the apparent political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. But most Americans do not know that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has received information about roughly 1,000 questionable prosecutions. And of the 700 investigations conducted by the Bush Justice Department since 2001, about 87 percent targeted Democrats. Here is Part I of "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove:"
Part II focuses on the methods used by the Bush DOJ, noting the critical role played by Republican-appointed judges and compliant mainstream news outlets. It also notes that supporters of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were frequent targets. One Edwards supporter, Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger, notes that his office was raided by 100 FBI agents. "You could rob a bank and murder someone and get maybe two or three agents on your tail," Fieger says. The raid on his office, he says, was "unprecedented in American history." Part II also spotlights the Paul Minor case in Mississippi and includes compelling interviews with former state Supreme Court justice Oliver Diaz and Myrna Teel, wife of imprisoned former state judge Wes Teel. "Wes was told, 'You resign and never run for public office again or you will be indicted,'" Myrna Teel says:
Part III focuses on the payoffs for the Republican officials who went along with political prosecutions. Many were rewarded with high-paying positions in the private sector or lifetime appointments in government posts. What about the victims of these prosecutions? The documentary concludes with a lengthy scroll, including their names, positions, and home areas--plus the charges they faced. Many of the victims or their loved ones wound up in financial ruin. Suicides, or deaths from natural causes to those under 70, have been common. "This is not the system of justice I fought for in World War II," says Bill Minor, father of Paul Minor. "This is not the system of justice that Paul fought for in Vietnam."
Who are the victims? Here are just a few of them. If you are like me, you probably are hearing many of these names for the first time:
* Meg Scott Phipps--agriculture commissioner, North Carolina (extortion)
* Matt McCoy--state senator, Iowa (extortion)
* Rev. Saundra McFadden-Weaver--city council, Kansas City, MO (mortgage fraud)
* Jerry Mezzatesta--state senator, West Virginia (vote buying)
* Garey Ballance--circuit judge, North Carolina (tax evasion)
* Tom Murphy--mayor, Pittsburgh, PA (vote buying)
* Katheryn Shields--county executive, Kansas City (mortgage fraud)
Monday, March 23, 2009
Did Appellate Court Screw Don Siegelman? You betcha
How bad was the recent appellate ruling that upheld the convictions of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy?
So bad that even a lawyer publicly criticized it.
Experience has taught me that some lawyers will, in private, admit that our justice system is a mess. Some, in hushed tones, will even tell you about specific lawyers they know to be shysters and judges they know to be corrupt.
But a lawyer criticize the system in a public forum? That's real man bites dog stuff.
I'm guessing there are several reasons for that. One, most lawyers make a far better living in the legal profession than they would make in another field of endeavor--say, journalism. Two, angry judges can take quite a toll on a lawyer and his clients in the courtroom--over time that can cause the bottom line of a law practice to take a serious hit. And three, I suspect state bar associations have interesting ways of making life miserable for a lawyer who dares to publicly pull the mask off the legal beast.
So there are many factors that discourage lawyers from rocking the professional boat. But Julian McPhillips, a prominent attorney in Montgomery, Alabama, was so disgusted by the ruling on the Siegelman/Scrushy appeal that he decided to rock the boat anyway--at least a little bit.
Some might say that McPhillips is not an objective observer in this case. He is a longtime Democrat, running for the U.S. Senate in 2002, and he has represented Richard Scrushy. But McPhillips makes a number of compelling points about the ruling from the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In the end, he actually goes easy on the court.
Given the all-Republican makeup of the three-judge panel, we've noted that the Siegelman team probably expected to be cheated. McPhillips apparently was thinking along the same lines:
To say the court split hairs, bent over backward to reach ill-founded conclusions and ignored important issues is a vast understatement.
The court also established a bad precedent in glossing over out-of-court juror e-mails, which revealed great bias of the jurors involved. The trial court dismissed these e-mails without investigation, and the 11th Circuit ignored this oversight.
McPhillips says the appellate court got it wrong on the central issue in the Siegelman case: Was there an explicit quid pro quo, a something-for-something agreement, as required by law?
The 11th Circuit also split hairs in distinguishing the difference between "explicit" and "express" on the quid pro quo issue. That is, was there enough evidence of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?" The court said there was sufficient circumstantial evidence, primarily the contribution itself.
Yet, it is undisputed that former Siegelman aide Nick Bailey, a government witness, never witnessed a single conversation between Siegelman and Scrushy indicating agreement for a Certificate of Need Board seat in return for a lottery fund contribution. Remember, also, the goal of the lottery was to promote public education, not the election of Siegelman.
Even the 11th Circuit was strained, bending over backward, to explain the difference between the alleged Siegelman-Scrushy bribery and the widespread practice of a politician doing a favor for a contributor.
So bad that even a lawyer publicly criticized it.
Experience has taught me that some lawyers will, in private, admit that our justice system is a mess. Some, in hushed tones, will even tell you about specific lawyers they know to be shysters and judges they know to be corrupt.
But a lawyer criticize the system in a public forum? That's real man bites dog stuff.
I'm guessing there are several reasons for that. One, most lawyers make a far better living in the legal profession than they would make in another field of endeavor--say, journalism. Two, angry judges can take quite a toll on a lawyer and his clients in the courtroom--over time that can cause the bottom line of a law practice to take a serious hit. And three, I suspect state bar associations have interesting ways of making life miserable for a lawyer who dares to publicly pull the mask off the legal beast.
So there are many factors that discourage lawyers from rocking the professional boat. But Julian McPhillips, a prominent attorney in Montgomery, Alabama, was so disgusted by the ruling on the Siegelman/Scrushy appeal that he decided to rock the boat anyway--at least a little bit.
Some might say that McPhillips is not an objective observer in this case. He is a longtime Democrat, running for the U.S. Senate in 2002, and he has represented Richard Scrushy. But McPhillips makes a number of compelling points about the ruling from the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In the end, he actually goes easy on the court.
Given the all-Republican makeup of the three-judge panel, we've noted that the Siegelman team probably expected to be cheated. McPhillips apparently was thinking along the same lines:
To say the court split hairs, bent over backward to reach ill-founded conclusions and ignored important issues is a vast understatement.
The court also established a bad precedent in glossing over out-of-court juror e-mails, which revealed great bias of the jurors involved. The trial court dismissed these e-mails without investigation, and the 11th Circuit ignored this oversight.
McPhillips says the appellate court got it wrong on the central issue in the Siegelman case: Was there an explicit quid pro quo, a something-for-something agreement, as required by law?
The 11th Circuit also split hairs in distinguishing the difference between "explicit" and "express" on the quid pro quo issue. That is, was there enough evidence of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?" The court said there was sufficient circumstantial evidence, primarily the contribution itself.
Yet, it is undisputed that former Siegelman aide Nick Bailey, a government witness, never witnessed a single conversation between Siegelman and Scrushy indicating agreement for a Certificate of Need Board seat in return for a lottery fund contribution. Remember, also, the goal of the lottery was to promote public education, not the election of Siegelman.
Even the 11th Circuit was strained, bending over backward, to explain the difference between the alleged Siegelman-Scrushy bribery and the widespread practice of a politician doing a favor for a contributor.
McPhillips points out that neither Siegelman nor Scrushy were newbies to the area of political contributions. So it's hard to figure why either would knowingly violate the law:
It is significant that Siegelman was a former Alabama secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor and governor. He was no bumbling novice. Through his 20 years of government service, he learned well the parameters of permissible behavior. He knew well what was kosher in the murky field of contributions and appointments. Neither Siegelman nor Scrushy possessed the most remote idea that what they were doing was illegal--or that what they were convicted of was illegal.
Who is the biggest loser from the 11th Circuit's warped reasoning? McPhillips has some disquieting thoughts on that subject:
Sadly, the biggest casualty resulting from this conviction and affirmation by the 11th Circuit is the Alabama and national political system. In the past, children yearned to be governor of a state or president of the United States. College-age students found excitement in the political process and saw political power as a means to achieve worthy results, such as improved education for all students, regardless of station in life.
Today, with this conviction and affirmation, few people with sense would want to be governor, recognizing that, while politics is the vehicle for election, politics also makes you a target for prosecution for campaign contributions you receive. The bigger you are politically, the more you are "big game." Regrettably, but undoubtedly, our judicial and political systems are broken.
For another take on the Siegelman appellate ruling, check out Glynn Wilson's analysis at Locust Fork News-Journal.
As for McPhillips, I applaud his willingness to stand up and criticize a clearly botched ruling. But because he's a lawyer, he still has to pull his punches somewhat.
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have to pull any punches. We've been studying the 68-page ruling and will present a detailed critique in the coming days.
Our conclusion? The three judges on the 11th-Circuit panel pulled a colossal screw job. And we will show you exactly how they did it.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Why Are Jurors Turning to Gadgets for Information?
A recent report spotlights a growing problem for the American justice system: Jurors increasingly are turning to electronic gadgets to conduct research about the cases they are hearing.
John Schwartz, of The New York Times, reports that this has led to mistrials in a number of high-profile cases, where jurors used cell phones, BlackBerrys and the like to conduct research. This directly violated judges' instructions and led to what legal experts are calling "Google mistrials."
The issue hits home here in Alabama for a couple of reasons: One, the issue of jurors improperly using e-mail was raised in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Two, the problem has become widespread--with recent examples in Florida, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania--and that makes me think many jurors might no longer trust the justice system.
Under the law, jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based only on the facts the judge has decided are admissible. And they are supposed to base their decisions on the law as the judge presents it to them.
In other words, they are supposed to view the facts and the law through the prism formed by the judge. But jurors increasingly are ignoring admonitions about outside influences.
So what is going on? It's possible that increasing numbers of Americans are thoughtless clods who can't follow simple instructions. It's also possible that increasing numbers of Americans are so addicted to their gadgets that they simply cannot leave them alone, even while on jury duty. (Memo to courtroom managers: The problem easily can be solved by making sure that jurors turn in their gadgets for safe keeping throughout trials.)
Here at Legal Schnauzer, we suspect something else might be going on. When regular Americans get an up-close look at our justice system, they are likely to sense that it is deeply flawed in many cases and downright corrupt in some.
I know from firsthand experience, that it doesn't take exceptional powers of perception to see that something is amiss in many courthouses. Just consider the criminal-trespass case involving our neighbor, which led to him filing a bogus malicious-prosecution lawsuit against me. And that led to the legal sojourn that is at the heart of this blog.
After only one or two trips to the local courthouse, Mrs. Schnauzer and I began to suspect something was up. It took us a while to figure out exactly what was going on. But we had a sense early on that: (A) The judge wasn't following the law; (B) The prosecutor who was supposed to be representing our interests was utterly unprepared; (C) The opposing lawyer seemed to have unusual influence over, and access to, court personnel; and (D) The opposing party appeared to have no problem lying under oath so that he could get off for a crime that he later confessed to committing. (We later discovered that the opposing party had been convicted for numerous crimes before, so he knew how the system worked. And he probably had little regard for the notion that people are supposed to tell the truth when under oath.)
My guess is that many jurors, after spending several days or weeks getting an up-close view of our justice system, begin to smell something foul about the whole process. They probably don't trust lawyers from one side or the other (or both). They probably sense that some witnesses are blowing copious amounts of smoke. And most alarming of all, they probably think the judge is incompetent, crooked, or both.
The original New York Times report on this subject portrayed it as an alarming development, a sign that rogue jurors are sullying our sacrosanct and honorable "justice" system.
I think it might actually be a positive sign. I think many jurors are saying, "Good God, this whole system is a mess, and it's led by judges who don't appear to be trustworthy. I'm going to use the technology at my disposal to try to see that justice is done."
Perhaps I'm giving these jurors more credit than they deserve. But I think some of them realize that they are the only persons in the whole process, aside from wronged parties, who actually care about justice being served.
If my experience is any guide, those jurors are probably right on target.
John Schwartz, of The New York Times, reports that this has led to mistrials in a number of high-profile cases, where jurors used cell phones, BlackBerrys and the like to conduct research. This directly violated judges' instructions and led to what legal experts are calling "Google mistrials."
The issue hits home here in Alabama for a couple of reasons: One, the issue of jurors improperly using e-mail was raised in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Two, the problem has become widespread--with recent examples in Florida, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania--and that makes me think many jurors might no longer trust the justice system.
Under the law, jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based only on the facts the judge has decided are admissible. And they are supposed to base their decisions on the law as the judge presents it to them.
In other words, they are supposed to view the facts and the law through the prism formed by the judge. But jurors increasingly are ignoring admonitions about outside influences.
So what is going on? It's possible that increasing numbers of Americans are thoughtless clods who can't follow simple instructions. It's also possible that increasing numbers of Americans are so addicted to their gadgets that they simply cannot leave them alone, even while on jury duty. (Memo to courtroom managers: The problem easily can be solved by making sure that jurors turn in their gadgets for safe keeping throughout trials.)
Here at Legal Schnauzer, we suspect something else might be going on. When regular Americans get an up-close look at our justice system, they are likely to sense that it is deeply flawed in many cases and downright corrupt in some.
I know from firsthand experience, that it doesn't take exceptional powers of perception to see that something is amiss in many courthouses. Just consider the criminal-trespass case involving our neighbor, which led to him filing a bogus malicious-prosecution lawsuit against me. And that led to the legal sojourn that is at the heart of this blog.
After only one or two trips to the local courthouse, Mrs. Schnauzer and I began to suspect something was up. It took us a while to figure out exactly what was going on. But we had a sense early on that: (A) The judge wasn't following the law; (B) The prosecutor who was supposed to be representing our interests was utterly unprepared; (C) The opposing lawyer seemed to have unusual influence over, and access to, court personnel; and (D) The opposing party appeared to have no problem lying under oath so that he could get off for a crime that he later confessed to committing. (We later discovered that the opposing party had been convicted for numerous crimes before, so he knew how the system worked. And he probably had little regard for the notion that people are supposed to tell the truth when under oath.)
My guess is that many jurors, after spending several days or weeks getting an up-close view of our justice system, begin to smell something foul about the whole process. They probably don't trust lawyers from one side or the other (or both). They probably sense that some witnesses are blowing copious amounts of smoke. And most alarming of all, they probably think the judge is incompetent, crooked, or both.
The original New York Times report on this subject portrayed it as an alarming development, a sign that rogue jurors are sullying our sacrosanct and honorable "justice" system.
I think it might actually be a positive sign. I think many jurors are saying, "Good God, this whole system is a mess, and it's led by judges who don't appear to be trustworthy. I'm going to use the technology at my disposal to try to see that justice is done."
Perhaps I'm giving these jurors more credit than they deserve. But I think some of them realize that they are the only persons in the whole process, aside from wronged parties, who actually care about justice being served.
If my experience is any guide, those jurors are probably right on target.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
What's the Story With Our Guy Troy?
You are about to read six words I never thought would appear on Legal Schnauzer:
I feel sorry for Troy King.
King is Alabama's attorney general, and as a gold-plated conservative, he is not one to draw much sympathy in progressive circles.
But three kingpins of Alabama's reptilian Republicans--Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary--seem to be ganging up on King.
The situation smells so much of politics that a prominent Alabama journalist is calling for the Eric Holder Justice Department to pay a visit and sort out the mess in Montgomery.
Scott Horton, of Harper's magazine, has a suggestion for the feds should they decide to take a serious look at Alabama:
When they’re finished looking at the mobilization of two U.S. attorneys to deal with an intra-Republican feud, we have some other matters that require their urgent attention: the Siegelman prosecution itself, for instance.
Horton notes that the grand-jury investigation of King seems to be focusing partially on gambling. That's interesting because King has parted ways recently with Riley on gambling-related issues. And, as we've noted several times here at Legal Schnauzer, Riley and his associates are up to their hypocritical necks in conflicts regarding gambling.
Our guess is that Leura Canary is involved only as a smokescreen. Her office in the Middle District of Alabama reportedly has recused itself on matters regarding King, leading Alice Martin and the Northern District to take the lead.
This leads us to believe that the King investigation is all about Martin's career path--or rather lack of one now that Democrats are in charge of the Justice Department, meaning Queen Alice is about to be sent packing.
Regular readers know that we enjoy dabbling in dime-store psychology from time to time, and we can't resist this opportunity to examine the peculiar wiring that exists in Alice Martin's brain.
Our diagnosis of Martin's mindset, and the Troy King investigation, consists of two parts.
One, Martin is a power junkie, who realizes that her supplier--the Republican Party--is out of favor at the moment. Like a heroin addict who doesn't know where his next fix is coming from, Martin is feeling the first signs of withdrawal. She's sensing a little bit of what it's like to be a regular person, one whose job is about to be yanked out from under her--and she doesn't like that feeling. The Troy King investigation, we suspect, is designed to force somebody to appoint Martin to a position that she covets--a judgeship, a political appointment, something that will keep her gargantuan sense of self importance afloat.
The second part of our diagnosis involves the "D" word--desperation. I suspect Martin is a true believer in the Republican snake oil that Karl Rove has been pitching in the Deep South for about 20 years--and to the entire country for the past eight years or so.
Martin--and Bob Riley and Leura Canary, for that matter--probably had no doubt that Rove would usher in a Republican-dominated era that would last 35 years or so. This is what Rove's hero, President William McKinley, did in 1896, and true believers like Martin were counting on Rove to make history repeat itself.
With Republicans dominating far into the future, Martin probably saw herself becoming a federal judge, which is a lifetime appointment with virtually no scrutiny or oversight and . . . by golly, the future looked awfully darned bright.
But Martin and her fellow true believers didn't count on something: They never dreamed that Rove and his Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight--George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld--would be so utterly incompetent at governance that many Americans would recoil in horror. They never dreamed that two wars would go so badly, and the economy would implode to such a degree, that Americans would go running into the arms of a Democrat--a black one at that!
Alice Martin's worldview has been turned upside down, and her future doesn't look so glaringly bright at the moment. My guess is that the wiring in her devious little brain is about to short circuit. And that probably explains her irrational actions, such as a witch hunt against one of her own, Troy King.
King's plight hasn't exactly caused us to shed a tear. But we can't help but feel a hint of sorrow for a guy who seems to be caught in a Triangle of Death formed by three of Alabama's all-time lowlifes.
Should be interesting to see how it plays out
I feel sorry for Troy King.
King is Alabama's attorney general, and as a gold-plated conservative, he is not one to draw much sympathy in progressive circles.
But three kingpins of Alabama's reptilian Republicans--Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary--seem to be ganging up on King.
The situation smells so much of politics that a prominent Alabama journalist is calling for the Eric Holder Justice Department to pay a visit and sort out the mess in Montgomery.
Scott Horton, of Harper's magazine, has a suggestion for the feds should they decide to take a serious look at Alabama:
When they’re finished looking at the mobilization of two U.S. attorneys to deal with an intra-Republican feud, we have some other matters that require their urgent attention: the Siegelman prosecution itself, for instance.
Horton notes that the grand-jury investigation of King seems to be focusing partially on gambling. That's interesting because King has parted ways recently with Riley on gambling-related issues. And, as we've noted several times here at Legal Schnauzer, Riley and his associates are up to their hypocritical necks in conflicts regarding gambling.
Our guess is that Leura Canary is involved only as a smokescreen. Her office in the Middle District of Alabama reportedly has recused itself on matters regarding King, leading Alice Martin and the Northern District to take the lead.
This leads us to believe that the King investigation is all about Martin's career path--or rather lack of one now that Democrats are in charge of the Justice Department, meaning Queen Alice is about to be sent packing.
Regular readers know that we enjoy dabbling in dime-store psychology from time to time, and we can't resist this opportunity to examine the peculiar wiring that exists in Alice Martin's brain.
Our diagnosis of Martin's mindset, and the Troy King investigation, consists of two parts.
One, Martin is a power junkie, who realizes that her supplier--the Republican Party--is out of favor at the moment. Like a heroin addict who doesn't know where his next fix is coming from, Martin is feeling the first signs of withdrawal. She's sensing a little bit of what it's like to be a regular person, one whose job is about to be yanked out from under her--and she doesn't like that feeling. The Troy King investigation, we suspect, is designed to force somebody to appoint Martin to a position that she covets--a judgeship, a political appointment, something that will keep her gargantuan sense of self importance afloat.
The second part of our diagnosis involves the "D" word--desperation. I suspect Martin is a true believer in the Republican snake oil that Karl Rove has been pitching in the Deep South for about 20 years--and to the entire country for the past eight years or so.
Martin--and Bob Riley and Leura Canary, for that matter--probably had no doubt that Rove would usher in a Republican-dominated era that would last 35 years or so. This is what Rove's hero, President William McKinley, did in 1896, and true believers like Martin were counting on Rove to make history repeat itself.
With Republicans dominating far into the future, Martin probably saw herself becoming a federal judge, which is a lifetime appointment with virtually no scrutiny or oversight and . . . by golly, the future looked awfully darned bright.
But Martin and her fellow true believers didn't count on something: They never dreamed that Rove and his Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight--George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld--would be so utterly incompetent at governance that many Americans would recoil in horror. They never dreamed that two wars would go so badly, and the economy would implode to such a degree, that Americans would go running into the arms of a Democrat--a black one at that!
Alice Martin's worldview has been turned upside down, and her future doesn't look so glaringly bright at the moment. My guess is that the wiring in her devious little brain is about to short circuit. And that probably explains her irrational actions, such as a witch hunt against one of her own, Troy King.
King's plight hasn't exactly caused us to shed a tear. But we can't help but feel a hint of sorrow for a guy who seems to be caught in a Triangle of Death formed by three of Alabama's all-time lowlifes.
Should be interesting to see how it plays out
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Birmingham Jury Awards $500,000 in Employment Case
A sheet-metal mechanic who was fired after 25 years on the job has been awarded $500,000 in a discrimination case against a Birmingham aviation company.
Johnny Hawkins, a black man, had been an employee at Alabama Aircraft Industries (formerly Pemco Aviation Group) since 1980. He was fired in 2005 after it was alleged he intimidated and harassed a female employee.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Birmingham deliberated three hours before returning a verdict, which included $250,000 in punitive damages against Alabama Aircraft. Hawkins prevailed on charges of gender and race discrimination, but the jury found against him on a claim of retaliation.
