Do Republican Judges Cheat Discrimination Victims?

We recently discussed the challenges that plaintiffs face in bringing employment lawsuits. But we left out perhaps the biggest hurdle facing victims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and the like.

For 28 of the past 40-plus years, Republican presidents have been appointing federal judges. That means the federal bench is populated with GOP appointees who tend to favor management over workers.

Two Birmingham attorneys recently pointed out to me that we have a federal judge in our fair city who is particularly unfriendly to plaintiffs in discrimination cases. In fact, he seems to take special delight in dismissing employment cases, even when the facts and the law dictate that they should move forward.

The judge's name is James H. Hancock, a Richard Nixon appointee. "He just doesn't like discrimination cases," one of my sources says. "He will toss them out for no reason."

"I'm sure there are some bad employment cases that deserve to be kicked," I said.

"Oh, there are, but he dismisses good cases," my source said. "I know one firm that tells clients, if they get Hancock for the judge, that they are just wasting their time by moving forward."

So a federal judge could cheat victims of discrimination, based on his personal whims and not the law? Oh yes, say my sources.

"Hancock really hates it when a woman lawyer brings a case," one source says. "Particularly when the woman is taller than him--which includes just about all women."

So much for the hallowed scales of justice.

Did Former Siegelman Lawyer Have a Glaring Conflict?

Let's return to our storyline about Birmingham attorney and prominent Democrat Doug Jones.

We have a number of questions for Mr. Jones. They are based partly on his rather hostile response to our reporting about a massive federal lawsuit involving Birmingham-based HealthSouth Corp. And they are based partly on our own research about a fine ethical line Jones and fellow attorney Rob Riley seem to be walking between the HealthSouth civil case and the criminal case involving former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.

So, on to our questions for Mr. Jones:

* Re: Your representation of Don Siegelman in his criminal case--You state in your critique of my reporting that you have been liaison counsel in the HealthSouth securities-fraud lawsuit since its inception in August 2002. A key figure in that case, of course, has been former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. In your testimony before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in October 2007, you state that you became lead counsel on Siegelman's defense team in January 2003, not long after the former governor's lawyer, David Cromwell Johnson, died. In your role as Siegelman's lead counsel, you learned in July 2004 that Richard Scrushy was to be a central figure in the government's case against Siegelman. Didn't this present a clear conflict of interest for you? You are serving in a lawsuit against Richard Scrushy and others connected to HealthSouth. Then you learn that Scrushy is to be an integral part of the government's case against your client, Don Siegelman. Why didn't you remove yourself from the Siegelman case immediately? Did you tell the former governor and Mr. Scrushy about your apparent conflict, especially considering that they were being tried together? Why did you remain on the Siegelman case until early 2006, and then withdraw not long before it went to trial?

* Re: The statute of limitations in the Siegelman case--Public documents indicate the prosecution was tardy in bringing the case against Siegelman and Scrushy. Corrupt federal judges have allowed the government to get away with bringing a case that falls outside the statute of limitations. But it appears you didn't help matters any. In your Congressional testimony you stated:

There was a concern from the prosecutors that the five year statute of limitations was about to expire with regard to the appointment of Mr. Scrushy to the CON Board, which had occurred in late July, 1999. The Government wanted more time to try and fill in the evidentiary holes in the case and asked us if Governor Siegelman would sign a tolling agreement extending the statute of limitations for an additional 30 days.

Because we were convinced from our conversations that the other matters had either been written off and/or were such that we did not believe any crime had occurred, we agreed to have the Governor sign the tolling agreement.

As a layperson, I find this mind blowing. The government had almost five full years to build a case, they admit to you that they have failed to do it, and you convince your client to give them more time? What on earth were you thinking? Has it occurred to you that Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy wound up in prison largely because of this bone-headed decision? And you question whether I know what I'm doing in my field, journalism? Seems to me that Siegelman would have pretty strong grounds for a legal-malpractice case against you.

* Re: Your motives and alliances in the HealthSouth lawsuit--More than $500 million worth of settlements have been announced in this case, with you representing plaintiffs against Richard Scrushy and others. Sounds like things are going pretty well for the plaintiffs--and the plaintiffs lawyers. By continuing to represent Siegelman after you learned of Scrushy's involvement in the criminal case, did you learn anything that has proved useful in the civil case? Have you and your clients profited from your involvement in the Siegelman defense? How important was the HealthSouth lawsuit to the future of your former firm, Whatley Drake & Kallas?

* Re: Your alliance with Rob Riley--You state in your response to my reporting, that you have no knowledge of Riley's involvement in a health-care company, Performance Group LLC. Actually, you do. You've admitted you read my post about it