The lawsuit grew from a workplace incident where a female coworker was supposed to be watching out for Hawkins while he worked in a confined space. The woman left for lunch without telling Hawkins, and he later confronted her and said that leaving him unattended was a serious safety violation.
Hawkins complained to the company's human-resources department, but the woman was not disciplined. Meanwhile, the woman complained that Hawkins had touched and intimidated her. That resulted in his termination.
John Saxon, Hawkins' attorney, showed that white men who had admittedly touched or harassed coworkers either got light discipline or none at all.
"Johnny Hawkins was a 25-year veteran of Pemco who tapped a female employee on the shoulder to get her attention to tell her she left him unattended in a confined space, an OSHA violation," Saxon said. "For touching her, he was terminated. Yet white employees hit, grabbed or kicked black employees and received no or light discipline. Not only is that a double standard, it is also discrimination."
Hawkins' retaliation claim apparently was based on the fact that he had been a member of a 1998 class-action discrimination lawsuit against his employer. Based on my research of case law, the retaliation claim probably failed because of the considerable time gap between the 1998 lawsuit and the 2005 termination.
Alabama Aircraft's attorney said the company has modified its policies and instituted annual diversity seminars in order to address issues raised by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The company probably will appeal the Hawkins verdict, attorney Doris Sewell said.
Saxon said the company still has a ways to go on the discrimination front. "Pemco has a checkered past," he said. "They have problems out there."
Johnny Hawkins, a black man, had been an employee at Alabama Aircraft Industries (formerly Pemco Aviation Group) since 1980. He was fired in 2005 after it was alleged he intimidated and harassed a female employee.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Birmingham deliberated three hours before returning a verdict, which included $250,000 in punitive damages against Alabama Aircraft. Hawkins prevailed on charges of gender and race discrimination, but the jury found against him on a claim of retaliation.
The lawsuit grew from a workplace incident where a female coworker was supposed to be watching out for Hawkins while he worked in a confined space. The woman left for lunch without telling Hawkins, and he later confronted her and said that leaving him unattended was a serious safety violation.
Hawkins complained to the company's human-resources department, but the woman was not disciplined. Meanwhile, the woman complained that Hawkins had touched and intimidated her. That resulted in his termination.
John Saxon, Hawkins' attorney, showed that white men who had admittedly touched or harassed coworkers either got light discipline or none at all.
"Johnny Hawkins was a 25-year veteran of Pemco who tapped a female employee on the shoulder to get her attention to tell her she left him unattended in a confined space, an OSHA violation," Saxon said. "For touching her, he was terminated. Yet white employees hit, grabbed or kicked black employees and received no or light discipline. Not only is that a double standard, it is also discrimination."
Hawkins' retaliation claim apparently was based on the fact that he had been a member of a 1998 class-action discrimination lawsuit against his employer. Based on my research of case law, the retaliation claim probably failed because of the considerable time gap between the 1998 lawsuit and the 2005 termination.
Alabama Aircraft's attorney said the company has modified its policies and instituted annual diversity seminars in order to address issues raised by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The company probably will appeal the Hawkins verdict, attorney Doris Sewell said.
Saxon said the company still has a ways to go on the discrimination front. "Pemco has a checkered past," he said. "They have problems out there."
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Reaganomics Leads to Work-Related Tragedies
Was last week's massacre in south Alabama a tragedy that could not have been foreseen? Was it a case of an unstable individual "snapping" in an unpredictable fashion.
Absolutely not, says an expert on workplace violence. In fact, Mark Ames says the rampage that left 11 people dead was the predictable result of workplace policies that for almost 30 years have favored managers and investors over workers and wage earners.
Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond. He says many blue-collar workers have seen their wages stagnate and their rights erode since Reaganomics was instituted in 1980.
Michael McLendon, the gunman who killed 10 people in three small south-Alabama towns before committing suicide, was one such worker. The public should not be surprised when people like McLendon strike back, Ames says. They've been doing it consistently for 20-plus years:
The killing spree in Alabama fits a well-worn pattern of workplace-driven massacres that we've seen since the "going postal" phenomenon exploded in the middle of the Reagan revolution.
In spite of the fact that these killings have gone on unabated for over 20 years, most of the country doesn't want to know why they're happening--least of all the people in power.
If we study the motive for Michael McLendon's shooting rampage Tuesday, which left 11 bodies across three towns in southern Alabama, and we look at the bizarre way that the causes of the shooting are being hushed up, you begin to understand why this uniquely-Reaganomics-inspired crime started in the United States, and continues to plague us.
Ames notes the curious actions of investigators in the Alabama case. Last Wednesday night, officials announced they had discovered the motive and would announce it on Thursday morning. But then something strange happened, Ames reports:
Alabama investigators completely reversed themselves: They were now claiming there was no way to find out the motive for the killings, and in fact, no motive ever existed in the first place.
"There's probably never going to be a motive," Trooper Kevin Cook, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Public Safety, said Thursday.
Even the list that provided so many obvious clues as to what sparked the shooting is now no longer the "hit list" or list of people who had "done him wrong," but rather, "the kind of list you'd put on a magnet on the refrigerator door."
Just the day before, Cook discussed motive and pointed to a lawsuit that McLendon's mother had pending against Pilgrim's Pride, a large chicken-processing company. But on Thursday, officials abruptly closed the investigation and sent almost the entire team home, Ames reports:
This raises a new question: What was it about McLendon's motive that officials wanted hushed? Or better yet: What did Pilgrim's Pride do that could have incited a man described by all as nice, quiet and respectful to unleash a bloody killing spree?
Ames compares McLendon to Joe Wesbecker, who worked at a printing company in Louisville, Kentucky, in the late 1980s. Both men were relentlessly harassed in the workplace, even acquiring the same nickname--"Doughboy." Wesbecker was locked in an ongoing labor dispute with his company and finally cracked on September 14, 1989, unleashing America's first massacre in a private workplace.
As for McLendon, he worked two years at Pilgrim's Pride. And here's how Ames describes the company in recent times:
In 2006, Pilgrim's Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who's been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation's No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week.
That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: They made the workforce pay for the executives' mistakes. That meant squeezing them for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim's case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride accusing them of grossly undercompensating their employees.
This all hit McLendon in a personal way:
In 2006, the year of the acquisition, McLendon and his mother filed lawsuits and claims against the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Enterprise, Ala., charging the company with illegally denying them pay for the time it takes for workers to get suited up for the dangerous factory lines, and the time to take the protective gear off. Pilgrim's Pride had decided to stop classifying that time at the job as "work," now that they had a bunch of Wall Street bondholders to pay off. Other lawsuits also allege that the company forced workers to work overtime but only paid them regular hourly wages.
Pilgrim's Pride went on to declare "voluntary bankruptcy," placing the company in a strong position to fight all the lawsuits against it.
Then one week before the massacre, Pilgrim's Pride suspended McLendon's mother, 52-year-old Lisa McLendon, from her job. What was she suspended for? Here's how Ames describes it:
This is where the corporate sadism gets surreal: According to one report, she was suspended for overstating her work hours on her time card. In other words, given her lawsuit (now no longer such a threat to Pilgrim's while it is "restructuring" under American courts), she very likely decided she couldn't wait for the courts anymore and decided to clock in her time spent putting on and taking off the required protective gear.
Were the actions by Pilgrim's Pride legal? Nope. Is it likely the company cared? Nope:
Suspending her in such a case would be a classic example of illegal corporate retribution against a worker with a labor dispute--but what can a small-town Alabama hick do, with so little money and only so much resources, against a many-headed corporate beast like Pilgrim's Pride? The fact that Michael McLendon had the names of so many lawyers written down on lists in a spiral notebook shows that he tried going the legal route, but I mean, really, who's fooling whom? You think a small-town Alabama chicken-plucker has a chance in hell of fighting these oligarchs in the courts?
Ames provides important perspective on the tragic story of Michael McLendon:
So now we can go back to the question of motive, a question that Alabama investigators are running away from: rapacious corporations that cheat their workers and plunder the company wealth, a systematic bullying that extends all the way down to the way workers treat each other, and the sadism in the way they treat the chickens. It's a snapshot of a vicious law-of-the-jungle world, and yet it's just plain flat reality for most Americans.
Put in this context, McLendon seems a lot less like a maniac, and more like a victim of maniacs, who finally snapped and lashed out--killing many of the "wrong" people, although judging by his list and what authorities had said earlier, he had plans to kill the right people, too.
Absolutely not, says an expert on workplace violence. In fact, Mark Ames says the rampage that left 11 people dead was the predictable result of workplace policies that for almost 30 years have favored managers and investors over workers and wage earners.
Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond. He says many blue-collar workers have seen their wages stagnate and their rights erode since Reaganomics was instituted in 1980.
Michael McLendon, the gunman who killed 10 people in three small south-Alabama towns before committing suicide, was one such worker. The public should not be surprised when people like McLendon strike back, Ames says. They've been doing it consistently for 20-plus years:
The killing spree in Alabama fits a well-worn pattern of workplace-driven massacres that we've seen since the "going postal" phenomenon exploded in the middle of the Reagan revolution.
In spite of the fact that these killings have gone on unabated for over 20 years, most of the country doesn't want to know why they're happening--least of all the people in power.
If we study the motive for Michael McLendon's shooting rampage Tuesday, which left 11 bodies across three towns in southern Alabama, and we look at the bizarre way that the causes of the shooting are being hushed up, you begin to understand why this uniquely-Reaganomics-inspired crime started in the United States, and continues to plague us.
Ames notes the curious actions of investigators in the Alabama case. Last Wednesday night, officials announced they had discovered the motive and would announce it on Thursday morning. But then something strange happened, Ames reports:
Alabama investigators completely reversed themselves: They were now claiming there was no way to find out the motive for the killings, and in fact, no motive ever existed in the first place.
"There's probably never going to be a motive," Trooper Kevin Cook, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Public Safety, said Thursday.
Even the list that provided so many obvious clues as to what sparked the shooting is now no longer the "hit list" or list of people who had "done him wrong," but rather, "the kind of list you'd put on a magnet on the refrigerator door."
Just the day before, Cook discussed motive and pointed to a lawsuit that McLendon's mother had pending against Pilgrim's Pride, a large chicken-processing company. But on Thursday, officials abruptly closed the investigation and sent almost the entire team home, Ames reports:
This raises a new question: What was it about McLendon's motive that officials wanted hushed? Or better yet: What did Pilgrim's Pride do that could have incited a man described by all as nice, quiet and respectful to unleash a bloody killing spree?
Ames compares McLendon to Joe Wesbecker, who worked at a printing company in Louisville, Kentucky, in the late 1980s. Both men were relentlessly harassed in the workplace, even acquiring the same nickname--"Doughboy." Wesbecker was locked in an ongoing labor dispute with his company and finally cracked on September 14, 1989, unleashing America's first massacre in a private workplace.
As for McLendon, he worked two years at Pilgrim's Pride. And here's how Ames describes the company in recent times:
In 2006, Pilgrim's Pride, then the second-largest chicken processor in the world, made a huge gamble that will seem familiar to anyone who's been following the financial crash: the company borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars, leveraging itself well beyond its means, in order to acquire a rival company and become the nation's No. 1 chicken processor, slaughtering 45 million chickens per week.
That might have given the executives a nice, big hard-on, but it also meant they would have to come up with more money to pay for all that debt. So the company did do what every post-Reagan company has done and gotten away with: They made the workforce pay for the executives' mistakes. That meant squeezing them for more work for less pay, or in Pilgrim's case, more work for no pay: In August 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Pilgrim's Pride accusing them of grossly undercompensating their employees.
This all hit McLendon in a personal way:
In 2006, the year of the acquisition, McLendon and his mother filed lawsuits and claims against the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Enterprise, Ala., charging the company with illegally denying them pay for the time it takes for workers to get suited up for the dangerous factory lines, and the time to take the protective gear off. Pilgrim's Pride had decided to stop classifying that time at the job as "work," now that they had a bunch of Wall Street bondholders to pay off. Other lawsuits also allege that the company forced workers to work overtime but only paid them regular hourly wages.
Pilgrim's Pride went on to declare "voluntary bankruptcy," placing the company in a strong position to fight all the lawsuits against it.
Then one week before the massacre, Pilgrim's Pride suspended McLendon's mother, 52-year-old Lisa McLendon, from her job. What was she suspended for? Here's how Ames describes it:
This is where the corporate sadism gets surreal: According to one report, she was suspended for overstating her work hours on her time card. In other words, given her lawsuit (now no longer such a threat to Pilgrim's while it is "restructuring" under American courts), she very likely decided she couldn't wait for the courts anymore and decided to clock in her time spent putting on and taking off the required protective gear.
Were the actions by Pilgrim's Pride legal? Nope. Is it likely the company cared? Nope:
Suspending her in such a case would be a classic example of illegal corporate retribution against a worker with a labor dispute--but what can a small-town Alabama hick do, with so little money and only so much resources, against a many-headed corporate beast like Pilgrim's Pride? The fact that Michael McLendon had the names of so many lawyers written down on lists in a spiral notebook shows that he tried going the legal route, but I mean, really, who's fooling whom? You think a small-town Alabama chicken-plucker has a chance in hell of fighting these oligarchs in the courts?
Ames provides important perspective on the tragic story of Michael McLendon:
So now we can go back to the question of motive, a question that Alabama investigators are running away from: rapacious corporations that cheat their workers and plunder the company wealth, a systematic bullying that extends all the way down to the way workers treat each other, and the sadism in the way they treat the chickens. It's a snapshot of a vicious law-of-the-jungle world, and yet it's just plain flat reality for most Americans.
Put in this context, McLendon seems a lot less like a maniac, and more like a victim of maniacs, who finally snapped and lashed out--killing many of the "wrong" people, although judging by his list and what authorities had said earlier, he had plans to kill the right people, too.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Obama Aide Provides Cover for Rumsfeld, Rove & Co.
Why does President Barack Obama continue to embrace many Bush Administration policies related to justice and the war on terrorism? It's probably because Obama's White House counsel has myriad conflicts related to the Bush administration, says an Alabama lawyer who played a pivotal role as whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case.
The most recent curious move by Obama officials came when the Department of Justice filed a brief renewing the government's motion to dismiss Rasul v. Rumsfeld, in which plaintiffs allege that former Bush defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was responsible for their torture.
This continues an alarming trend of Obama embracing policies that he appeared to criticize on the campaign trail, reports Scott Horton of Harper's.
How could this happen? How could the president of "hope" and "change" agree on important issues with George W. Bush? Alabama attorney Jill Simpson points a finger at White House Counsel Greg Craig.
In the days leading up to her testimony before a Congressional committee about the Siegelman case, Simpson had extensive interactions with Craig. He expressed interest in representing her but wound up declining, citing a conflict involving U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). Simpson has since learned of Craig's connections to Karl Rove and expressed her concerns that Craig might have taken privileged information gleaned from her and shared it with Rove or others.
Craig played a central role in negotiations that resulted in Rove being allowed to provide testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in a non-public setting. Now, Simpson says, Craig appears to be helping to provide cover for Rumsfeld.
Why? It could be because Rumsfeld is represented by Craig's former firm, Williams & Connolly. In fact, Simpson says, Rumsfeld, Rove, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush all are represented by Williams & Connolly.
"I think (this) knowledge will help everyone understand why we are not moving away from the Bush agenda on torture and punishing those guilty of war crimes . . . ," Simpson says. "After you realize (the Williams & Connolly connections), I think you will understand why the DOJ and the White House are siding with these folks in the torture cases, when clearly the law says something completely different."
Should citizens step back and allow Craig free reign in the Obama White House? Definitely not, says Simpson.
"Something must be done, and I hope every American becomes aware of this matter. We are losing our world standing over our support of torture, and Obama promised to do the right thing. But (recent information) coming out of the White House suggests he has made a U turn on his promises.
"If Craig is encouraging Obama to side with his old firm's clients, then President Obama must fire Greg Craig."
Craig's influence does not stop with Obama, Simpson says. It might extend to Attorney General Eric Holder.
"Mr. Holder has also been a client of Williams & Connolly and may be listening to Greg Craig as well.
"It is amazing to me that a lawyer from a firm that represents President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld would ever be picked to be the chief legal counsel for President Obama, a Democrat.
"I have to wonder about the vetting, but then again the press has said that somehow Greg Craig was in charge of that. I just wonder if President Obama had anyone vet the vetter when he selected Greg Craig."
The most recent curious move by Obama officials came when the Department of Justice filed a brief renewing the government's motion to dismiss Rasul v. Rumsfeld, in which plaintiffs allege that former Bush defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was responsible for their torture.
This continues an alarming trend of Obama embracing policies that he appeared to criticize on the campaign trail, reports Scott Horton of Harper's.
How could this happen? How could the president of "hope" and "change" agree on important issues with George W. Bush? Alabama attorney Jill Simpson points a finger at White House Counsel Greg Craig.
In the days leading up to her testimony before a Congressional committee about the Siegelman case, Simpson had extensive interactions with Craig. He expressed interest in representing her but wound up declining, citing a conflict involving U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). Simpson has since learned of Craig's connections to Karl Rove and expressed her concerns that Craig might have taken privileged information gleaned from her and shared it with Rove or others.
Craig played a central role in negotiations that resulted in Rove being allowed to provide testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in a non-public setting. Now, Simpson says, Craig appears to be helping to provide cover for Rumsfeld.
Why? It could be because Rumsfeld is represented by Craig's former firm, Williams & Connolly. In fact, Simpson says, Rumsfeld, Rove, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush all are represented by Williams & Connolly.
"I think (this) knowledge will help everyone understand why we are not moving away from the Bush agenda on torture and punishing those guilty of war crimes . . . ," Simpson says. "After you realize (the Williams & Connolly connections), I think you will understand why the DOJ and the White House are siding with these folks in the torture cases, when clearly the law says something completely different."
Should citizens step back and allow Craig free reign in the Obama White House? Definitely not, says Simpson.
"Something must be done, and I hope every American becomes aware of this matter. We are losing our world standing over our support of torture, and Obama promised to do the right thing. But (recent information) coming out of the White House suggests he has made a U turn on his promises.
"If Craig is encouraging Obama to side with his old firm's clients, then President Obama must fire Greg Craig."
Craig's influence does not stop with Obama, Simpson says. It might extend to Attorney General Eric Holder.
"Mr. Holder has also been a client of Williams & Connolly and may be listening to Greg Craig as well.
"It is amazing to me that a lawyer from a firm that represents President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld would ever be picked to be the chief legal counsel for President Obama, a Democrat.
"I have to wonder about the vetting, but then again the press has said that somehow Greg Craig was in charge of that. I just wonder if President Obama had anyone vet the vetter when he selected Greg Craig."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Facing A Corrupt Judge: Been There, Done That
A West Virginia case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court asks this fundamental question: Is a person's right to due process violated when he appears in court before a judge who has benefitted from the financial backing of the opposing party?
Put more bluntly, do we have a right to expect that the judge handling our case isn't "bought and paid for" by the other side?
You might think the US of A is beyond such questions in 2009. But you would be wrong. Hugh Caperton, owner of Harman Mining in West Virginia, knows it. And I know it, too.
Our cases involved different issues and vastly different sums of money, but Caperton and I have one thing in common: We've both heard tales of interesting trips judges take on their vacations.
My personal experiences with what amount to "kept judges" in Alabama led me to start this blog. Hugh Caperton's experiences with kept judges in West Virginia led him to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.
My case involved several thousand dollars, and Caperton's involved tens of millions of dollars. But I've walked in Caperton's shoes. And we both have learned a hard fact about American life: Corrupt judges violate due-process rights all the time. Oral arguments in Caperton v. Massey indicate that Antonin Scalia and his conservative brethren on the U.S. Supreme Court want to keep it that way.
The Washington Post and other mainstream press outlets have done a solid job of reporting the issues Hugh Caperton faced. My case has received considerably less press attention, and the careful reader might ask, "Hey Schnauzer, how did you get screwed?"
Here is one of many posts I've written that lay out the details.
What about those interesting vacations that judges take? In West Virginia, the state supreme court overturned a $50-million verdict in favor of Caperton and Harman Mining. Not long after that, pictures surfaced of one of the justices vacationing in the French Riviera with the CEO of . . . Massey Coal. Curiously, the justice had voted against Harman and for Massey. Gee, can't imagine why he would do that.
Sources tell Legal Schnauzer that similar antics take place in Shelby County, Alabama, where my case originated before circuit judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves. Our sources say certain "local counsel" in Shelby County take the judges on excursions to Alaska--and the attorneys who foot the bill for these ventures in the wild tend to do quite well before the judges.
Imagine that!
In fact, one attorney based in Jefferson County (where Birmingham is located) said he had an estate-related case coming up in Shelby County against one of the lawyers who paid for the Alaska trip. "They brought a baseless case against my clients, but I don't know how I'm going to win it because the other lawyer takes the judges to Alaska."
As for the case in West Virginia, the attorney for Massey Coal used oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the air with high-minded rhetoric. He said our system is built on the "presumption" that judges are impartial.
But there is a huge gap between that presumption and real life in America's courtrooms.
Here's how Caperton's attorney, Theodore Olson, put it:
"The thing I ask people is: 'If you had an important case coming up and your opponent gave $3 million to elect the judge who was going to decide it, would you think that was fair?'" Olson said. "I haven't met a person yet who thinks that's fair."
Olson isn't likely to ever meet anyone who thinks that is fair. But don't be surprised if our current Supreme Court leaves such a flawed system in place.
Put more bluntly, do we have a right to expect that the judge handling our case isn't "bought and paid for" by the other side?
You might think the US of A is beyond such questions in 2009. But you would be wrong. Hugh Caperton, owner of Harman Mining in West Virginia, knows it. And I know it, too.
Our cases involved different issues and vastly different sums of money, but Caperton and I have one thing in common: We've both heard tales of interesting trips judges take on their vacations.
My personal experiences with what amount to "kept judges" in Alabama led me to start this blog. Hugh Caperton's experiences with kept judges in West Virginia led him to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.
My case involved several thousand dollars, and Caperton's involved tens of millions of dollars. But I've walked in Caperton's shoes. And we both have learned a hard fact about American life: Corrupt judges violate due-process rights all the time. Oral arguments in Caperton v. Massey indicate that Antonin Scalia and his conservative brethren on the U.S. Supreme Court want to keep it that way.
The Washington Post and other mainstream press outlets have done a solid job of reporting the issues Hugh Caperton faced. My case has received considerably less press attention, and the careful reader might ask, "Hey Schnauzer, how did you get screwed?"
Here is one of many posts I've written that lay out the details.
What about those interesting vacations that judges take? In West Virginia, the state supreme court overturned a $50-million verdict in favor of Caperton and Harman Mining. Not long after that, pictures surfaced of one of the justices vacationing in the French Riviera with the CEO of . . . Massey Coal. Curiously, the justice had voted against Harman and for Massey. Gee, can't imagine why he would do that.
Sources tell Legal Schnauzer that similar antics take place in Shelby County, Alabama, where my case originated before circuit judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves. Our sources say certain "local counsel" in Shelby County take the judges on excursions to Alaska--and the attorneys who foot the bill for these ventures in the wild tend to do quite well before the judges.
Imagine that!
In fact, one attorney based in Jefferson County (where Birmingham is located) said he had an estate-related case coming up in Shelby County against one of the lawyers who paid for the Alaska trip. "They brought a baseless case against my clients, but I don't know how I'm going to win it because the other lawyer takes the judges to Alaska."
As for the case in West Virginia, the attorney for Massey Coal used oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the air with high-minded rhetoric. He said our system is built on the "presumption" that judges are impartial.
But there is a huge gap between that presumption and real life in America's courtrooms.
Here's how Caperton's attorney, Theodore Olson, put it:
"The thing I ask people is: 'If you had an important case coming up and your opponent gave $3 million to elect the judge who was going to decide it, would you think that was fair?'" Olson said. "I haven't met a person yet who thinks that's fair."
Olson isn't likely to ever meet anyone who thinks that is fair. But don't be surprised if our current Supreme Court leaves such a flawed system in place.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Troy King Spills Some Beans On Justice Issues
In responding to reports that he is the focus of a federal grand-jury investigation, Alabama Attorney General Troy King surely meant only to defend himself and perhaps send a message that he is not overly concerned.
But King inadvertently sent a different kind of message, becoming the most high-profile Southern Republican to acknowledge that maybe justice has not been so blind under Bush-appointed prosecutors.
King is a gold-plated Republican, and the political world in Alabama remains abuzz over the motivations behind the grand-jury probe. King was appointed by Governor Bob Riley and has worked closely with U.S. Attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary. But now King finds himself in the same cross hairs that, for the past eight years, have almost exclusively been trained on Democrats, such as Don Siegelman and Sue Schmitz.
In an updated article by reporter Bob Gambacurta, posted today on the Web site of the Montgomery Independent, King was asked about the possibility that the investigation was driven by politics.
King clearly is familiar with how his fellow Alabama Republicans operate. So did he discount the idea that they could be motivated by politics? Not exactly:
"Obviously you talked to people and you know a lot more about what may or may not be going on that I do," King told the Independent. "But I certainly hope it's not political. If it's not political, then I don't guess I have any reason to be concerned."
King easily could have said something like, "I know Alice Martin, Leura Canary, and Bob Riley well, and I have the utmost respect for their professionalism. I am confident that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing. But I also know that my Republican colleagues will consider only the facts and the law involved. No way politics is involved in this."
That's not quite what our guy Troy said. In fact, in a general way, King seems to be agreeing with fellow Alabama Republican Jill Simpson, the whistleblower in the Siegelman case. Simpson has sworn under oath that the federal justice apparatus in Alabama has been riven with political motivations under the Bush administration.
Now you have another GOP insider pretty much saying, "Yep, she might have been right about that all along."
Of course, King was more than happy to stay silent as long as Democrats were the targets. But now that his conservative fanny is the target, he seems to be saying, "You know, this political prosecution business isn't as much fun as it used to be. I think we need to take a look at it."
Way to show some political courage, Troy.
On the surface, Gambacurta reports, the grand-jury investigation seems to be focusing on three areas: gambling, selective prosecutions, and conflict of interests.
Can you imagine Alice Martin accusing someone of conducting selective prosecutions? What a scream.
Gambacurta clearly suspects that issues other than law and order are in play. He notes that King has made his share of political enemies, including the governor who appointed him--and the governor's omnipresent son:
King was originally appointed Attorney General by Gov. Bob Riley in 2004, but King's perceived lack of loyalty to the governor is said to have angered Riley and his influential son, Rob Riley. Recently, Riley formed a special anti-gambling task force to root-out illegal bingo operations in the state and left King and his staff out of the loop.
But King inadvertently sent a different kind of message, becoming the most high-profile Southern Republican to acknowledge that maybe justice has not been so blind under Bush-appointed prosecutors.
King is a gold-plated Republican, and the political world in Alabama remains abuzz over the motivations behind the grand-jury probe. King was appointed by Governor Bob Riley and has worked closely with U.S. Attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary. But now King finds himself in the same cross hairs that, for the past eight years, have almost exclusively been trained on Democrats, such as Don Siegelman and Sue Schmitz.
In an updated article by reporter Bob Gambacurta, posted today on the Web site of the Montgomery Independent, King was asked about the possibility that the investigation was driven by politics.
King clearly is familiar with how his fellow Alabama Republicans operate. So did he discount the idea that they could be motivated by politics? Not exactly:
"Obviously you talked to people and you know a lot more about what may or may not be going on that I do," King told the Independent. "But I certainly hope it's not political. If it's not political, then I don't guess I have any reason to be concerned."
King easily could have said something like, "I know Alice Martin, Leura Canary, and Bob Riley well, and I have the utmost respect for their professionalism. I am confident that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing. But I also know that my Republican colleagues will consider only the facts and the law involved. No way politics is involved in this."
That's not quite what our guy Troy said. In fact, in a general way, King seems to be agreeing with fellow Alabama Republican Jill Simpson, the whistleblower in the Siegelman case. Simpson has sworn under oath that the federal justice apparatus in Alabama has been riven with political motivations under the Bush administration.
Now you have another GOP insider pretty much saying, "Yep, she might have been right about that all along."
Of course, King was more than happy to stay silent as long as Democrats were the targets. But now that his conservative fanny is the target, he seems to be saying, "You know, this political prosecution business isn't as much fun as it used to be. I think we need to take a look at it."
Way to show some political courage, Troy.
On the surface, Gambacurta reports, the grand-jury investigation seems to be focusing on three areas: gambling, selective prosecutions, and conflict of interests.
Can you imagine Alice Martin accusing someone of conducting selective prosecutions? What a scream.
Gambacurta clearly suspects that issues other than law and order are in play. He notes that King has made his share of political enemies, including the governor who appointed him--and the governor's omnipresent son:
King was originally appointed Attorney General by Gov. Bob Riley in 2004, but King's perceived lack of loyalty to the governor is said to have angered Riley and his influential son, Rob Riley. Recently, Riley formed a special anti-gambling task force to root-out illegal bingo operations in the state and left King and his staff out of the loop.
Perhaps King just knows that the Rileys are huge hypocrites on gambling, and he has grown tired of playing along with their sanctimonious games.
Montgomery businessman John W. Goff, another one-time Riley booster, became the subject of a federal investigation after he sued the governor and sought information about Riley's connections to Jack Abramoff and Mississippi Choctaw gaming money.
King has publicly disagreed with Riley on gambling issues, and now he is the subject of a federal investigation.
I'm starting to see a pattern here.
The King story has attracted national attention, with Raw Story's Muriel Kane reporting that a number of political bloggers were not surprised to learn of the investigation. Kane notes that rumors of unethical practices and sexual peccadilloes have swirled around King for some time.
The rumors surrounding one King staffer, 24-year-old John W. Godwin, have been particularly appetizing:
Last July, however, even more scandalous rumors began circulating, claiming that the religiously conservative and overtly homophobic King had been caught by his wife in bed with a male aide. These rumors were fueled in part by a Birmingham News article headed "AG King boosts top aides salaries," which reported:
"Not receiving raises has not been a problem for another King employee—24-year-old John W. Godwin. Godwin started working in the attorneys general office as an unpaid intern last summer, when he was a senior at Troy University. Shortly after arriving in Kings office, Godwin was put on the payroll at $10 an hour. Over the next nine months, Godwin rapidly ascended the ladder. In July 2007, King appointed him as a special administrative assistant earning $39,456 a year. He completed his degree in broadcast journalism in December, and on March 27 was named to his current title of executive assistant, a job paying $57,504 annually, according to state records. . . .
For the next several days, rumors of King's impending resignation flew around the Internet. King refused to comment on the story either way and the rumors gradually died down. However, they were reignited in October, when it was reported that King was preparing to run for re-election as attorney general in 2010--rather than for governor, as had been anticipated--raised suspicions that his political prospects had been been damaged by the scandal.
What's the real motivation behind the King investigation? That remains unclear. But by tacitly admitting that the Bush Justice Department might conduct a political prosecution in Alabama, King is a Republican who has confirmed what many of us suspected all along.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Finebaum and The Schnauzer Team Up on UAB Athletics Story
Your humble blogger appeared on the Paul Finebaum Radio Network yesterday afternoon to discuss the evolving story of a possible NCAA investigation of the men's basketball program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
You can hear the conversation by going to the Finebaum Web site, scrolling to the Daily Show Downloads for 3/11 and clicking on Hour No. 2.
Finebaum's show long has enjoyed stellar ratings, and he has been hailed as the most influential sports show host in the Southeast. Sports Illustrated labeled the Finebaum show one of the top 12 sports shows in the country.
On a personal note, Paul and I go back a long way. We've been friends for almost 30 years and worked together for 11 years at the late Birmingham Post-Herald. We joined forces on several big stories, including an award-winning piece on the recruitment of former University of Alabama basketball star Buck Johnson.
The public often sees the bombastic, critical side of Finebaum. But I know him as a nice guy and good friend. Heck, he even drove me home from the oral surgeon's office and checked in on me regularly after I had my wisdom teeth removed many years ago.
I had the pleasure of meeting Paul's late mother several times, and she was a real trip and a genuine character. Mrs. Finebaum was a voracious reader and had a keen mind and sharp wit, with a serious New York influence.
She also was a big sports fan and loved Gene Bartow, who led Memphis State to the NCAA Final Four and later would start the athletics program at UAB.
I can remember her fixing us lunch one day at the Finebaum home in Memphis and saying, "Rahjah, have some mustahd."
"No thanks, Mrs. Finebaum, I don't need any mustard."
"Rahjah, I said have some mustahd."
"Oh OK, on second thought, mustard sounds good," I said.
I had some mustard. And I enjoyed it.
I often hear people compare Finebaum to various talk-show hosts. But I know that the biggest influence on his career has been Gloria Finebaum. Listen closely to his show, and you can hear her influence in most every syllable.
For good measure, Finebaum played a major role in introducing me to the young woman who would become Mrs. Schnauzer.
The Bomber and the Schnauzer know how to work a story, and we're going to be working the UAB story in the coming days.
You can hear the conversation by going to the Finebaum Web site, scrolling to the Daily Show Downloads for 3/11 and clicking on Hour No. 2.
Finebaum's show long has enjoyed stellar ratings, and he has been hailed as the most influential sports show host in the Southeast. Sports Illustrated labeled the Finebaum show one of the top 12 sports shows in the country.
On a personal note, Paul and I go back a long way. We've been friends for almost 30 years and worked together for 11 years at the late Birmingham Post-Herald. We joined forces on several big stories, including an award-winning piece on the recruitment of former University of Alabama basketball star Buck Johnson.
The public often sees the bombastic, critical side of Finebaum. But I know him as a nice guy and good friend. Heck, he even drove me home from the oral surgeon's office and checked in on me regularly after I had my wisdom teeth removed many years ago.
I had the pleasure of meeting Paul's late mother several times, and she was a real trip and a genuine character. Mrs. Finebaum was a voracious reader and had a keen mind and sharp wit, with a serious New York influence.
She also was a big sports fan and loved Gene Bartow, who led Memphis State to the NCAA Final Four and later would start the athletics program at UAB.
I can remember her fixing us lunch one day at the Finebaum home in Memphis and saying, "Rahjah, have some mustahd."
"No thanks, Mrs. Finebaum, I don't need any mustard."
"Rahjah, I said have some mustahd."
"Oh OK, on second thought, mustard sounds good," I said.
I had some mustard. And I enjoyed it.
I often hear people compare Finebaum to various talk-show hosts. But I know that the biggest influence on his career has been Gloria Finebaum. Listen closely to his show, and you can hear her influence in most every syllable.
For good measure, Finebaum played a major role in introducing me to the young woman who would become Mrs. Schnauzer.
The Bomber and the Schnauzer know how to work a story, and we're going to be working the UAB story in the coming days.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Trouble Might Be Brewing for UAB Athletics
We've written several times recently about a variety of problems at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), my former employer.
Now it looks like the university's most high-profile endeavor--the men's basketball program--might be facing an NCAA investigation.
Paul Finebaum, a Birmingham-based journalist and talk-radio host, reports today that UAB is about to receive an official letter of inquiry regarding alleged academic fraud. I was a guest on the Finebaum Show today and discussed the developing UAB story. We will provide a link to that conversation shortly.
Sources have told Legal Schnauzer that the inquiry dates to the end of Coach Mike Anderson's tenure (he's now at Missouri) and the arrival of current coach Mike Davis. NCAA investigators reportedly have visited with one of Davis' close personal associates.
The day got off to a rough start for UAB with reports that an arrest warrant had been issued for former football standout Will Dunbar. One of the Blazers' leading tacklers in recent seasons, Dunbar is charged with failing to register as a sex offender. In 2004, Dunbar was convicted of aggravated sodomy and rape of a 16-year-old girl in Fulton County, Georgia.
UAB is best known for its academic medical center. But because of the nature of sports, nothing has spread the university's name like the successful men's basketball program started in 1978 by former UCLA Coach Gene Bartow.
The brewing problems in athletics are just the latest of several storms that have developed on the campus under the leadership of President Carol Garrison. Others include:
* Numerous human-resources problems, including a number of lawsuits involving veteran faculty and staff members;
* Rampant research fraud that, according to court documents, was mostly covered up by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, a George W. Bush appointee;
* UAB employees using state-owned equipment to send racist and homophobic e-mail messages, apparently with little or no punishment;
* The curious exit of UAB's human-resources director for what appears to be a lesser job at Wake Forest.
Also, Finebaum has publicly chided Garrison for her role in a scandal that resulted in the resignation of former University of Tennessee President John Shumaker.
Shumaker repaid UT some $30,000 for using the university airplane to make personal trips to Birmingham to visit Garrison. The two had worked together at the University of Louisville, and Shumaker's wife filed for divorce just as he was starting at UT.
Shumaker and Garrison shared a hotel room for three days at a conference in San Antonio, and Shumaker lied about the arrangement to Tennessee officials.
Now it looks like the university's most high-profile endeavor--the men's basketball program--might be facing an NCAA investigation.
Paul Finebaum, a Birmingham-based journalist and talk-radio host, reports today that UAB is about to receive an official letter of inquiry regarding alleged academic fraud. I was a guest on the Finebaum Show today and discussed the developing UAB story. We will provide a link to that conversation shortly.
Sources have told Legal Schnauzer that the inquiry dates to the end of Coach Mike Anderson's tenure (he's now at Missouri) and the arrival of current coach Mike Davis. NCAA investigators reportedly have visited with one of Davis' close personal associates.
The day got off to a rough start for UAB with reports that an arrest warrant had been issued for former football standout Will Dunbar. One of the Blazers' leading tacklers in recent seasons, Dunbar is charged with failing to register as a sex offender. In 2004, Dunbar was convicted of aggravated sodomy and rape of a 16-year-old girl in Fulton County, Georgia.
UAB is best known for its academic medical center. But because of the nature of sports, nothing has spread the university's name like the successful men's basketball program started in 1978 by former UCLA Coach Gene Bartow.
The brewing problems in athletics are just the latest of several storms that have developed on the campus under the leadership of President Carol Garrison. Others include:
* Numerous human-resources problems, including a number of lawsuits involving veteran faculty and staff members;
* Rampant research fraud that, according to court documents, was mostly covered up by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, a George W. Bush appointee;
* UAB employees using state-owned equipment to send racist and homophobic e-mail messages, apparently with little or no punishment;
* The curious exit of UAB's human-resources director for what appears to be a lesser job at Wake Forest.
Also, Finebaum has publicly chided Garrison for her role in a scandal that resulted in the resignation of former University of Tennessee President John Shumaker.
Shumaker repaid UT some $30,000 for using the university airplane to make personal trips to Birmingham to visit Garrison. The two had worked together at the University of Louisville, and Shumaker's wife filed for divorce just as he was starting at UT.
Shumaker and Garrison shared a hotel room for three days at a conference in San Antonio, and Shumaker lied about the arrangement to Tennessee officials.
Buying Judges: Supreme Court Should Have Focused on Alabama
Can you believe that there is a debate in this country about whether it is OK to buy judges?
Just check out recent coverage about Caperton v. Massey, a West Virginia case now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Caperton boils down to this question: Is it OK for someone to buy a judge on a state supreme court? More specifically, is it OK for a donor to spend several million dollars to help elect a judge and then have that judge vote to overturn a jury verdict against the donor?
The frightening answer is that, as of now, it is perfectly fine--and right wingers on the U.S. Supreme Court apparently want to keep it that way.
And get this: The West Virginia case is not the most egregious case of business interests buying appellate judges. That "honor" almost certainly belongs to Alabama.
Reporter Gretchen Mae Stone of the Charleston (WVa) State Journal has written an excellent overview of the Caperton case. The West Virginia case attracted our attention in February 2008.
Here are the basics: Harman Mining, owned by Hugh Caperton, won a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal Co. on claims that Massey had taken unlawful steps to run Harman out of business. The judgment twice was reversed by the West Virginia Supreme Court. After the first reversal, photos turned up of the chief justice vacationing on the French Riviera with the CEO of Massey. The justice, Elliott Maynard, had ruled for Massey in the first case. Hmmm, wonder why he ruled for Massey.
On the second reversal, the deciding vote came from Justice Brent Benjamin, who won his seat with the help of $3 million spent by the CEO of . . . Massey Coal.
Fortunately for folks who care about justice, Hugh Caperton has a spine. And he took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it.
At recent oral arguments, conservatives on the court, led by Antonin Scalia, appeared to side with Massey. Liberals and moderates appeared to side with Caperton. Scalia argued that the court should not be "adopting out of nowhere" a position that the appearance of bias is enough to violate a party's right to due process.
Scalia conveniently sidesteps this inconvenient truth: Most states have recusal standards that state the appearance of bias is to be avoided. The Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics state, "A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety."
Is there an appearance of impropriety when a judge benefits from huge sums of money spent by a party and then overturns a jury verdict against that party? The "reasonable man" who is so famous in legal circles surely would say yes.
As the National Law Journal points out, however, state judicial canons are widely unenforced, particularly at the appellate level.
If Governor Bob Riley had the kind of spine that Hugh Caperton possesses, an Alabama case on this very issue might be headed toward the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, a case in our state involving oil giant ExxonMobil makes the Caperton case look like a warm-up act.
In West Virginia, business interests helped overturn a verdict that ranged in the tens of millions of dollars. And that verdict would have benefitted an individual business. In Alabama, business interests helped ensure the reversal of a verdict of $3.6 BILLION--and that verdict was in favor of the State of Alabama and would have benefitted all of the state's citizens.
The Alabama Supreme Court, however, overturned the jury finding of fraud against ExxonMobil. The vote was 8-1, with the court's lone Democrat providing the dissent.
Scott Horton, of Harper's, reported that ExxonMobil interests had given $5.5 million to the campaigns of Republicans running for the Alabama Supreme Court. Looks like that turned out to be an excellent investment.
So did Bob Riley stand up for his constituents the way Hugh Caperton stood up for his company? Not on your life. The same business interests that bought the Alabama Supreme Court also helped put Riley in office. So the governor did not even seek a rehearing of the ExxonMobil ruling. And he certainly did not seek an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
That's why corruption on the West Virginia Supreme Court is in the national spotlight--and corruption on the Alabama Supreme Court is locked safely away in a Republican closet.
Just check out recent coverage about Caperton v. Massey, a West Virginia case now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Caperton boils down to this question: Is it OK for someone to buy a judge on a state supreme court? More specifically, is it OK for a donor to spend several million dollars to help elect a judge and then have that judge vote to overturn a jury verdict against the donor?
The frightening answer is that, as of now, it is perfectly fine--and right wingers on the U.S. Supreme Court apparently want to keep it that way.
And get this: The West Virginia case is not the most egregious case of business interests buying appellate judges. That "honor" almost certainly belongs to Alabama.
Reporter Gretchen Mae Stone of the Charleston (WVa) State Journal has written an excellent overview of the Caperton case. The West Virginia case attracted our attention in February 2008.
Here are the basics: Harman Mining, owned by Hugh Caperton, won a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal Co. on claims that Massey had taken unlawful steps to run Harman out of business. The judgment twice was reversed by the West Virginia Supreme Court. After the first reversal, photos turned up of the chief justice vacationing on the French Riviera with the CEO of Massey. The justice, Elliott Maynard, had ruled for Massey in the first case. Hmmm, wonder why he ruled for Massey.
On the second reversal, the deciding vote came from Justice Brent Benjamin, who won his seat with the help of $3 million spent by the CEO of . . . Massey Coal.
Fortunately for folks who care about justice, Hugh Caperton has a spine. And he took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it.
At recent oral arguments, conservatives on the court, led by Antonin Scalia, appeared to side with Massey. Liberals and moderates appeared to side with Caperton. Scalia argued that the court should not be "adopting out of nowhere" a position that the appearance of bias is enough to violate a party's right to due process.
Scalia conveniently sidesteps this inconvenient truth: Most states have recusal standards that state the appearance of bias is to be avoided. The Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics state, "A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety."
Is there an appearance of impropriety when a judge benefits from huge sums of money spent by a party and then overturns a jury verdict against that party? The "reasonable man" who is so famous in legal circles surely would say yes.
As the National Law Journal points out, however, state judicial canons are widely unenforced, particularly at the appellate level.
If Governor Bob Riley had the kind of spine that Hugh Caperton possesses, an Alabama case on this very issue might be headed toward the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, a case in our state involving oil giant ExxonMobil makes the Caperton case look like a warm-up act.
In West Virginia, business interests helped overturn a verdict that ranged in the tens of millions of dollars. And that verdict would have benefitted an individual business. In Alabama, business interests helped ensure the reversal of a verdict of $3.6 BILLION--and that verdict was in favor of the State of Alabama and would have benefitted all of the state's citizens.
The Alabama Supreme Court, however, overturned the jury finding of fraud against ExxonMobil. The vote was 8-1, with the court's lone Democrat providing the dissent.
Scott Horton, of Harper's, reported that ExxonMobil interests had given $5.5 million to the campaigns of Republicans running for the Alabama Supreme Court. Looks like that turned out to be an excellent investment.
So did Bob Riley stand up for his constituents the way Hugh Caperton stood up for his company? Not on your life. The same business interests that bought the Alabama Supreme Court also helped put Riley in office. So the governor did not even seek a rehearing of the ExxonMobil ruling. And he certainly did not seek an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
That's why corruption on the West Virginia Supreme Court is in the national spotlight--and corruption on the Alabama Supreme Court is locked safely away in a Republican closet.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Alabama Republicans Are Eating Their Young
As we noted in our previous post, a rift appears to have developed between two prominent camps of the Alabama Republican Party.
Now it looks like Alabama GOPers are about to eat one of their own. This should be fun.
Bob Gambacurta, of the Montgomery Independent, reports that a grand jury met last week to hear testimony from witnesses in an apparent investigation of Alabama Attorney General Troy King.
King, who was appointed by Governor Bob Riley, is Republican through and through. But now we discover that Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, is investigating "Rapid Troy the AG Boy" (a tip of the hat to the late, great Jim Croce). Martin, of course, is a Bush appointee who owes her position to Karl Rove and Business Council of Alabama honcho Bill Canary.
So what gives with this investigation of Troy King? The folks at Doc's Political Parlor, a prominent Alabama political blog, are baffled. And so are we.
But one thing is for certain: Any investigation of Troy King, like most everything else Alice Martin has done during her tenure, probably is about politics, not facts and the law. I'm not one to defend Troy King, but I find it hard to believe that he committed some kind of wrongdoing that only now came to Martin's attention. If King did something remotely unlawful. and Martin is just now taking action, it's probably for political reasons.
What might those reasons be? Let's take a few guesses:
* Alice Martin's career arc--This almost certainly is driven by the fact that Alice Martin is obsessed with her next career move. If the Obama administration ever gets around to booting Alice out on her conservative fanny, she's going to need another job. Doc's Political Parlor wonders if Martin is going after King in an effort to stay on as U.S. attorney, by showing the Obama folks she can nail a Republican. I think this is unlikely. A source tells us that Martin craves the Alabama AG job. And what better way to get it than by running off Troy King? That sounds more likely to us.
* The gambling angle--Gambacurta reports that the investigation involves King's relationship with gambling interests in the state and allegations of selective prosecution of some electronic-bingo operators. The Birmingham News notes: "King has butted heads with Gov. Bob Riley on gambling--particularly over the question of whether some electronic bingo machines in operation around the state are legal." Riley has appointed a task force to shut down electronic bingo machines within the state's jurisdiction, but King has said those machines are legal under state law. Riley's hypocrisy on gambling is boundless, considering that he and several close associates have clear ties to gaming. But the governor has been known to sic the feds on those who cross him (see Goff, John W.), and perhaps that has led to King's difficulties.
Now it looks like Alabama GOPers are about to eat one of their own. This should be fun.
Bob Gambacurta, of the Montgomery Independent, reports that a grand jury met last week to hear testimony from witnesses in an apparent investigation of Alabama Attorney General Troy King.
King, who was appointed by Governor Bob Riley, is Republican through and through. But now we discover that Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, is investigating "Rapid Troy the AG Boy" (a tip of the hat to the late, great Jim Croce). Martin, of course, is a Bush appointee who owes her position to Karl Rove and Business Council of Alabama honcho Bill Canary.
So what gives with this investigation of Troy King? The folks at Doc's Political Parlor, a prominent Alabama political blog, are baffled. And so are we.
But one thing is for certain: Any investigation of Troy King, like most everything else Alice Martin has done during her tenure, probably is about politics, not facts and the law. I'm not one to defend Troy King, but I find it hard to believe that he committed some kind of wrongdoing that only now came to Martin's attention. If King did something remotely unlawful. and Martin is just now taking action, it's probably for political reasons.
What might those reasons be? Let's take a few guesses:
* Alice Martin's career arc--This almost certainly is driven by the fact that Alice Martin is obsessed with her next career move. If the Obama administration ever gets around to booting Alice out on her conservative fanny, she's going to need another job. Doc's Political Parlor wonders if Martin is going after King in an effort to stay on as U.S. attorney, by showing the Obama folks she can nail a Republican. I think this is unlikely. A source tells us that Martin craves the Alabama AG job. And what better way to get it than by running off Troy King? That sounds more likely to us.
* The gambling angle--Gambacurta reports that the investigation involves King's relationship with gambling interests in the state and allegations of selective prosecution of some electronic-bingo operators. The Birmingham News notes: "King has butted heads with Gov. Bob Riley on gambling--particularly over the question of whether some electronic bingo machines in operation around the state are legal." Riley has appointed a task force to shut down electronic bingo machines within the state's jurisdiction, but King has said those machines are legal under state law. Riley's hypocrisy on gambling is boundless, considering that he and several close associates have clear ties to gaming. But the governor has been known to sic the feds on those who cross him (see Goff, John W.), and perhaps that has led to King's difficulties.
* The gay angle--Rumors have persisted since last summer that King has a gay problem. The story goes that King's wife caught him in a compromising position with a male aide. Is it possible that Riley, Martin, and others have decided those rumors make King a political liability?
* The Riley/Martin rift angle--This is perhaps the most delicious angle of all. News accounts indicate that Riley and Martin might be ganging up on King--and that certainly is possible if they have repaired their rift. But what if the rift has not been repaired? What if this is a warning shot from Alice Martin to Riley: "If you don't appoint me to the position I want on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, I'm going to do to you what I'm doing to Troy. I'm going to drag you in front of a grand jury and expose all of the dirty laundry I know about you."
Wouldn't that be something? Heck, I actually would be rooting for Alice Martin in that one.
A recent column from Bob Martin at the Montgomery Independent hinted at the kind of dirty laundry Bob Riley is sitting on. Martin also notes the irony of Riley pushing ethics reforms as his term is winding down:
The governor leaves office in 2010 and many Democratic lawmakers believe he is trying to set up opposition-party lawmakers who will continue in office. In retaliation they point to Riley's political use of his office, charging that he raised campaign funds from Mississippi casinos and other pay-for-play schemes. One of those schemes was in 2005 when Riley committed $50 million in taxpayer funds to help build the Hudson-Alpha Institute for Biotechnology at Cummings Research Park in Huntsville.
Soon afterward, on December 16, 2005, a Political Action Committee (PAC) was created and immediately was infused with $325,000 in cash. It was a 527 PAC, named for the section of the law permitting it, which means it could make unlimited contributions to political candidates. The two founders and an executive of the institute provided $300,000 to the PAC. On December 19, 2005 the PAC gave $300,000 to Riley's re-election campaign. Not much subtlety there was there....but now the governor appears to want to culminate his governorship as a champion of ethics.
Was this little caper legal? I don't know, but had the Ethics Commission had the powers then that the governor wants them to have now, perhaps they could have made that determination.
Snakes Alive! A Rift Develops in the Alabama GOP
Have you ever wondered what it's like when two snakes turn on each other? Folks who follow politics in Alabama might be about to find out.
A source tells Legal Schnauzer that a rift has developed in the Alabama Republican Party between Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.
Evidence of the rift came from a peculiar column written recently by John Archibald of The Birmingham News. The piece, titled "So how did Collins avoid GOP censure," ostensibly was about Jefferson County Commission President Bettye Fine Collins, who has been under fire from members of her own Republican Party.
Archibald noted that Birmingham lawyer Matt Lembke defended Collins before the Republican Executive Committee. And the columnist stated that both Collins and Lembke had been known to "carry water" for Gov. Riley and that Lembke had worked with Riley's son, Rob Riley, on the bitter 2002 election contest that ended with a concession from incumbent Governor Don Siegelman.
Then Archibald dropped this curious piece of information:
"For what it's worth, the County Commission on Jan. 20 voted to pay Rob Riley's firm $725,000 to represent the sheriff's department.
"For what it's worth."
Strange, very strange. Here was a decidedly conservative, pro-Riley newspaper taking a thinly veiled shot at the governor on an issue--his children receiving plum contracts under his regime--where he is vulnerable.
Our source says the Archibald column is another example of the extraordinary sway Alice Martin has over The Birmingham News. And it's an indication that Martin is sending a threat toward the governor and his son.
Why would she do that? Our guess is that it's because Martin is known to covet a vacant seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. Despite her claims that she will cling to her U.S. attorney's spot and force Barack Obama to fire her, Martin knows her days are numbered in the Justice Department.
That means she needs a new appointment--to avoid having to get a real job--and she wants Riley to appoint her to the vacant Criminal Appeals seat.
But our guess is that Riley is reluctant to appoint Martin because of the considerable baggage she has acquired in her eight years in the Bush Justice Department. After all, Martin is under investigation by multiple federal agencies.
Riley probably is concerned that if he appoints Martin, it could turn scrutiny onto him--and his own considerable ethical baggage.
Could Martin be threatening to reveal some of the Rileys' vast dirty laundry if she does not get her way with the court appointment?
Stay tuned. The snakes are coiled up and hissing at each other. This could get fun.
A source tells Legal Schnauzer that a rift has developed in the Alabama Republican Party between Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.
Evidence of the rift came from a peculiar column written recently by John Archibald of The Birmingham News. The piece, titled "So how did Collins avoid GOP censure," ostensibly was about Jefferson County Commission President Bettye Fine Collins, who has been under fire from members of her own Republican Party.
Archibald noted that Birmingham lawyer Matt Lembke defended Collins before the Republican Executive Committee. And the columnist stated that both Collins and Lembke had been known to "carry water" for Gov. Riley and that Lembke had worked with Riley's son, Rob Riley, on the bitter 2002 election contest that ended with a concession from incumbent Governor Don Siegelman.
Then Archibald dropped this curious piece of information:
"For what it's worth, the County Commission on Jan. 20 voted to pay Rob Riley's firm $725,000 to represent the sheriff's department.
"For what it's worth."
Strange, very strange. Here was a decidedly conservative, pro-Riley newspaper taking a thinly veiled shot at the governor on an issue--his children receiving plum contracts under his regime--where he is vulnerable.
Our source says the Archibald column is another example of the extraordinary sway Alice Martin has over The Birmingham News. And it's an indication that Martin is sending a threat toward the governor and his son.
Why would she do that? Our guess is that it's because Martin is known to covet a vacant seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. Despite her claims that she will cling to her U.S. attorney's spot and force Barack Obama to fire her, Martin knows her days are numbered in the Justice Department.
That means she needs a new appointment--to avoid having to get a real job--and she wants Riley to appoint her to the vacant Criminal Appeals seat.
But our guess is that Riley is reluctant to appoint Martin because of the considerable baggage she has acquired in her eight years in the Bush Justice Department. After all, Martin is under investigation by multiple federal agencies.
Riley probably is concerned that if he appoints Martin, it could turn scrutiny onto him--and his own considerable ethical baggage.
Could Martin be threatening to reveal some of the Rileys' vast dirty laundry if she does not get her way with the court appointment?
Stay tuned. The snakes are coiled up and hissing at each other. This could get fun.
Taylor Hicks Measures The Distance
Regular readers know that we occasionally like to take a break from justice issues and write about "rock and/or roll" (to borrow a phrase from Reverend Lovejoy, of The Simpsons).
Perhaps in another life, we will come back as a writer for Rolling Stone.
In this life, our taste and knowledge of popular music is limited to artists who made their names in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Our musical heroes include John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, Don Henley and the Eagles, and Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac.
As for modern rock acts, well, I'm pretty much clueless. I do know a little about John Mayer and Matchbox Twenty. I like some stuff I've heard from Sister Hazel. And I heard a great tune one time by Barenaked Ladies, but I don't remember the name of it.
We do, however, "get" one modern artist--and maybe that's because he's a throwback to another era. It might also be because he's from right here in Birmingham, and Mrs. Schnauzer thinks he's cute.
We're talking, of course, about Taylor Hicks, a 1995 graduate of Hoover High School. Hicks is best known as the 2006 American Idol, but we have anointed him the "official musician of Legal Schnauzer," a title we are sure he will treasure always. (Actually, Hicks--or perhaps his publicist--sent us a nice note after one of our posts about him. The artist known as "Gray Charles" still has a hometown touch.)
We've covered some interesting territory with our guy Taylor. We noted that he was a pretty fair high school basketball player in his day and deserves a spot among the best known "sports stars of Hoover." We gave a "shout out to the Soul Patrol," Hicks' devoted fan base. We noted the debt Hicks owes to the rootsy music of Otis Redding. We predicted a possible "Idol" future for another Birmingham musician with a sports background.
We even concocted an imaginary conversation between two of Hoover's finest--Hicks and infamous former football coach Rush Propst.
For good measure, Hicks helped inspire us to write about the many things we like about Birmingham and Alabama--in spite of all the legal crap we've had to put up with.
So it's with great pleasure--and a big dose of hometown pride--that we announce to Schnauzer readers that Taylor Hicks is set to release his second post-Idol album. The CD, titled "The Distance," is due in stores today.
Those of us who have heard Hicks' two independent, pre-Idol recordings know that he has serious writing chops. And those are on display on The Distance, with Hicks sharing writing credits on seven cuts. Mary Colurso, of The Birmingham News, has a nice overview of the new CD.
The first single, "What's Right is Right," is a soulful number that is right in Hicks' wheelhouse. And the video has a bluesy feel, shot in the clubs and on the streets of Chicago. Enjoy.
What's Right Is Right
Perhaps in another life, we will come back as a writer for Rolling Stone.
In this life, our taste and knowledge of popular music is limited to artists who made their names in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Our musical heroes include John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, Don Henley and the Eagles, and Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac.
As for modern rock acts, well, I'm pretty much clueless. I do know a little about John Mayer and Matchbox Twenty. I like some stuff I've heard from Sister Hazel. And I heard a great tune one time by Barenaked Ladies, but I don't remember the name of it.
We do, however, "get" one modern artist--and maybe that's because he's a throwback to another era. It might also be because he's from right here in Birmingham, and Mrs. Schnauzer thinks he's cute.
We're talking, of course, about Taylor Hicks, a 1995 graduate of Hoover High School. Hicks is best known as the 2006 American Idol, but we have anointed him the "official musician of Legal Schnauzer," a title we are sure he will treasure always. (Actually, Hicks--or perhaps his publicist--sent us a nice note after one of our posts about him. The artist known as "Gray Charles" still has a hometown touch.)
We've covered some interesting territory with our guy Taylor. We noted that he was a pretty fair high school basketball player in his day and deserves a spot among the best known "sports stars of Hoover." We gave a "shout out to the Soul Patrol," Hicks' devoted fan base. We noted the debt Hicks owes to the rootsy music of Otis Redding. We predicted a possible "Idol" future for another Birmingham musician with a sports background.
We even concocted an imaginary conversation between two of Hoover's finest--Hicks and infamous former football coach Rush Propst.
For good measure, Hicks helped inspire us to write about the many things we like about Birmingham and Alabama--in spite of all the legal crap we've had to put up with.
So it's with great pleasure--and a big dose of hometown pride--that we announce to Schnauzer readers that Taylor Hicks is set to release his second post-Idol album. The CD, titled "The Distance," is due in stores today.
Those of us who have heard Hicks' two independent, pre-Idol recordings know that he has serious writing chops. And those are on display on The Distance, with Hicks sharing writing credits on seven cuts. Mary Colurso, of The Birmingham News, has a nice overview of the new CD.
The first single, "What's Right is Right," is a soulful number that is right in Hicks' wheelhouse. And the video has a bluesy feel, shot in the clubs and on the streets of Chicago. Enjoy.
What's Right Is Right
Monday, March 9, 2009
Siegelman Team Probably Expected to Get Cheated on Appeal
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and his lawyers probably expected to get shafted by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And they did.
In a decision announced last Friday afternoon, a three-judge panel upheld most of Siegelman's convictions and all of codefendant Richard Scrushy's convictions on corruption charges.
As we noted in late November, things didn't look promising for Siegelman when an all-Republican panel was announced to hear his appeal. One can only wonder at the arrogance and tone deafness of a justice system that allows an all-Republican panel to hear a case involving a Democratic politician who claims he was the victim of a political prosecution.
At the time, Siegelman lawyer Vince Kilborn said he had no problem with the makeup of the panel; that's the kind of thing a lawyer has to say for public consumption. But The Birmingham News article on the subject hinted that the Siegelman team was mighty concerned about the panel and its GOP leanings. As we noted here at Legal Schnauzer, the News article included curious references to a number of controversial decisions the judges had been involved in:
I find it hard to believe that News reporters Kim Chandler and Mary Orndorff would, on their own, go to the trouble of looking up controversial decisions these judges have been involved in. It looks to me like someone fed them that information, and it probably was someone on the Siegelman/Scrushy team. Why would someone on the Siegelman/Scrushy side feed that information to the reporters? Because they think the makeup of this panel stinks to high heaven--but they feel they can't say that publicly.
Muriel Kane has written an excellent overview of the three judges on the Siegelman panel. She notes that Gerald Bard Tjoflat and James C. Hill both originally were appointed to the federal bench by Richard Nixon and to the appellate court by Gerald Ford. The third, J.L. Edmondson, was appointed first by Ronald Reagan and named chief judge of the 11th Circuit by George W. Bush in 2002.
Let me repeat: One of the Siegelman panelists owes his title as chief judge to George W. Bush--and it's reasonable to assume that Karl Rove played a hand in making that appointment!
Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would raise concerns about the impartiality of this panel.
Perhaps most alarming is the role Tjoflat played in Karl Rove's ascendancy to political prominence. Tjoflat was part of a three-judge panel that weighed in on the 1994 election contest for Alabama Supreme Court chief justice between Republican Perry Hooper Sr. and Democrat Sonny Hornsby.
The panel upheld a lower-court ruling that threw out 1,700 unwitnessed absentee ballots, making Hooper the winner.
Karl Rove was intimately involved in the Hooper/Hornsby race, and his efforts to get Hooper elected under controversial circumstances signaled a sea change in Alabama courts, which once were all Democratic and now lean way to the right.
Rove used his success in the Hooper/Hornsby race as a springboard to national political prominence.
The only way the deck could have been stacked more against Siegelman would have been for the panel to include William Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general who initiated the state investigation of Siegelman. Pryor did that, of course, after winning a campaign that was managed by . . . Karl Rove.
What can citizens take from the 11th Circuit's ruling on the Siegelman case? That our federal courts are corrupt at both the trial and appellate levels.
Sadly, the Obama administration has shown no signs yet that it has the stomach for helping to clean up the mess. And Obama's White House counsel, Greg Craig, appears to be doing his best to protect Rove.
The Siegelman case, from the outset, has been about politics and not facts or the law. The 11th Circuit panel ensured that it would remain on a political track.
In a decision announced last Friday afternoon, a three-judge panel upheld most of Siegelman's convictions and all of codefendant Richard Scrushy's convictions on corruption charges.
As we noted in late November, things didn't look promising for Siegelman when an all-Republican panel was announced to hear his appeal. One can only wonder at the arrogance and tone deafness of a justice system that allows an all-Republican panel to hear a case involving a Democratic politician who claims he was the victim of a political prosecution.
At the time, Siegelman lawyer Vince Kilborn said he had no problem with the makeup of the panel; that's the kind of thing a lawyer has to say for public consumption. But The Birmingham News article on the subject hinted that the Siegelman team was mighty concerned about the panel and its GOP leanings. As we noted here at Legal Schnauzer, the News article included curious references to a number of controversial decisions the judges had been involved in:
I find it hard to believe that News reporters Kim Chandler and Mary Orndorff would, on their own, go to the trouble of looking up controversial decisions these judges have been involved in. It looks to me like someone fed them that information, and it probably was someone on the Siegelman/Scrushy team. Why would someone on the Siegelman/Scrushy side feed that information to the reporters? Because they think the makeup of this panel stinks to high heaven--but they feel they can't say that publicly.
Muriel Kane has written an excellent overview of the three judges on the Siegelman panel. She notes that Gerald Bard Tjoflat and James C. Hill both originally were appointed to the federal bench by Richard Nixon and to the appellate court by Gerald Ford. The third, J.L. Edmondson, was appointed first by Ronald Reagan and named chief judge of the 11th Circuit by George W. Bush in 2002.
Let me repeat: One of the Siegelman panelists owes his title as chief judge to George W. Bush--and it's reasonable to assume that Karl Rove played a hand in making that appointment!
Gee, I can't imagine why anyone would raise concerns about the impartiality of this panel.
Perhaps most alarming is the role Tjoflat played in Karl Rove's ascendancy to political prominence. Tjoflat was part of a three-judge panel that weighed in on the 1994 election contest for Alabama Supreme Court chief justice between Republican Perry Hooper Sr. and Democrat Sonny Hornsby.
The panel upheld a lower-court ruling that threw out 1,700 unwitnessed absentee ballots, making Hooper the winner.
Karl Rove was intimately involved in the Hooper/Hornsby race, and his efforts to get Hooper elected under controversial circumstances signaled a sea change in Alabama courts, which once were all Democratic and now lean way to the right.
Rove used his success in the Hooper/Hornsby race as a springboard to national political prominence.
The only way the deck could have been stacked more against Siegelman would have been for the panel to include William Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general who initiated the state investigation of Siegelman. Pryor did that, of course, after winning a campaign that was managed by . . . Karl Rove.
What can citizens take from the 11th Circuit's ruling on the Siegelman case? That our federal courts are corrupt at both the trial and appellate levels.
Sadly, the Obama administration has shown no signs yet that it has the stomach for helping to clean up the mess. And Obama's White House counsel, Greg Craig, appears to be doing his best to protect Rove.
The Siegelman case, from the outset, has been about politics and not facts or the law. The 11th Circuit panel ensured that it would remain on a political track.
Jury Treats Workplace Retaliation as Serious Business
A federal jury in Boston has struck a major blow for victims of workplace retaliation. And that is an issue at the heart of my wrongful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
A jury awarded a female neurosurgeon $1.6 million, finding that she had been subject to a hostile work environment and that a hospital retaliated against her when she complained about it.
After a seven-week trial, the jury found for Dr. Sagun Tuli and against Brigham and Women's Hospital and its chairman of neurosurgery, Dr. Arthur Day. Tuli testified that Day repeatedly made demeaning comments to her and that she was forced to work in an environment that included harassment, intimidation, and other forms of abusive conduct.
The jury found that the hostile work environment was driven in part by Tuli's gender and national origin, or both, and about $1 million of the award was to compensate her for working in such conditions.
The jury awarded Tuli about $600,000 for its finding that the hospital retaliated against her for complaining, by requiring her to be evaluated by outside physicians to determine if she was fit to continue practicing at the hospital.
All of this resonates here at Legal Schnauzer because I've been the victim of gross workplace retaliation at UAB.
In essence, UAB engaged in multiple unlawful schemes. First, the university engaged in standard employment discrimination, based on age, and this apparently was driven from within UAB. Second, the university violated my First Amendment rights, firing me because of what I wrote on my blog, and this almost certainly was driven by forces external to UAB.
Some brief background: For roughly the last five months I worked at UAB, my supervisor (Pam Powell) waged a harassment campaign against me based on my age. In the spring of 2007, Powell held individual meetings with each member of our staff and told us that she probably would retire in two or three years and intended to develop a succession plan. That plan involved promoting one of my coworkers to her chief assistant and then trying to ensure that he was named director of our office upon her retirement.
I was in my early 50s at the time, and her planned successor was in his early 30s, with roughly 20 years less experience than I had. When Powell promoted the designated successor to her chief assistant, I discovered later, she bumped his salary above mine.
I didn't raise a stink about Powell's plan at the time because I've been at UAB long enough to know that the university probably will favor external candidates when Powell retires, and no one within our group is likely to get the job. I did, however, think it was inappropriate for Powell to announce her plans to staff members.
When Powell retires, she will be out of the picture, and it will be none of her business who replaces her. But that's not how Powell saw it. She added to the unprofessional nature of her communications by stating to me, "I've worked too hard to let 'them' destroy this group when I retire."
I assumed she was referring to her superior, associate vice president Dale Turnbough, who likely will have responsibility for naming Powell's successor. The message Powell seemed to be sending: "The people above us are incompetent boobs, and I've got to 'save' you and the rest of the group from them." Doesn't seem like the kind of message a supervisor should be sending to her subordinates.
A few months after making this announcement, Powell began waging a harassment campaign against me. Suddenly, I couldn't do the simplest things right. Filling out a vacation sheet, compiling job notes, tracking my daily hours--stuff I had done fine for 12 years--now drew complaints and warnings from Powell. I was told that my job performance would be determined almost totally by whether my clients were "happy" or not, with any objective criteria being tossed out the window. When I asked my younger colleagues if this kind of criteria had been communicated to them--or if they had suddenly been subjected to hyper-strict overview of simple office procedures--they said "no."
As someone with 20 years more experience than Powell's preferred successor, and as a member of a legally protected class based on age (over 40), I clearly could be seen as an impediment to her plan. Powell's superiors, when presented with her plan, probably would say, "Hey, we'd be inviting a discrimination lawsuit by doing this. No dice."
So what was Powell's solution? To make my worklife so miserable that I would want to leave.
Powell's harassment got so bad that on or about April 23, I met with Dale Turnbough and told her I was being harassed and discriminated against because of my age. I also told her about Powell's succession plan, which seemed to be news to Turnbough. Finally, I told Turnbough that I was going to visit UAB Human Resources that day and file a formal grievance against Powell.
The meeting with Turnbough seemed to go well. She seemed to listen carefully and said, "Roger, I hear you saying that you are being treated differently from your coworkers, and you want to be treated the same as everyone else."
"That's right," I said.
Turnbough seemed to be concerned with my use of the terms "harassment" and "discrimination."
"Harassment sounds like too strong a term," she said. I suspect she was promoting a double standard for men and women when it comes to harassment. If a male supervisor had done to a female subordinate what Powell had done to me for five months, it clearly would be considered harassment. And I said as much to Turnbough.
"Well, I've been the target of it, and it sure feels like harassment to me," I said. "And I think it's because of my age, and her plans to eventually promote someone younger."
I didn't know if Turnbough knew about my blog, so for good measure, I told her about it and asked if that might be a partial cause for the harassment I was experiencing. Turnbough almost scoffed at that, ensuring me that my blog was not a problem as long as I wasn't writing it at work. I said I did the blog on my own time, away from work, so it seemed everything was squared away.
She said she would talk to Powell, and I figured everything would be resolved.
Instead, I was placed on administrative leave on May 7--almost two weeks to the day after I had complained to Turnbough about age discrimination and harassment and filed a grievance against Powell. On May 19, I was fired.
It's hard to imagine a more clearcut case of retaliation. Under UAB policy, an employee is to file a grievance without fear of reprisal. And under federal law, an employee is to complain about unlawful behavior (such as age discrimination and harassment) without fear of retaliation. UAB butchered federal law and its own policy in one fell swoop.
The Boston case did not involve termination, but the jury still sent a strong messsage about employers who tolerate harassment and engage in retaliation.
What will happen in my case? I have no idea. No two sets of facts, no two juries, and no two judges are alike. With the way "justice" is practiced in Alabama, a judge could cheat me by unlawfully dismissing my case on summary judgment. In fact, I recently learned about a Birmingham federal judge--a Republican appointee, natch--who is notorious for doing just that on discrimination cases. We will be writing about that judge in detail very soon.
For what it's worth, there is one connection between the Boston case and my experience at UAB. Cheryl E.H. Locke was head of UAB Human Resources during my wrongful termination, before leaving recently to take a job at Wake Forest University. Interestingly, Locke came to UAB from Boston--from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in fact.
Does Cheryl E.H. Locke bounce from one discriminating, retaliating employer to another, bolting when the heat under her chair gets too hot? Kind of makes you wonder.
A jury awarded a female neurosurgeon $1.6 million, finding that she had been subject to a hostile work environment and that a hospital retaliated against her when she complained about it.
After a seven-week trial, the jury found for Dr. Sagun Tuli and against Brigham and Women's Hospital and its chairman of neurosurgery, Dr. Arthur Day. Tuli testified that Day repeatedly made demeaning comments to her and that she was forced to work in an environment that included harassment, intimidation, and other forms of abusive conduct.
The jury found that the hostile work environment was driven in part by Tuli's gender and national origin, or both, and about $1 million of the award was to compensate her for working in such conditions.
The jury awarded Tuli about $600,000 for its finding that the hospital retaliated against her for complaining, by requiring her to be evaluated by outside physicians to determine if she was fit to continue practicing at the hospital.
All of this resonates here at Legal Schnauzer because I've been the victim of gross workplace retaliation at UAB.
In essence, UAB engaged in multiple unlawful schemes. First, the university engaged in standard employment discrimination, based on age, and this apparently was driven from within UAB. Second, the university violated my First Amendment rights, firing me because of what I wrote on my blog, and this almost certainly was driven by forces external to UAB.
Some brief background: For roughly the last five months I worked at UAB, my supervisor (Pam Powell) waged a harassment campaign against me based on my age. In the spring of 2007, Powell held individual meetings with each member of our staff and told us that she probably would retire in two or three years and intended to develop a succession plan. That plan involved promoting one of my coworkers to her chief assistant and then trying to ensure that he was named director of our office upon her retirement.
I was in my early 50s at the time, and her planned successor was in his early 30s, with roughly 20 years less experience than I had. When Powell promoted the designated successor to her chief assistant, I discovered later, she bumped his salary above mine.
I didn't raise a stink about Powell's plan at the time because I've been at UAB long enough to know that the university probably will favor external candidates when Powell retires, and no one within our group is likely to get the job. I did, however, think it was inappropriate for Powell to announce her plans to staff members.
When Powell retires, she will be out of the picture, and it will be none of her business who replaces her. But that's not how Powell saw it. She added to the unprofessional nature of her communications by stating to me, "I've worked too hard to let 'them' destroy this group when I retire."
I assumed she was referring to her superior, associate vice president Dale Turnbough, who likely will have responsibility for naming Powell's successor. The message Powell seemed to be sending: "The people above us are incompetent boobs, and I've got to 'save' you and the rest of the group from them." Doesn't seem like the kind of message a supervisor should be sending to her subordinates.
A few months after making this announcement, Powell began waging a harassment campaign against me. Suddenly, I couldn't do the simplest things right. Filling out a vacation sheet, compiling job notes, tracking my daily hours--stuff I had done fine for 12 years--now drew complaints and warnings from Powell. I was told that my job performance would be determined almost totally by whether my clients were "happy" or not, with any objective criteria being tossed out the window. When I asked my younger colleagues if this kind of criteria had been communicated to them--or if they had suddenly been subjected to hyper-strict overview of simple office procedures--they said "no."
As someone with 20 years more experience than Powell's preferred successor, and as a member of a legally protected class based on age (over 40), I clearly could be seen as an impediment to her plan. Powell's superiors, when presented with her plan, probably would say, "Hey, we'd be inviting a discrimination lawsuit by doing this. No dice."
So what was Powell's solution? To make my worklife so miserable that I would want to leave.
Powell's harassment got so bad that on or about April 23, I met with Dale Turnbough and told her I was being harassed and discriminated against because of my age. I also told her about Powell's succession plan, which seemed to be news to Turnbough. Finally, I told Turnbough that I was going to visit UAB Human Resources that day and file a formal grievance against Powell.
The meeting with Turnbough seemed to go well. She seemed to listen carefully and said, "Roger, I hear you saying that you are being treated differently from your coworkers, and you want to be treated the same as everyone else."
"That's right," I said.
Turnbough seemed to be concerned with my use of the terms "harassment" and "discrimination."
"Harassment sounds like too strong a term," she said. I suspect she was promoting a double standard for men and women when it comes to harassment. If a male supervisor had done to a female subordinate what Powell had done to me for five months, it clearly would be considered harassment. And I said as much to Turnbough.
"Well, I've been the target of it, and it sure feels like harassment to me," I said. "And I think it's because of my age, and her plans to eventually promote someone younger."
I didn't know if Turnbough knew about my blog, so for good measure, I told her about it and asked if that might be a partial cause for the harassment I was experiencing. Turnbough almost scoffed at that, ensuring me that my blog was not a problem as long as I wasn't writing it at work. I said I did the blog on my own time, away from work, so it seemed everything was squared away.
She said she would talk to Powell, and I figured everything would be resolved.
Instead, I was placed on administrative leave on May 7--almost two weeks to the day after I had complained to Turnbough about age discrimination and harassment and filed a grievance against Powell. On May 19, I was fired.
It's hard to imagine a more clearcut case of retaliation. Under UAB policy, an employee is to file a grievance without fear of reprisal. And under federal law, an employee is to complain about unlawful behavior (such as age discrimination and harassment) without fear of retaliation. UAB butchered federal law and its own policy in one fell swoop.
The Boston case did not involve termination, but the jury still sent a strong messsage about employers who tolerate harassment and engage in retaliation.
What will happen in my case? I have no idea. No two sets of facts, no two juries, and no two judges are alike. With the way "justice" is practiced in Alabama, a judge could cheat me by unlawfully dismissing my case on summary judgment. In fact, I recently learned about a Birmingham federal judge--a Republican appointee, natch--who is notorious for doing just that on discrimination cases. We will be writing about that judge in detail very soon.
For what it's worth, there is one connection between the Boston case and my experience at UAB. Cheryl E.H. Locke was head of UAB Human Resources during my wrongful termination, before leaving recently to take a job at Wake Forest University. Interestingly, Locke came to UAB from Boston--from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in fact.
Does Cheryl E.H. Locke bounce from one discriminating, retaliating employer to another, bolting when the heat under her chair gets too hot? Kind of makes you wonder.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Appellate Court Butchers The Siegelman Ruling
A few quick Schnauzer thoughts after learning late yesterday about the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling to uphold most of the conviction against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and all of the conviction against his codefendant, former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy:
* Isn't it interesting that the opinion was issued on a Friday afternoon? And word apparently didn't start spreading widely until about mid afternoon in Alabama, which is on central time. Any PR expert will tell you Friday is the day that you release bad news, items that you want to receive as little press attention as possible. Friday evening TV ratings are the worst of the week, and Saturday newspapers are the least read. A quick check of the 11th Circuit's Web site shows the court issued opinions throughout the week. Interesting that it chose to hold the Siegelman opinion for Friday.
* Isn't it interesting that the opinion was issued less than 24 hours after Siegelman appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and essentially said the Congressional deal for Karl Rove's testimony is a crock of horse feces (which it is) and that Congress is going about its investigation in an ass backwards way (which it is)? Siegelman seemed to be saying that Congress, perhaps at the urging of the Obama Administration, doesn't appear to be making a serious effort to get at the truth. Kind of looks now like someone wasn't happy with him expressing those valid concerns.
* The opinion was issued "per curium," which Harper's Scott Horton says is an approach judges often take when they don't want to own up to their own writing. In other words, the 11th Circuit judges went into major CYA (cover your ass) mode with the Siegelman/Scrushy opinion. Horton also notes that the three-judge panel consisted of all Republicans, including two who have been highly active in partisan politics.
* I haven't had a chance to read the entire 68-page opinion yet, and I do intend to work my way through it. But I don't expect it to shine much light on the real issues involved in the Siegelman case. Politics, not law, ruled the day in the Siegelman affair, and Horton expertly points out that the appellate ruling focused on a narrow set of issues:
Nearly all the disclosures that undermined confidence in the fairness of the Siegelman trial occurred after the trial record was closed–and none of these disclosures were examined by the Court of Appeals. Even though the appeals court looked into jury misconduct, it did not have before it the much more powerful evidence of misconduct that a whistleblowing member of the prosecution team subsequently disclosed to the Justice Department—because the Bush Justice Department, in violation of its plain ethical duties, chose to keep all of that secret. So although an appeal has been taken and resolved, not one of the truly significant issues with the Siegelman case was ever briefed or argued. That remains for the future.
* On the political front, several sources say the Siegelman team has plans for addressing the myriad outside-the-courtroom issues in the case. Said one source:
It is vital that everyone understand that today’s ruling in Governor Siegelman’s case in no way has any effect or implication on the political circumstances that surround this case. Every significant development that has come to light--the 60 Minutes revelations about Nick Bailey’s coached testimony, Jill Simpson’s testimony, Karl Rove’s involvement, TIME magazine's investigative pieces on selective prosecution, the information from the employee in the U.S. Attorney's office regarding the prosecutions relationship with a juror and Leura Canary’s lies about her recusal--none of this was allowed to be part of the appeal because it all came to light after the trial. All of this information and material will be included in a Rule 33 motion for consideration of newly discovered evidence that will be filed in June.
* Aside from all of the political issues, the 11th Circuit almost certainly bungled this appeal. Ample evidence was available in the public square to show the Siegelman/Scrushy convictions had to be overturned by law. Perhaps the most compelling evidence was the pathetic memorandum opinion issued by trial judge Mark Fuller in an effort to show that Siegelman should remain imprisoned pending appeal. Fuller didn't come close to meeting his burden for showing that Siegelman should remain imprisoned. In the process, he showed that he could not justify the conviction, either. And this is the judge who oversaw the trial! Scott Horton said his colleagues in the legal profession considered Fuller's opinion "farcical" and the work of a "third-rate legal mind." Apparently, there are also some third-rate legal minds on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals--and like Fuller, they are Republicans.
* Want another sign that the 11th Circuit screwed up the appeal? It's undisputed that Fuller presented improper jury instructions on bribery at trial. This is the same thing that happened in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, although the judge in that case (another Republican appointee) was even more blatant about his chicanery than was Fuller. In both cases, defendants essentially were convicted for crimes that do not exist. And yet news reports indicate that the 11th Circuit found the jury instructions in the Siegelman case to be "sufficient." Sufficient? This is a criminal case, folks, where individuals' freedom is at stake. Criminal law is not supposed to be based on "sufficient." The big question should be: Did the defendants violate the law, as it actually reads, or not? Bribery law is not all that difficult, and Siegelman/Scrushy clearly did not violate it. But the 11th Circuit says it's OK for the jury to decide based on law that Fuller pulled out of his . . . well, that he made up.
* Can you take one final sign that the 11th Circuit screwed up? As we showed in a previous post, the statute of limitations clearly had run on the activity that prosecutors alleged was bribery. News reports indicate that the 11th Circuit found this argument was invalid because Siegelman and Scrushy failed to raise it at trial. But you can check Rule 29(c)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and see that Siegelman/Scrushy raised the issue in a timely and appropriate fashion.
Our conclusion for now? We are probably being charitable when we say the 11th Circuit screwed up. That language implies honest mistakes, and this almost certainly was an intentional cheat job.
While it's sad to see that Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy are going to have to continue to fight a bogus prosecution, yesterday's opinion does offer confirmation of the reasons I started this blog in the first place.
I started Legal Schnauzer in June 2007 because I had witnessed corruption in Alabama state courts firsthand. In our very first post, I stated that this corruption appears to go way beyond my little case.
Now we know just how far it goes. On our humble blog, we've shown that Alabama state courts are corrupt at the district, circuit, Court of Appeals, and Supreme Court levels. We've shown, in the Siegelman and Minor cases, that federal trial judges are corrupt. Now we learn that federal appellate courts also are corrupt.
And that doesn't touch the big enchilada. Famed California prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi is one of several writers who have made compelling cases that the U.S. Supreme Court acted corruptly in its 2000 Bush v. Gore ruling that handed the presidency to George W. Bush.
More recently, we've seen evidence that the U.S. Supremes acted corruptly in the Alabama case that led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We plan to post soon about the Supreme Court's shenanigans in that case.
Here's perhaps the most disturbing part of our current predicament regarding justice: Our supposedly fresh, progressive leaders don't seem to get it. U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) says he hopes the Siegelman case will fade from view by 2010. (Doesn't look like that's going to happen, Congressman.)
President Barack Obama says he is more interested in looking forward rather than looking back at issues of injustice. And by appointing Greg Craig as White House counsel, Obama appears to have acquired a key advisor who is more interested in protecting Karl Rove than getting at justice. (What's going on, Mr. President?)
These are dark days for American justice. And they just got darker on Friday.
* Isn't it interesting that the opinion was issued on a Friday afternoon? And word apparently didn't start spreading widely until about mid afternoon in Alabama, which is on central time. Any PR expert will tell you Friday is the day that you release bad news, items that you want to receive as little press attention as possible. Friday evening TV ratings are the worst of the week, and Saturday newspapers are the least read. A quick check of the 11th Circuit's Web site shows the court issued opinions throughout the week. Interesting that it chose to hold the Siegelman opinion for Friday.
* Isn't it interesting that the opinion was issued less than 24 hours after Siegelman appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and essentially said the Congressional deal for Karl Rove's testimony is a crock of horse feces (which it is) and that Congress is going about its investigation in an ass backwards way (which it is)? Siegelman seemed to be saying that Congress, perhaps at the urging of the Obama Administration, doesn't appear to be making a serious effort to get at the truth. Kind of looks now like someone wasn't happy with him expressing those valid concerns.
* The opinion was issued "per curium," which Harper's Scott Horton says is an approach judges often take when they don't want to own up to their own writing. In other words, the 11th Circuit judges went into major CYA (cover your ass) mode with the Siegelman/Scrushy opinion. Horton also notes that the three-judge panel consisted of all Republicans, including two who have been highly active in partisan politics.
* I haven't had a chance to read the entire 68-page opinion yet, and I do intend to work my way through it. But I don't expect it to shine much light on the real issues involved in the Siegelman case. Politics, not law, ruled the day in the Siegelman affair, and Horton expertly points out that the appellate ruling focused on a narrow set of issues:
Nearly all the disclosures that undermined confidence in the fairness of the Siegelman trial occurred after the trial record was closed–and none of these disclosures were examined by the Court of Appeals. Even though the appeals court looked into jury misconduct, it did not have before it the much more powerful evidence of misconduct that a whistleblowing member of the prosecution team subsequently disclosed to the Justice Department—because the Bush Justice Department, in violation of its plain ethical duties, chose to keep all of that secret. So although an appeal has been taken and resolved, not one of the truly significant issues with the Siegelman case was ever briefed or argued. That remains for the future.
* On the political front, several sources say the Siegelman team has plans for addressing the myriad outside-the-courtroom issues in the case. Said one source:
It is vital that everyone understand that today’s ruling in Governor Siegelman’s case in no way has any effect or implication on the political circumstances that surround this case. Every significant development that has come to light--the 60 Minutes revelations about Nick Bailey’s coached testimony, Jill Simpson’s testimony, Karl Rove’s involvement, TIME magazine's investigative pieces on selective prosecution, the information from the employee in the U.S. Attorney's office regarding the prosecutions relationship with a juror and Leura Canary’s lies about her recusal--none of this was allowed to be part of the appeal because it all came to light after the trial. All of this information and material will be included in a Rule 33 motion for consideration of newly discovered evidence that will be filed in June.
* Aside from all of the political issues, the 11th Circuit almost certainly bungled this appeal. Ample evidence was available in the public square to show the Siegelman/Scrushy convictions had to be overturned by law. Perhaps the most compelling evidence was the pathetic memorandum opinion issued by trial judge Mark Fuller in an effort to show that Siegelman should remain imprisoned pending appeal. Fuller didn't come close to meeting his burden for showing that Siegelman should remain imprisoned. In the process, he showed that he could not justify the conviction, either. And this is the judge who oversaw the trial! Scott Horton said his colleagues in the legal profession considered Fuller's opinion "farcical" and the work of a "third-rate legal mind." Apparently, there are also some third-rate legal minds on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals--and like Fuller, they are Republicans.
* Want another sign that the 11th Circuit screwed up the appeal? It's undisputed that Fuller presented improper jury instructions on bribery at trial. This is the same thing that happened in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, although the judge in that case (another Republican appointee) was even more blatant about his chicanery than was Fuller. In both cases, defendants essentially were convicted for crimes that do not exist. And yet news reports indicate that the 11th Circuit found the jury instructions in the Siegelman case to be "sufficient." Sufficient? This is a criminal case, folks, where individuals' freedom is at stake. Criminal law is not supposed to be based on "sufficient." The big question should be: Did the defendants violate the law, as it actually reads, or not? Bribery law is not all that difficult, and Siegelman/Scrushy clearly did not violate it. But the 11th Circuit says it's OK for the jury to decide based on law that Fuller pulled out of his . . . well, that he made up.
* Can you take one final sign that the 11th Circuit screwed up? As we showed in a previous post, the statute of limitations clearly had run on the activity that prosecutors alleged was bribery. News reports indicate that the 11th Circuit found this argument was invalid because Siegelman and Scrushy failed to raise it at trial. But you can check Rule 29(c)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and see that Siegelman/Scrushy raised the issue in a timely and appropriate fashion.
Our conclusion for now? We are probably being charitable when we say the 11th Circuit screwed up. That language implies honest mistakes, and this almost certainly was an intentional cheat job.
While it's sad to see that Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy are going to have to continue to fight a bogus prosecution, yesterday's opinion does offer confirmation of the reasons I started this blog in the first place.
I started Legal Schnauzer in June 2007 because I had witnessed corruption in Alabama state courts firsthand. In our very first post, I stated that this corruption appears to go way beyond my little case.
Now we know just how far it goes. On our humble blog, we've shown that Alabama state courts are corrupt at the district, circuit, Court of Appeals, and Supreme Court levels. We've shown, in the Siegelman and Minor cases, that federal trial judges are corrupt. Now we learn that federal appellate courts also are corrupt.
And that doesn't touch the big enchilada. Famed California prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi is one of several writers who have made compelling cases that the U.S. Supreme Court acted corruptly in its 2000 Bush v. Gore ruling that handed the presidency to George W. Bush.
More recently, we've seen evidence that the U.S. Supremes acted corruptly in the Alabama case that led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We plan to post soon about the Supreme Court's shenanigans in that case.
Here's perhaps the most disturbing part of our current predicament regarding justice: Our supposedly fresh, progressive leaders don't seem to get it. U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) says he hopes the Siegelman case will fade from view by 2010. (Doesn't look like that's going to happen, Congressman.)
President Barack Obama says he is more interested in looking forward rather than looking back at issues of injustice. And by appointing Greg Craig as White House counsel, Obama appears to have acquired a key advisor who is more interested in protecting Karl Rove than getting at justice. (What's going on, Mr. President?)
These are dark days for American justice. And they just got darker on Friday.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Why Won't Rove Be Testifying Under Oath?
Why will Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers not be under oath when they testify before Congress? That's a question raised by Alabama attorney and GOP whistleblower Jill Simpson. And we think she has a darned good point.
Brad Friedman reports at BradBlog that Rove and Miers will not be under oath when they testify before Congress about the U.S. attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
A source with the House Judiciary Committee tells Friedman that 18 U.S. Code 1001 makes it a crime to lie to Congress, whether there is an oath administered or not. Therefore, the source says, an oath is not necessary. It's a "non-issue," the source says.
That might be true technically, but it raises this question: If it's no biggie, why not administer an oath? Rove and Miers shouldn't mind, should they?
It also raises this question: If oaths are no big deal in Congress, why was Simpson under oath when she testified about the Siegelman case before the House Judiciary Committee in fall 2007?
Simpson raises that point, and others, in the following statement regarding testimony from Rove and Miers:
BradBlog has now broken the story that they will not have to take an oath to tell the truth. I find this most interesting that Congress would ask me to take an oath but will not ask either of these two people to take an oath.
After all, these two avoided a lawful congressional subpoena; you would think Congress would demand they take the oath to tell the truth. Instead Congress is claiming if they lie they can be charged with perjury, so no oath is necessary. Isn't that charming?
However, it is always a precaution to advise a person before they testify that they are swearing to tell the truth, so my question is: Why would Congress take the step to say they are not going to require these two folks to take an oath which would show they knew that what they said could have ramifications such as perjury? Are they above the rule of law? Does Congress apply different rules for people like me and you than people like Rove and Miers.
Why would Congress give them a possible out to say they were not advised properly? Further, why would they not want to take the oath to tell the truth before God if they were going to face perjury charges if they lied anyway? After all, what would it hurt?
If you were telling the truth, would you mind taking an oath? My question is also why would Congress ever want to take their testimony without them taking an oath to tell the truth? Yesterday, headlines were all over the Internet that suggested they had reached an agreement to testify and would face penalities of perjury. But not one single paper said that President Bush's lawyer, who was once partners with Mr Obama's lawyer, had agreed to allow Harriet Miers and Karl Rove to testify without taking an oath to tell the truth. I wonder what their next spin will be out of Williams & Connolly.
They have used smoke and mirrors on the press all over the United States and are probably laughing now. But this is not a funny matter. I had to testify under oath to tell the truth, and Mr Rove and Mrs Miers should have to do the same.
Otherwise we have become a country that does not treat people equally before Congress. That is a sad day in America, and today is that day.
I am asking (concerned citizens) to call (John) Conyers and ask his office why Karl Rove and Harriet Miers do not have to take an oath to tell the truth. Tell them you want them to take an oath.
Brad Friedman reports at BradBlog that Rove and Miers will not be under oath when they testify before Congress about the U.S. attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
A source with the House Judiciary Committee tells Friedman that 18 U.S. Code 1001 makes it a crime to lie to Congress, whether there is an oath administered or not. Therefore, the source says, an oath is not necessary. It's a "non-issue," the source says.
That might be true technically, but it raises this question: If it's no biggie, why not administer an oath? Rove and Miers shouldn't mind, should they?
It also raises this question: If oaths are no big deal in Congress, why was Simpson under oath when she testified about the Siegelman case before the House Judiciary Committee in fall 2007?
Simpson raises that point, and others, in the following statement regarding testimony from Rove and Miers:
BradBlog has now broken the story that they will not have to take an oath to tell the truth. I find this most interesting that Congress would ask me to take an oath but will not ask either of these two people to take an oath.
After all, these two avoided a lawful congressional subpoena; you would think Congress would demand they take the oath to tell the truth. Instead Congress is claiming if they lie they can be charged with perjury, so no oath is necessary. Isn't that charming?
However, it is always a precaution to advise a person before they testify that they are swearing to tell the truth, so my question is: Why would Congress take the step to say they are not going to require these two folks to take an oath which would show they knew that what they said could have ramifications such as perjury? Are they above the rule of law? Does Congress apply different rules for people like me and you than people like Rove and Miers.
Why would Congress give them a possible out to say they were not advised properly? Further, why would they not want to take the oath to tell the truth before God if they were going to face perjury charges if they lied anyway? After all, what would it hurt?
If you were telling the truth, would you mind taking an oath? My question is also why would Congress ever want to take their testimony without them taking an oath to tell the truth? Yesterday, headlines were all over the Internet that suggested they had reached an agreement to testify and would face penalities of perjury. But not one single paper said that President Bush's lawyer, who was once partners with Mr Obama's lawyer, had agreed to allow Harriet Miers and Karl Rove to testify without taking an oath to tell the truth. I wonder what their next spin will be out of Williams & Connolly.
They have used smoke and mirrors on the press all over the United States and are probably laughing now. But this is not a funny matter. I had to testify under oath to tell the truth, and Mr Rove and Mrs Miers should have to do the same.
Otherwise we have become a country that does not treat people equally before Congress. That is a sad day in America, and today is that day.
I am asking (concerned citizens) to call (John) Conyers and ask his office why Karl Rove and Harriet Miers do not have to take an oath to tell the truth. Tell them you want them to take an oath.
Is Obama Aide Trying to Protect Karl Rove?
By almost all accounts, Barack Obama and his team ran one of the most effective presidential campaigns in American history.
So how could Team Obama, which clearly is made up of many smart people, be dumb enough to select Greg Craig as White House counsel?
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, a key whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case, says Craig has serious conflicts regarding certain members of the Republican Party. And we're not talking about reputable, mainstream Republicans like Richard Lugar or Olympia Snowe. We're talking Dr. Evil himself--Karl Rove.
A February 22 letter, from Simpson attorney Priscilla Black Duncan to Craig, outlines several serious charges against the White House counsel. He has represented Rove in a book deal. His close associate and mentor represents the Bush administration on executive-privilege issues regarding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
But most troubling is the possibility that Craig violated multiple ethical rules of the legal profession in his direct conversations with Simpson. The letter states that Craig held extensive discussions with Simpson about the possibility of representing her for her testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. After hearing a complete account of Simpson's story, Craig informed her that he had a conflict involving U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and could not represent her.
The tone of the letter makes it clear that Simpson suspects Craig took privileged information he gleaned from her and shared it with Rove or individuals close to him. Such action would represent a serious breach of legal ethics, and my understanding is that Craig could face sanctions, perhaps disbarment, if such a breach were proven.
In the letter, Simpson asks that Craig withdraw from any representation of Obama in matters involving the Bush administration. A New York Times report, however, indicates that Craig was involved in negotiations that resulted in an agreement to have Rove testify in a non-public proceeding before Congress.
Also, Simpson demands that Craig turn over any material related to disclosure of information he received from Simpson, along with the identities of any people to whom he disclosed it.
The February 22 letter asks that Craig respond to these requests within three business days. So far, there is no indication that he has responded.
The complete Simpson letter can be viewed here.
Meanwhile, word seems to be spreading that Rove's deal with Congress is a raw deal for justice. Reports indicate that Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers will be questioned about the firings of U.S. attorneys and the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
Siegelman appeared last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, and the first question to him was, "Are you optimistic that this particular form of testimony by Karl Rove is going to be appropriate for learning the truth about your case?"
Siegelman responded by comparing Rove to a "double-headed rattlesnake" and "an infected wound." But he adroitly avoided answering the question. In fact, Siegelman's answer indicates that he is not high on Rove's agreement with Congress and he thinks Congress is going about its investigation in a backward way.
Consider this reply from Siegelman:
"Rushing through this is not going to instill faith in the American people that we've done a good job. I would encourage Congress to take time and look at other people who can lay a foundation to put Karl Rove in check. . . .
"Congress needs to first subpoena, for example in my case, telephone records and e-mail communications between Karl Rove and the attorney general of Alabama (William Pryor) who started the investigation of me. They need to subpoena e-mail and phone records of Bill Canary, the husband of the prosecutor in my case and Karl Rove's best friend in Alabama . . . so we can have a foundation on which to have questions.
"Also, there are other people in Alabama who have knowledge of this prosecution. Those people should be brought before the committee and asked to the tell the truth under oath and penalty of perjury."
As a former state attorney general, Siegelman knows how a criminal investigation should be handled. Does it sound like he thinks Congress is going about this in the right way? Nope. Does it sound like he's pleased by an agreement that means Rove will not testify under oath? Nope.
Siegelman is a shrewd politician, and he's not about to blast this Rove deal and risk offending House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and others. It's possible that Siegelman suspects the Rove/Miers testimony will mainly be for show--that other activities will take place behind the scenes to get at the truth.
Finally, it's possible that Siegelman suspects that someone--Jill Simpson perhaps--will pull the mask off Greg Craig and show that a Rove "friendly" is up to dirty deeds within the Obama White House.
Here is the full Siegelman interview from last night's Rachel Maddow Show:
So how could Team Obama, which clearly is made up of many smart people, be dumb enough to select Greg Craig as White House counsel?
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, a key whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case, says Craig has serious conflicts regarding certain members of the Republican Party. And we're not talking about reputable, mainstream Republicans like Richard Lugar or Olympia Snowe. We're talking Dr. Evil himself--Karl Rove.
A February 22 letter, from Simpson attorney Priscilla Black Duncan to Craig, outlines several serious charges against the White House counsel. He has represented Rove in a book deal. His close associate and mentor represents the Bush administration on executive-privilege issues regarding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
But most troubling is the possibility that Craig violated multiple ethical rules of the legal profession in his direct conversations with Simpson. The letter states that Craig held extensive discussions with Simpson about the possibility of representing her for her testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. After hearing a complete account of Simpson's story, Craig informed her that he had a conflict involving U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and could not represent her.
The tone of the letter makes it clear that Simpson suspects Craig took privileged information he gleaned from her and shared it with Rove or individuals close to him. Such action would represent a serious breach of legal ethics, and my understanding is that Craig could face sanctions, perhaps disbarment, if such a breach were proven.
In the letter, Simpson asks that Craig withdraw from any representation of Obama in matters involving the Bush administration. A New York Times report, however, indicates that Craig was involved in negotiations that resulted in an agreement to have Rove testify in a non-public proceeding before Congress.
Also, Simpson demands that Craig turn over any material related to disclosure of information he received from Simpson, along with the identities of any people to whom he disclosed it.
The February 22 letter asks that Craig respond to these requests within three business days. So far, there is no indication that he has responded.
The complete Simpson letter can be viewed here.
Meanwhile, word seems to be spreading that Rove's deal with Congress is a raw deal for justice. Reports indicate that Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers will be questioned about the firings of U.S. attorneys and the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
Siegelman appeared last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, and the first question to him was, "Are you optimistic that this particular form of testimony by Karl Rove is going to be appropriate for learning the truth about your case?"
Siegelman responded by comparing Rove to a "double-headed rattlesnake" and "an infected wound." But he adroitly avoided answering the question. In fact, Siegelman's answer indicates that he is not high on Rove's agreement with Congress and he thinks Congress is going about its investigation in a backward way.
Consider this reply from Siegelman:
"Rushing through this is not going to instill faith in the American people that we've done a good job. I would encourage Congress to take time and look at other people who can lay a foundation to put Karl Rove in check. . . .
"Congress needs to first subpoena, for example in my case, telephone records and e-mail communications between Karl Rove and the attorney general of Alabama (William Pryor) who started the investigation of me. They need to subpoena e-mail and phone records of Bill Canary, the husband of the prosecutor in my case and Karl Rove's best friend in Alabama . . . so we can have a foundation on which to have questions.
"Also, there are other people in Alabama who have knowledge of this prosecution. Those people should be brought before the committee and asked to the tell the truth under oath and penalty of perjury."
As a former state attorney general, Siegelman knows how a criminal investigation should be handled. Does it sound like he thinks Congress is going about this in the right way? Nope. Does it sound like he's pleased by an agreement that means Rove will not testify under oath? Nope.
Siegelman is a shrewd politician, and he's not about to blast this Rove deal and risk offending House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and others. It's possible that Siegelman suspects the Rove/Miers testimony will mainly be for show--that other activities will take place behind the scenes to get at the truth.
Finally, it's possible that Siegelman suspects that someone--Jill Simpson perhaps--will pull the mask off Greg Craig and show that a Rove "friendly" is up to dirty deeds within the Obama White House.
Here is the full Siegelman interview from last night's Rachel Maddow Show:
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Rove Deal Is A Raw Deal For Justice
After hearing that former White House advisor Karl Rove is set to answer questions before a congressional committee about the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, many progressives might be tempted to shout, "Hallelujah!"
But here's a word of caution from our justice team at Legal Schnauzer: Not so fast.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday evening that it had reached an agreement for Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to testify about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. News reports indicate the testimony also is expected to cover the Siegelman case, the best known of several apparent political prosecutions under the Bush Department of Justice.
Rove and Miers are to sit for transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury, with the committee reserving the right to seek public testimony. The agreement also states that invocations of official privileges will be limited.
All of that sounds good, right? Well, we're not so sure.
For one, why is the Siegelman case the only political prosecution on the agenda? There appear to be many others, perhaps most notably the case of Mississippi attorney Paul Minor and former state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield. That is the only documented case where the Bush prosecutor--Dunn Lampton--was on a list to be fired but was removed when he pursued a specific prosecution.
For another, news reports indicate that the Obama White House was deeply involved in negotiations for the Rove testimony. And White House Counsel Gregory Craig apparently represented the Obama camp. A New York Times report states that Craig sent House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers a letter saying, "President Obama is pleased that the parties have agreed to resolve this matter amicably."
But is Craig committed to seeing that former Bush officials are held accountable for politicizing the Justice Department? News out of Alabama this week indicates that Craig might be more interested in protecting Rove than in seeing that justice is done.
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, a GOP whistleblower in the Siegelman case, says Craig has a conflict in matters involving Rove and perhaps other former Bush officials. In a letter dated February 22, 2009, Simpson's attorney, Priscilla Black Duncan, asked Craig to step down from all matters involving the Bush administration.
As justification for this request, the letter states:
* Craig represented Rove in a recent book deal;
* Emmet Flood, Craig's former close associate and mentor, is representing the Bush administration on executive-privilege issues in a case involving the U.S. attorneys firings;
* Craig was in contact with Jill Simpson on the pretense of representing her regarding her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, but declined representation only after hearing her entire case against Rove.
In the letter, Duncan states that Craig had a duty to disclose his relationship with Rove to Simpson, and he has a duty now to disclose with whom he shared information gleaned from his discussions with Simpson.
In short, Simpson alleges that Craig violated multiple rules of professional conduct for lawyers. These are the kinds of violations that, if confirmed, could get a lawyer in serious trouble. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I suspect disbarment could be on the table for Mr. Craig if he indeed took privileged information from Ms. Simpson and disclosed it to Karl Rove or others.
So is the Rove deal a step forward for justice? I don't think so. And that's because I smell a foul odor coming from the Obama White House. And it seems to be coming from the vicinity of Gregory Craig.
As we have stated before here at Legal Schnauzer, I suspect the Obama presidency could go down in flames if he does not "get it right" on justice issues. The Bill Clinton administration chose to give corrupt Republicans a free pass and lived to regret it. With the help of Gregory Craig, Obama appears to be headed down the same slippery slope.
Does Obama need to make a change in his White House counsel? I would say the answer is yes, and that's because I've read the complete Jill Simpson letter. I invite Legal Schnauzer readers to do the same.
Here is the complete Simpson letter to Mr. Craig, as first reported by Glynn Wilson at Locust Fork New-Journal. The letter includes intriguing information about a number of Alabama GOP luminaries, including Governor Bob Riley and his son Rob, U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, and U.S. Judge Mark Fuller (the judge in the Siegelman case):
Hon. Greg Craig
Office of the White House Counsel
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. 20500
February 22, 2009
RE: Your position regarding advising the President on the pending testimony of Karl Rove
Dear Attorney Craig:
I represent Dana Jill Simpson, an attorney in Rainsville, Alabama, who testified before Congress in September 2007, regarding Karl Rove’s involvement in the U.S. Justice Department prosecution of Gov. Don Siegelman.
She is very concerned that you have violated the Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6 , 1.7 and 1.10, while citing 1.9 to decline representation. She is equally concerned about the person or persons to whom you have divulged her confidential information. Your recent efforts on the part of negotiating a settlement between Congress and Karl Rove have been noted, as well as your efforts to delay matters before the D.C. Court of Appeals, regarding Rove and other Bush administration officers claiming executive privilege.
For this reason, she is asking that you step down from your position as White House Counsel, at least in all matters dealing with the Bush administration. Further, she is asking that you furnish her with a list of each and every person with whom you have communicated regarding this matter; that is, Miss Simpson’s affidavit, testimony, knowledge, research and any other matters touching or information furnished by Miss Simpson.
In recapping the events linking you and Miss Simpson:
1.) Upon information and belief, Gov. Don Siegelman or his agent made the direct call to you at your law firm, Williams & Connolly, soliciting your pro bono representation of Ms. Simpson, with regard to her affidavit about Karl Rove’s involvement in Siegelman’s prosecution.
2.) According to Ms. Simpson, you called her up to four times on or about March 16-17, 2007, and you faxed her your resume.
3.) She initially asked, “Before we really start this, do you have any contacts with George Bush, Karl Rove, Don Siegelman or Bob Riley?”
4.) You indicated you did not and said, “Tell me who this is about.”
5.) Your initial conversation with Ms. Simpson lasted about 10 to 15 minutes.
6.) In three conversations of nearly two hours, you extracted particular details of her involvement, and you asked her specifically about the length of time and character of her contact with Karl Rove, the extent of her work with the GOP and her knowledge of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller’s owner-interest in Doss Aviation, a major federal contractor, and matters dealing with lobbyist G. Stewart Hall’s then-Federalist Group and the steering of contracts to Fuller’s company and companies related to Gov. Bob Riley’s son, Rob Riley.
7.) After this extensive questioning, which included another session for the questions you had formulated, you announced that you couldn't represent her because you had represented Sen. Richard Shelby during the 2004-2005 investigations of his alleged national security leaks.
8.) Ms. Simpson says that you related to her that Sen. Shelby had told you “ in confidence” that he “owned and controlled Doss Aviation out of the federal courthouse in Montgomery,” and that Doss Aviation’s, 1 Church Street, mail was delivered to Shelby’s Senate office, even before Fuller was appointed judge. You told her that you “didn’t really like” Shelby, that the Doss connection had not been discovered during the previous hearing, but that, “It will come up, if you really go into it.”
9.) You failed to mention to Miss Simpson, however, that you were a friend of Karl Rove, had shared drinks with Karl Rove, that your law firm, Williams & Connolly, was representing Vice President Cheney on Scooter Libby’s role in the Valerie Plame case in which Rove was involved; that your firm has advised the White House not to turn over GOP emails regarding the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys. Nor did you disclose your firm’s involvement in defending Iran-Contra figures, which you knew or should have known play a key role in the current military contracts routed to Doss Aviation.
Now, I understand your firm is handling Karl Rove’s book deal. Currently, your former close associate and mentor, Emmet Flood is representing former President Bush in executive privilege matters before the D.C. Court of Appeals with regard to political firings of U.S. Attorneys who failed to act on orders to prosecute Democrats prior to elections – matters in which you are directly involved in your role as President Obama’s White House Counsel.
You had a duty to disclose your relationship with Rove to Miss Simpson before she revealed the details of her involvement, because you knew from initial contacts that you had a conflict. You have a duty now to turn over any material relating to disclosure of that information as well as to allocute to whom you passed the knowledge. She also inquires whether you or anyone to you contacted is responsible for recommending legal services from Washington attorney David Laufman, also known as “Bush’s Cleaner,” or Montgomery Republican Tommy Gallion, who after months of intensive discussions with Ms. Simpson, indicated he was in regular contact with President Bush on her matter.
Ms. Simpson asks that you withdraw from any representation of the President on these matters due to your conflicts and those of Williams & Connolly in this area. If you respect the legal Code of Professional Conduct, you must take action to remedy the damage you have done to Ms. Simpson, Mr. Shelby and the legal profession.
We would appreciate an answer no later than three business days.
Sincerely,
Priscilla Black Duncan
Attorney for Jill Simpson
But here's a word of caution from our justice team at Legal Schnauzer: Not so fast.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday evening that it had reached an agreement for Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers to testify about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. News reports indicate the testimony also is expected to cover the Siegelman case, the best known of several apparent political prosecutions under the Bush Department of Justice.
Rove and Miers are to sit for transcribed depositions under penalty of perjury, with the committee reserving the right to seek public testimony. The agreement also states that invocations of official privileges will be limited.
All of that sounds good, right? Well, we're not so sure.
For one, why is the Siegelman case the only political prosecution on the agenda? There appear to be many others, perhaps most notably the case of Mississippi attorney Paul Minor and former state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield. That is the only documented case where the Bush prosecutor--Dunn Lampton--was on a list to be fired but was removed when he pursued a specific prosecution.
For another, news reports indicate that the Obama White House was deeply involved in negotiations for the Rove testimony. And White House Counsel Gregory Craig apparently represented the Obama camp. A New York Times report states that Craig sent House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers a letter saying, "President Obama is pleased that the parties have agreed to resolve this matter amicably."
But is Craig committed to seeing that former Bush officials are held accountable for politicizing the Justice Department? News out of Alabama this week indicates that Craig might be more interested in protecting Rove than in seeing that justice is done.
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, a GOP whistleblower in the Siegelman case, says Craig has a conflict in matters involving Rove and perhaps other former Bush officials. In a letter dated February 22, 2009, Simpson's attorney, Priscilla Black Duncan, asked Craig to step down from all matters involving the Bush administration.
As justification for this request, the letter states:
* Craig represented Rove in a recent book deal;
* Emmet Flood, Craig's former close associate and mentor, is representing the Bush administration on executive-privilege issues in a case involving the U.S. attorneys firings;
* Craig was in contact with Jill Simpson on the pretense of representing her regarding her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, but declined representation only after hearing her entire case against Rove.
In the letter, Duncan states that Craig had a duty to disclose his relationship with Rove to Simpson, and he has a duty now to disclose with whom he shared information gleaned from his discussions with Simpson.
In short, Simpson alleges that Craig violated multiple rules of professional conduct for lawyers. These are the kinds of violations that, if confirmed, could get a lawyer in serious trouble. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I suspect disbarment could be on the table for Mr. Craig if he indeed took privileged information from Ms. Simpson and disclosed it to Karl Rove or others.
So is the Rove deal a step forward for justice? I don't think so. And that's because I smell a foul odor coming from the Obama White House. And it seems to be coming from the vicinity of Gregory Craig.
As we have stated before here at Legal Schnauzer, I suspect the Obama presidency could go down in flames if he does not "get it right" on justice issues. The Bill Clinton administration chose to give corrupt Republicans a free pass and lived to regret it. With the help of Gregory Craig, Obama appears to be headed down the same slippery slope.
Does Obama need to make a change in his White House counsel? I would say the answer is yes, and that's because I've read the complete Jill Simpson letter. I invite Legal Schnauzer readers to do the same.
Here is the complete Simpson letter to Mr. Craig, as first reported by Glynn Wilson at Locust Fork New-Journal. The letter includes intriguing information about a number of Alabama GOP luminaries, including Governor Bob Riley and his son Rob, U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, and U.S. Judge Mark Fuller (the judge in the Siegelman case):
Hon. Greg Craig
Office of the White House Counsel
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. 20500
February 22, 2009
RE: Your position regarding advising the President on the pending testimony of Karl Rove
Dear Attorney Craig:
I represent Dana Jill Simpson, an attorney in Rainsville, Alabama, who testified before Congress in September 2007, regarding Karl Rove’s involvement in the U.S. Justice Department prosecution of Gov. Don Siegelman.
She is very concerned that you have violated the Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6 , 1.7 and 1.10, while citing 1.9 to decline representation. She is equally concerned about the person or persons to whom you have divulged her confidential information. Your recent efforts on the part of negotiating a settlement between Congress and Karl Rove have been noted, as well as your efforts to delay matters before the D.C. Court of Appeals, regarding Rove and other Bush administration officers claiming executive privilege.
For this reason, she is asking that you step down from your position as White House Counsel, at least in all matters dealing with the Bush administration. Further, she is asking that you furnish her with a list of each and every person with whom you have communicated regarding this matter; that is, Miss Simpson’s affidavit, testimony, knowledge, research and any other matters touching or information furnished by Miss Simpson.
In recapping the events linking you and Miss Simpson:
1.) Upon information and belief, Gov. Don Siegelman or his agent made the direct call to you at your law firm, Williams & Connolly, soliciting your pro bono representation of Ms. Simpson, with regard to her affidavit about Karl Rove’s involvement in Siegelman’s prosecution.
2.) According to Ms. Simpson, you called her up to four times on or about March 16-17, 2007, and you faxed her your resume.
3.) She initially asked, “Before we really start this, do you have any contacts with George Bush, Karl Rove, Don Siegelman or Bob Riley?”
4.) You indicated you did not and said, “Tell me who this is about.”
5.) Your initial conversation with Ms. Simpson lasted about 10 to 15 minutes.
6.) In three conversations of nearly two hours, you extracted particular details of her involvement, and you asked her specifically about the length of time and character of her contact with Karl Rove, the extent of her work with the GOP and her knowledge of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller’s owner-interest in Doss Aviation, a major federal contractor, and matters dealing with lobbyist G. Stewart Hall’s then-Federalist Group and the steering of contracts to Fuller’s company and companies related to Gov. Bob Riley’s son, Rob Riley.
7.) After this extensive questioning, which included another session for the questions you had formulated, you announced that you couldn't represent her because you had represented Sen. Richard Shelby during the 2004-2005 investigations of his alleged national security leaks.
8.) Ms. Simpson says that you related to her that Sen. Shelby had told you “ in confidence” that he “owned and controlled Doss Aviation out of the federal courthouse in Montgomery,” and that Doss Aviation’s, 1 Church Street, mail was delivered to Shelby’s Senate office, even before Fuller was appointed judge. You told her that you “didn’t really like” Shelby, that the Doss connection had not been discovered during the previous hearing, but that, “It will come up, if you really go into it.”
9.) You failed to mention to Miss Simpson, however, that you were a friend of Karl Rove, had shared drinks with Karl Rove, that your law firm, Williams & Connolly, was representing Vice President Cheney on Scooter Libby’s role in the Valerie Plame case in which Rove was involved; that your firm has advised the White House not to turn over GOP emails regarding the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys. Nor did you disclose your firm’s involvement in defending Iran-Contra figures, which you knew or should have known play a key role in the current military contracts routed to Doss Aviation.
Now, I understand your firm is handling Karl Rove’s book deal. Currently, your former close associate and mentor, Emmet Flood is representing former President Bush in executive privilege matters before the D.C. Court of Appeals with regard to political firings of U.S. Attorneys who failed to act on orders to prosecute Democrats prior to elections – matters in which you are directly involved in your role as President Obama’s White House Counsel.
You had a duty to disclose your relationship with Rove to Miss Simpson before she revealed the details of her involvement, because you knew from initial contacts that you had a conflict. You have a duty now to turn over any material relating to disclosure of that information as well as to allocute to whom you passed the knowledge. She also inquires whether you or anyone to you contacted is responsible for recommending legal services from Washington attorney David Laufman, also known as “Bush’s Cleaner,” or Montgomery Republican Tommy Gallion, who after months of intensive discussions with Ms. Simpson, indicated he was in regular contact with President Bush on her matter.
Ms. Simpson asks that you withdraw from any representation of the President on these matters due to your conflicts and those of Williams & Connolly in this area. If you respect the legal Code of Professional Conduct, you must take action to remedy the damage you have done to Ms. Simpson, Mr. Shelby and the legal profession.
We would appreciate an answer no later than three business days.
Sincerely,
Priscilla Black Duncan
Attorney for Jill Simpson
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Was Bush in the Loop on the Siegelman Case?
Former President George W. Bush was in regular contact with an Alabama Republican attorney about the Don Siegelman case, according to an exclusive report in the Locust Fork News-Journal.
The revelation comes in a letter from GOP whistleblower Jill Simpson, asking that Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig recuse himself from matters involving the Bush administration because of conflicts connected to Karl Rove.
Priscilla Black Duncan, Simpson's attorney, writes in the letter that her client had been advised to seek legal services from Montgomery lawyer Tommy Gallion. After months of intensive discussions with Simpson, Gallion revealed that President Bush was in regular contact with him about her role in the Siegelman case.
Bush's connections to Montgomery, AL, date to the early 1970s, and it appears he was using those connections to stay up to date on the Siegelman case. Why was Bush interested in the Siegelman matter? That remains unclear.
Glynn Wilson, editor of the Locust Fork News-Journal, said Gallion repeatedly has declined to answer questions about Bush's knowledge of, and interest in, the Siegelman case.
Reports Wilson:
If Bush was as interested in the case as Gallion indicated to Ms. Simpson, that would place him directly in the loop in the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Perhaps Congress should also consider issuing a subpoena to Bush himself to testify under oath, since he refuses to allow Rove to testify, claiming staff executive privilege in his case.
The revelation comes in a letter from GOP whistleblower Jill Simpson, asking that Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig recuse himself from matters involving the Bush administration because of conflicts connected to Karl Rove.
Priscilla Black Duncan, Simpson's attorney, writes in the letter that her client had been advised to seek legal services from Montgomery lawyer Tommy Gallion. After months of intensive discussions with Simpson, Gallion revealed that President Bush was in regular contact with him about her role in the Siegelman case.
Bush's connections to Montgomery, AL, date to the early 1970s, and it appears he was using those connections to stay up to date on the Siegelman case. Why was Bush interested in the Siegelman matter? That remains unclear.
Glynn Wilson, editor of the Locust Fork News-Journal, said Gallion repeatedly has declined to answer questions about Bush's knowledge of, and interest in, the Siegelman case.
Reports Wilson:
If Bush was as interested in the case as Gallion indicated to Ms. Simpson, that would place him directly in the loop in the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Perhaps Congress should also consider issuing a subpoena to Bush himself to testify under oath, since he refuses to allow Rove to testify, claiming staff executive privilege in his case.
Does Obama Aide Have a Conflict Involving Rove?
An aide to President Barack Obama should recuse himself from justice-related issues involving Karl Rove, according to a central figure in the Don Siegelman case.
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, best known as a Republican whistleblower in the Siegelman case, says White House Counsel Greg Craig has a conflict in matters involving Rove and perhaps other Bush administration officials.
In an exclusive story at Locust Fork News-Journal, Glynn Wilson reports that Craig has been asked to step down as White House counsel, at least in "all matters related to the Bush administration."
Priscilla Black Duncan, Simpson's Montgomery-based attorney, writes in a letter dated February 22 that the Rules of Professional Conduct require Craig to step aside from discussions about executive privilege and other issues connected to the Bush administration.
What is Craig's conflict? Wilson reports:
In what appears to be a clear conflict of interest, Craig represented Rove in his recent book deal, while Craig’s law partner, close associate and mentor, Emmet Flood, is representing Bush in executive privilege matters before the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, where Bush administration officials have been charged with the political firings of U.S. attorneys for failing to act on orders to prosecute Democrats prior to elections.
But the most alarming sign of a conflict for Craig comes from this:
Furthermore, Craig had been in contact with Ms. Simpson on the pretense of possibly representing her in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee legal team a year and a half ago, but declined to represent her only after getting her to reveal her entire case against Mr. Rove.
In her letter, Duncan notes the serious nature of Craig's interactions with Simpson:
“You had a duty to disclose your relationship with Rove to Ms. Simpson before she revealed the details of her involvement, because you knew from initial contacts that you had a conflict,” Duncan writes in the letter. “You have a duty now to turn over any material relating to disclosure of that information as well as to allocute to whom you passed the knowledge.”
Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, best known as a Republican whistleblower in the Siegelman case, says White House Counsel Greg Craig has a conflict in matters involving Rove and perhaps other Bush administration officials.
In an exclusive story at Locust Fork News-Journal, Glynn Wilson reports that Craig has been asked to step down as White House counsel, at least in "all matters related to the Bush administration."
Priscilla Black Duncan, Simpson's Montgomery-based attorney, writes in a letter dated February 22 that the Rules of Professional Conduct require Craig to step aside from discussions about executive privilege and other issues connected to the Bush administration.
What is Craig's conflict? Wilson reports:
In what appears to be a clear conflict of interest, Craig represented Rove in his recent book deal, while Craig’s law partner, close associate and mentor, Emmet Flood, is representing Bush in executive privilege matters before the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, where Bush administration officials have been charged with the political firings of U.S. attorneys for failing to act on orders to prosecute Democrats prior to elections.
But the most alarming sign of a conflict for Craig comes from this:
Furthermore, Craig had been in contact with Ms. Simpson on the pretense of possibly representing her in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee legal team a year and a half ago, but declined to represent her only after getting her to reveal her entire case against Mr. Rove.
In her letter, Duncan notes the serious nature of Craig's interactions with Simpson:
“You had a duty to disclose your relationship with Rove to Ms. Simpson before she revealed the details of her involvement, because you knew from initial contacts that you had a conflict,” Duncan writes in the letter. “You have a duty now to turn over any material relating to disclosure of that information as well as to allocute to whom you passed the knowledge.”
You can read the full text of Duncan's letter at Locust Fork News-Journal.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
What's the Matter With Managers?
Dilbert is one of the most popular comic strips in the country, and I suspect that is not an accident.
Like most good comedy, Dilbert is funny because it is built on uncomfortable truths. It illustrates the soul-sucking nature of the modern workplace in hilarious ways.
And Dilbert expertly skewers the people who are primarily responsible for the soul-sucking nature of work--managers.
From the day I graduated from the University of Missouri in May 1978 till the day I was "terminated" at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I was consistently employed. That's exactly 30 years of work, without much of a break until I was forced to take a break over the past nine months or so.
Has this experience afforded me any deep insights? Well, I don't know how deep it is, but I've decided that there is nothing inherently soul-sucking about work. In fact, it's an honorable pursuit, and with a blog to write, a legal case to prepare, and a job hunt to conduct, I've been just as busy as I was when I worked at UAB.
Also, I think the vast majority of people in the workplace are gem-dandy folks. One of the worst parts of losing my job is that I miss many of my coworkers at UAB--particularly the people who actually do work. I call them "worker bees." That's opposed to "queen bees," who mostly run things--or should I say, run things into the ground.
Do I miss managers and people connected to management? Not on your life. And I ask myself, "Why is that? What happens to people when they go to the dark side of management?"
These thoughts came to the forefront a while back when I wrote about the possibility that at least seven people at UAB have violated Alabama ethics laws, particularly Code of Alabama 36-25-24(c), regarding my termination.
At the risk of sounding like I can read minds, I'm going to guess that all seven of these people know that I was wrongfully terminated. And I'm guessing that at least three or four of them know exactly why I was cheated out of my job--and who is behind it. (Word about that kind of thing tends to travel, which probably is why UAB does not want me to return to my old job. I imagine a number of "worker bees" have a pretty good idea what went down, and they don't want those folks dropping specifics to me.)
Five of the seven people on my "dishonor roll" are what I would call workplace acquaintances. I've gotten along fine with all of them, but there has been no personal connection there. And I don't know that helping to cheat me out of my job would cause them any particular qualms.
But I know two of the people pretty darned well. They know both me and my wife. They know about our lives, and I've shared quite a bit of personal information with them--and they've shared quite a bit with me.
So I wonder: How do these people sleep at night?
The first such person is Janice Ward, our departmental personnel officer and HR representative. Before April 2008, I would have described Janice Ward as one of my all-time favorite coworkers. Janice is an African-American from Birmingham who, in many ways, represents the best of UAB. She has two degrees from the university and teaches part-time there. She serves on a number of university boards, and I've interviewed her several times for stories in our various alumni publications.
Her son, Torrey Ward, played basketball for UAB and now is an assistant coach at the University of Mississippi. In fact, here is a cover story I wrote for UAB Magazine featuring Torrey Ward.
Knowing Janice Ward has taught me at least one important lesson. I used to hold the view that single parenthood was generally a bad thing, that kids were almost always better off with two parents. Well, Janice Ward raised her son as a single mom, and from everything I can see, she did a pretty darn good job. Meanwhile, in my neighborhood, I see numerous two-parent households where the parents do an utterly crappy job. Thanks to Janice, I've decided a child is probably better off with one really good parent than with two sorry ones.
Janice and I share common political views, and a love for UAB athletics, so we spent a lot of time in her office discussing those important subjects. And how's this for irony? If I was going to be disciplined for non work-related activity, it should have been for talking to Janice Ward. I spent far more time doing that than I ever did reading articles about Don Siegelman.
But on April 15 of this year, Janice was at a meeting in which my supervisor, Pam Powell, wrongly accused me of violating university and departmental policy regarding vacation requests and timekeeping. When I stood up for myself, and the truth, Pam proceeded to concoct a letter alleging that I had acted in a "hostile" and "threatening" manner in the meeting. The letter was copied to Janice, and she indicated that she agreed with the descriptions in the letter.
When a grievance hearing was held some two months later, after I had been terminated, committee members grilled Janice about what transpired in the meeting. Richard Pilgreen, the lone male on the committee, particularly pushed Janice for answers. And what did she say under questioning? She backtracked in a major way, saying she was "uncomfortable" in the meeting. And she didn't even say that I had caused her to be uncomfortable.
So why did Janice Ward earlier agree with the contents of a letter that she knew were not true? I don't have the answer, but it does make me wonder what happens to people when they come under the "management" banner.
The other person I've been close to is Pam Powell. I've known her pretty much the entire 19 years I worked at UAB. I worked directly for her the last 12 years I was there. And before that, when we were in different departments, she sought me out to do free-lance work for UAB Magazine, which I did--for free.
Pam has always operated in her own peculiar orbit, but I've generally considered her to be a good boss and I've never received anything but positive performance reviews from her. I've learned a lot from her, and I think I've more than returned the favor by being a dependable, loyal, and effective employee.
I regret having done this now, but I told Pam quite a bit over the years about my life outside of work. She knew about the legal challenges my wife and I had faced. She knew my wife had applied for a job at UAB a few years back, and my wife appeared to be the front runner until, mysteriously, someone else was hired--after Pam found out about my wife's interest. I've often wondered if Pam took steps to make sure my wife wasn't hired. Perhaps we will follow that line of inquiry during the lawsuit that will be coming against her and other folks acting in their individual capacities under the banner of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees.
Pam even knew about my blog, shortly after I started it. That's because I told her about it. Does it make sense that I would tell my boss about my blog if I was going to turn around and misuse university equipment to write it?
On an even more personal note, Pam Powell knew that my father had died in late March of 2008. And yet, roughly three weeks after my father's death, Pam wrote a bogus warning letter that I now know was intended to lead to my termination. And in the grievance hearing, I don't recall her saying a single positive thing about me, even though I had 12 years worth of positive performance reviews under her direction.
Interestingly, Pam was repeatedly asked to provided documentation to support her claims that I should have been fired. She repeatedly replied that she had no such documentation. The grievance hearing was tape recorded, and those tapes should be available--if someone from UAB hasn't managed to "lose" them.
And here's the kicker about Pam: She is in her early 60s and has roughly 30 years in at UAB. (Employees with 25 years or more can retire with full benefits.) Her husband owns an engineering firm, and evidently makes pretty good money.
In other words, she doesn't "need" her job. I know Pam values her job, and I'm not suggesting she should retire until she decides she is good and ready. But if I were in her shoes and someone from above told me to wrongfully can one of my employees, I hope I would have the integrity to say, "No, I won't do it."
I like to think that's what I would say, even if I badly needed my job. I can't imagine intentionally participating in a scheme to cheat one of my coworkers out of his or her job.
But Pam Powell evidently went along with it. And I guess she sleeps just fine at night.
Again, what happens to people when they become managers? Are they sent somewhere for their souls to be snatched?
I was at a retirement party for a friend a few months ago, and he noted that he had worked 40-plus years for his organization, basically at the same level. "A lot of people took demotions over the years and went into management," he said. People laughed, and he meant it as a joke.
But I'm starting to think he had a serious point. I wonder if people lose a part of themselves when they become managers. And I wonder if they even realize what they've lost.
As I write this, I'm reminded of my former UAB coworkers. And just to pick three names from the 12 or so people in our group, let's think of Grant Martin, Cindy Cardwell, and Stanley Holditch.
Grant, Cindy, and Stanley are good people and good workers. I consider it an honor to have worked with them (and everyone else in our group, for that matter). I consider Grant, Cindy, and Stanley to be friends, and I know a fair amount about them. I know what they think about a lot of subjects, including politics, religion, and culture. I know the music and movies and television shows they tend to like--and the movies and music and television shows they tend to avoid. For all three, I know some of the people closest to them--and what those people mean to them. I know that two of them have lost loved ones under very difficult circumstances over the past two years.
But here's what's on my mind: What if I were in a position of authority, and someone came to me and said, "Roger, I want you to start the process that will result in Grant, Cindy, or Stanley being fired. I can't tell you exactly why you have to do this, but someone in the university hierarchy is unhappy with them, and one of them has to go. And you'll have to keep firing until you get the right one."
I've got a mortgage, a wife, two kitty kats, and no trust fund. Heck, I don't even have a savings account or a credit card at the moment. If I were in that position, and my job were at stake, it would be an awfully big deal for our little "family unit."
But I don't think I could possibly fire Grant, Cindy, or Stanley, knowing they didn't deserve it.
In fact, if I ever get to the point in life where I would even seriously consider caving in to such a demand, I hope someone takes me to the glue factory and puts me out of my misery.
I can't say that I'm a perfectly self-actualized person, but I think that's how my mind works. As for Pam Powell and Janice Ward--and the other people at UAB who intentionally cheated me out of my job--I no longer have any idea how their minds work.
And I don't think I want to know.
Like most good comedy, Dilbert is funny because it is built on uncomfortable truths. It illustrates the soul-sucking nature of the modern workplace in hilarious ways.
And Dilbert expertly skewers the people who are primarily responsible for the soul-sucking nature of work--managers.
From the day I graduated from the University of Missouri in May 1978 till the day I was "terminated" at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I was consistently employed. That's exactly 30 years of work, without much of a break until I was forced to take a break over the past nine months or so.
Has this experience afforded me any deep insights? Well, I don't know how deep it is, but I've decided that there is nothing inherently soul-sucking about work. In fact, it's an honorable pursuit, and with a blog to write, a legal case to prepare, and a job hunt to conduct, I've been just as busy as I was when I worked at UAB.
Also, I think the vast majority of people in the workplace are gem-dandy folks. One of the worst parts of losing my job is that I miss many of my coworkers at UAB--particularly the people who actually do work. I call them "worker bees." That's opposed to "queen bees," who mostly run things--or should I say, run things into the ground.
Do I miss managers and people connected to management? Not on your life. And I ask myself, "Why is that? What happens to people when they go to the dark side of management?"
These thoughts came to the forefront a while back when I wrote about the possibility that at least seven people at UAB have violated Alabama ethics laws, particularly Code of Alabama 36-25-24(c), regarding my termination.
At the risk of sounding like I can read minds, I'm going to guess that all seven of these people know that I was wrongfully terminated. And I'm guessing that at least three or four of them know exactly why I was cheated out of my job--and who is behind it. (Word about that kind of thing tends to travel, which probably is why UAB does not want me to return to my old job. I imagine a number of "worker bees" have a pretty good idea what went down, and they don't want those folks dropping specifics to me.)
Five of the seven people on my "dishonor roll" are what I would call workplace acquaintances. I've gotten along fine with all of them, but there has been no personal connection there. And I don't know that helping to cheat me out of my job would cause them any particular qualms.
But I know two of the people pretty darned well. They know both me and my wife. They know about our lives, and I've shared quite a bit of personal information with them--and they've shared quite a bit with me.
So I wonder: How do these people sleep at night?
The first such person is Janice Ward, our departmental personnel officer and HR representative. Before April 2008, I would have described Janice Ward as one of my all-time favorite coworkers. Janice is an African-American from Birmingham who, in many ways, represents the best of UAB. She has two degrees from the university and teaches part-time there. She serves on a number of university boards, and I've interviewed her several times for stories in our various alumni publications.
Her son, Torrey Ward, played basketball for UAB and now is an assistant coach at the University of Mississippi. In fact, here is a cover story I wrote for UAB Magazine featuring Torrey Ward.
Knowing Janice Ward has taught me at least one important lesson. I used to hold the view that single parenthood was generally a bad thing, that kids were almost always better off with two parents. Well, Janice Ward raised her son as a single mom, and from everything I can see, she did a pretty darn good job. Meanwhile, in my neighborhood, I see numerous two-parent households where the parents do an utterly crappy job. Thanks to Janice, I've decided a child is probably better off with one really good parent than with two sorry ones.
Janice and I share common political views, and a love for UAB athletics, so we spent a lot of time in her office discussing those important subjects. And how's this for irony? If I was going to be disciplined for non work-related activity, it should have been for talking to Janice Ward. I spent far more time doing that than I ever did reading articles about Don Siegelman.
But on April 15 of this year, Janice was at a meeting in which my supervisor, Pam Powell, wrongly accused me of violating university and departmental policy regarding vacation requests and timekeeping. When I stood up for myself, and the truth, Pam proceeded to concoct a letter alleging that I had acted in a "hostile" and "threatening" manner in the meeting. The letter was copied to Janice, and she indicated that she agreed with the descriptions in the letter.
When a grievance hearing was held some two months later, after I had been terminated, committee members grilled Janice about what transpired in the meeting. Richard Pilgreen, the lone male on the committee, particularly pushed Janice for answers. And what did she say under questioning? She backtracked in a major way, saying she was "uncomfortable" in the meeting. And she didn't even say that I had caused her to be uncomfortable.
So why did Janice Ward earlier agree with the contents of a letter that she knew were not true? I don't have the answer, but it does make me wonder what happens to people when they come under the "management" banner.
The other person I've been close to is Pam Powell. I've known her pretty much the entire 19 years I worked at UAB. I worked directly for her the last 12 years I was there. And before that, when we were in different departments, she sought me out to do free-lance work for UAB Magazine, which I did--for free.
Pam has always operated in her own peculiar orbit, but I've generally considered her to be a good boss and I've never received anything but positive performance reviews from her. I've learned a lot from her, and I think I've more than returned the favor by being a dependable, loyal, and effective employee.
I regret having done this now, but I told Pam quite a bit over the years about my life outside of work. She knew about the legal challenges my wife and I had faced. She knew my wife had applied for a job at UAB a few years back, and my wife appeared to be the front runner until, mysteriously, someone else was hired--after Pam found out about my wife's interest. I've often wondered if Pam took steps to make sure my wife wasn't hired. Perhaps we will follow that line of inquiry during the lawsuit that will be coming against her and other folks acting in their individual capacities under the banner of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees.
Pam even knew about my blog, shortly after I started it. That's because I told her about it. Does it make sense that I would tell my boss about my blog if I was going to turn around and misuse university equipment to write it?
On an even more personal note, Pam Powell knew that my father had died in late March of 2008. And yet, roughly three weeks after my father's death, Pam wrote a bogus warning letter that I now know was intended to lead to my termination. And in the grievance hearing, I don't recall her saying a single positive thing about me, even though I had 12 years worth of positive performance reviews under her direction.
Interestingly, Pam was repeatedly asked to provided documentation to support her claims that I should have been fired. She repeatedly replied that she had no such documentation. The grievance hearing was tape recorded, and those tapes should be available--if someone from UAB hasn't managed to "lose" them.
And here's the kicker about Pam: She is in her early 60s and has roughly 30 years in at UAB. (Employees with 25 years or more can retire with full benefits.) Her husband owns an engineering firm, and evidently makes pretty good money.
In other words, she doesn't "need" her job. I know Pam values her job, and I'm not suggesting she should retire until she decides she is good and ready. But if I were in her shoes and someone from above told me to wrongfully can one of my employees, I hope I would have the integrity to say, "No, I won't do it."
I like to think that's what I would say, even if I badly needed my job. I can't imagine intentionally participating in a scheme to cheat one of my coworkers out of his or her job.
But Pam Powell evidently went along with it. And I guess she sleeps just fine at night.
Again, what happens to people when they become managers? Are they sent somewhere for their souls to be snatched?
I was at a retirement party for a friend a few months ago, and he noted that he had worked 40-plus years for his organization, basically at the same level. "A lot of people took demotions over the years and went into management," he said. People laughed, and he meant it as a joke.
But I'm starting to think he had a serious point. I wonder if people lose a part of themselves when they become managers. And I wonder if they even realize what they've lost.
As I write this, I'm reminded of my former UAB coworkers. And just to pick three names from the 12 or so people in our group, let's think of Grant Martin, Cindy Cardwell, and Stanley Holditch.
Grant, Cindy, and Stanley are good people and good workers. I consider it an honor to have worked with them (and everyone else in our group, for that matter). I consider Grant, Cindy, and Stanley to be friends, and I know a fair amount about them. I know what they think about a lot of subjects, including politics, religion, and culture. I know the music and movies and television shows they tend to like--and the movies and music and television shows they tend to avoid. For all three, I know some of the people closest to them--and what those people mean to them. I know that two of them have lost loved ones under very difficult circumstances over the past two years.
But here's what's on my mind: What if I were in a position of authority, and someone came to me and said, "Roger, I want you to start the process that will result in Grant, Cindy, or Stanley being fired. I can't tell you exactly why you have to do this, but someone in the university hierarchy is unhappy with them, and one of them has to go. And you'll have to keep firing until you get the right one."
I've got a mortgage, a wife, two kitty kats, and no trust fund. Heck, I don't even have a savings account or a credit card at the moment. If I were in that position, and my job were at stake, it would be an awfully big deal for our little "family unit."
But I don't think I could possibly fire Grant, Cindy, or Stanley, knowing they didn't deserve it.
In fact, if I ever get to the point in life where I would even seriously consider caving in to such a demand, I hope someone takes me to the glue factory and puts me out of my misery.
I can't say that I'm a perfectly self-actualized person, but I think that's how my mind works. As for Pam Powell and Janice Ward--and the other people at UAB who intentionally cheated me out of my job--I no longer have any idea how their minds work.
And I don't think I want to know.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Shelby's Comment About Obama Makes All Alabamians Look Stupid
U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) recently joined the parade of conservatives who question Barack Obama's citizenship--and thus his qualifications to be president.
But there is a slight problem with Shelby's claim that "you have to be born in America to be president."
It isn't true.
Randall Hall, a Birmingham lawyer, has written a splendid analysis of U.S. Shelby's recent gaffe while speaking with constituents at the All Steak Restaurant in Cullman.
Shelby was asked to comment on a conspiracy theory making the rounds in right-wing circles--that Obama is not a U.S. citizen and thus not qualified to be president. The senator's response? As reported by Patrick McCreless in the Cullman Times, it was: "Well, his father was Kenyan, and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president."
Hall takes this statement and uses it to expertly skewer Shelby:
There are only three explanations for Shelby's response: One, he doesn't understand the constitutional criteria required of citizens to serve as president. Two, he doesn't know Hawaii is in America. Or three, he is as ignorant and paranoid as the thousands of other conspiracy theorists who have made this same inane claim.
Maybe it's all three. After all, you do not "have to be born in America to be president."
Hall's last statement gets to the crux of the conspiracy theory that has become a plaything for conservative wingnuts. Alan Keyes has been among the leading whackjobs spouting off about this "requirement" that one must be born in America to be president:
Keyes clearly does not want the facts to get in the way of a good political rant. As Hall points out, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was born in Panama. But Keyes, Shelby, and their brethren aren't interested in that:
Pursuant to Article I, Section II of the Constitution, to be elected president, you have to be a "natural born citizen" of the U.S., which is not defined in the Constitution. Title 8 of the U.S. Code, Section 1401, does define "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth," and it includes people born outside the U.S. to parents with U.S. citizenship (i.e., people not "born in America," such as John McCain, who was born in Panama).
In addition, merely being "born in America" is not enough to be a "natural born citizen," because the newborns of foreign diplomats living in the U.S. are not considered "natural born citizens" as their parents are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
It's one thing for Alan Keyes to make nutty public statements about Obama's citizenship. But you might think that a senior senator from Alabama would have some clue what the law actually says on this subject. And you certainly would think that Shelby is aware that Hawaii is in the United States. Given that, Hall can come to only one conclusion:
So, that leaves only one explanation: Shelby has bought in to the much-maligned theory that Obama really wasn't born in Hawaii, and that a group of powerful conspirators manufactured his U.S. citizenship so he could ascend to the presidency. Even if Shelby doesn't believe this hopeless hypothesis, he is still reinforcing his constituents' acceptance of it by publicly parroting it.
But there is a slight problem with Shelby's claim that "you have to be born in America to be president."
It isn't true.
Randall Hall, a Birmingham lawyer, has written a splendid analysis of U.S. Shelby's recent gaffe while speaking with constituents at the All Steak Restaurant in Cullman.
Shelby was asked to comment on a conspiracy theory making the rounds in right-wing circles--that Obama is not a U.S. citizen and thus not qualified to be president. The senator's response? As reported by Patrick McCreless in the Cullman Times, it was: "Well, his father was Kenyan, and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president."
Hall takes this statement and uses it to expertly skewer Shelby:
There are only three explanations for Shelby's response: One, he doesn't understand the constitutional criteria required of citizens to serve as president. Two, he doesn't know Hawaii is in America. Or three, he is as ignorant and paranoid as the thousands of other conspiracy theorists who have made this same inane claim.
Maybe it's all three. After all, you do not "have to be born in America to be president."
Hall's last statement gets to the crux of the conspiracy theory that has become a plaything for conservative wingnuts. Alan Keyes has been among the leading whackjobs spouting off about this "requirement" that one must be born in America to be president:
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Keyes clearly does not want the facts to get in the way of a good political rant. As Hall points out, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was born in Panama. But Keyes, Shelby, and their brethren aren't interested in that:
Pursuant to Article I, Section II of the Constitution, to be elected president, you have to be a "natural born citizen" of the U.S., which is not defined in the Constitution. Title 8 of the U.S. Code, Section 1401, does define "nationals and citizens of the United States at birth," and it includes people born outside the U.S. to parents with U.S. citizenship (i.e., people not "born in America," such as John McCain, who was born in Panama).
In addition, merely being "born in America" is not enough to be a "natural born citizen," because the newborns of foreign diplomats living in the U.S. are not considered "natural born citizens" as their parents are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
It's one thing for Alan Keyes to make nutty public statements about Obama's citizenship. But you might think that a senior senator from Alabama would have some clue what the law actually says on this subject. And you certainly would think that Shelby is aware that Hawaii is in the United States. Given that, Hall can come to only one conclusion:
So, that leaves only one explanation: Shelby has bought in to the much-maligned theory that Obama really wasn't born in Hawaii, and that a group of powerful conspirators manufactured his U.S. citizenship so he could ascend to the presidency. Even if Shelby doesn't believe this hopeless hypothesis, he is still reinforcing his constituents' acceptance of it by publicly parroting it.
If Shelby has any defense for his clueless comment, it comes from Bob Burns, one of the people at the steakhouse for the event. "It sounded to me like (Shelby) really didn't want to go there."
But Shelby did go there. And in the process, Hall writes, he has made all Alabamians look like a punch of backwoods ding dongs:
We really didn't want Shelby to go there, either. He has once again made us the pitiful punchline of jokes around the nation--jokes about our supposed stupidity, our reportedly universal racist attitudes, and our widely envisioned environment of extreme, right-wing paranoia. Shelby's spokesman can spend weeks trying to retract his ridiculous anti-Obama rhetoric, but we will not forget.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Crazy in Alabama? You Bet
Author Mark Childress wrote a popular novel in 1993 called Crazy in Alabama. The book was popular enough that it was turned into a movie starring Melanie Griffith.
It turns out that Childress might have written his book too soon. That's because things really have gotten crazy in Alabama recently.
Consider last week, for example.
Early in the week, Alabama Representative Sue Schmitz (D-Toney) was convicted on federal charges that she pulled strings to get a job with a state program and then did little or no work.
We also learned that a state judge found that Central Alabama Community College had wrongfully terminated Schmitz from the job she supposedly didn't perform and ordered the school to reinstate her, with back pay.
Now we learn that the state owes Schmitz more than $177,000 in back pay.
You heard that right: In federal court, Schmitz was convicted of a crime for allegedly not doing her job. In state court, Schmitz was found to have been wrongfully terminated from the same job and ordered reinstated, with back pay.
How could this happen? Well, as we have noted, some mighty strange things can happen in Alabama when you have a Bush-appointed prosecutor (Alice Martin) and a Bush-appointed judge (R. David Proctor) handling a federal case.
The Birmingham News, which has become little more than Alice Martin's PR sheet, predictably went off on a rant in today's paper about the prospect of the state paying Schmitz money it legally owes her.
While stomping his feet and throwing a fit, the News' editorial writer reveals an awful lot about how Sue Schmitz got convicted for alleged activity that, even if true, does not constitute a federal crime. Consider this snippet from the News editorial:
Jurors were not told of a January ruling by Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Truman Hobbs Jr. that ordered Central Alabama Community College to reinstate Schmitz and two others to two-year system jobs. Hobbs ruled the three had been improperly dismissed under the terms of the state's Fair Dismissal Act.
Um, hmmm. Jurors were not allowed to hear that Schmitz had been unlawfully terminated from her job. How interesting.
This is the very thing Huffington Post's David Fiderer wrote about back in August 2008 regarding Alice Martin's efforts to essentially prevent Schmitz from putting on a defense. With the aid of a Bush-appointed judge, that strategy evidently worked the second time around--after the first Schmitz trial resulted in a hung jury.
Want one final piece of craziness? Today's Birmingham News proudly states that "Corruption Probe Unflagging" regarding Alabama two-year colleges. We learn that the ongoing probe seems to be picking up steam following the Schmitz conviction. We learn this from Assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes, one of Alice Martin's chief lieutenants.
Who is David Estes? Based on an October 2008 article in the Journal of the American Bar Association, Estes is about as unethical as a prosecutor can get. For anyone who wants to know how the Bush Justice Department really operated--and Bushies still run things in Alabama, even with Barack Obama in the White House--Lynda Edwards story, "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," is must reading.
In Edwards' piece for the ABA Journal, defense lawyers in the case of Huntsville defense contractor Alex Latifi quote Estes as saying, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."
Lawyers Henry Frohsin and James Barger, of Birmingham, have filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against Martin, Estes and others for their conduct in the Latifi case.
And yet David Estes--a man who admitted he didn't mind ruining the life of an innocent man--is Alice Martin's front man for a corruption probe on two-year colleges.
In other words, a corrupt prosecutor is in charge of looking into corruption. How quaint.
Hey, this is Alabama. And it's crazy indeed.
It turns out that Childress might have written his book too soon. That's because things really have gotten crazy in Alabama recently.
Consider last week, for example.
Early in the week, Alabama Representative Sue Schmitz (D-Toney) was convicted on federal charges that she pulled strings to get a job with a state program and then did little or no work.
We also learned that a state judge found that Central Alabama Community College had wrongfully terminated Schmitz from the job she supposedly didn't perform and ordered the school to reinstate her, with back pay.
Now we learn that the state owes Schmitz more than $177,000 in back pay.
You heard that right: In federal court, Schmitz was convicted of a crime for allegedly not doing her job. In state court, Schmitz was found to have been wrongfully terminated from the same job and ordered reinstated, with back pay.
How could this happen? Well, as we have noted, some mighty strange things can happen in Alabama when you have a Bush-appointed prosecutor (Alice Martin) and a Bush-appointed judge (R. David Proctor) handling a federal case.
The Birmingham News, which has become little more than Alice Martin's PR sheet, predictably went off on a rant in today's paper about the prospect of the state paying Schmitz money it legally owes her.
While stomping his feet and throwing a fit, the News' editorial writer reveals an awful lot about how Sue Schmitz got convicted for alleged activity that, even if true, does not constitute a federal crime. Consider this snippet from the News editorial:
Jurors were not told of a January ruling by Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Truman Hobbs Jr. that ordered Central Alabama Community College to reinstate Schmitz and two others to two-year system jobs. Hobbs ruled the three had been improperly dismissed under the terms of the state's Fair Dismissal Act.
Um, hmmm. Jurors were not allowed to hear that Schmitz had been unlawfully terminated from her job. How interesting.
This is the very thing Huffington Post's David Fiderer wrote about back in August 2008 regarding Alice Martin's efforts to essentially prevent Schmitz from putting on a defense. With the aid of a Bush-appointed judge, that strategy evidently worked the second time around--after the first Schmitz trial resulted in a hung jury.
Want one final piece of craziness? Today's Birmingham News proudly states that "Corruption Probe Unflagging" regarding Alabama two-year colleges. We learn that the ongoing probe seems to be picking up steam following the Schmitz conviction. We learn this from Assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes, one of Alice Martin's chief lieutenants.
Who is David Estes? Based on an October 2008 article in the Journal of the American Bar Association, Estes is about as unethical as a prosecutor can get. For anyone who wants to know how the Bush Justice Department really operated--and Bushies still run things in Alabama, even with Barack Obama in the White House--Lynda Edwards story, "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," is must reading.
In Edwards' piece for the ABA Journal, defense lawyers in the case of Huntsville defense contractor Alex Latifi quote Estes as saying, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."
Lawyers Henry Frohsin and James Barger, of Birmingham, have filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against Martin, Estes and others for their conduct in the Latifi case.
And yet David Estes--a man who admitted he didn't mind ruining the life of an innocent man--is Alice Martin's front man for a corruption probe on two-year colleges.
In other words, a corrupt prosecutor is in charge of looking into corruption. How quaint.
Hey, this is Alabama. And it's crazy indeed.
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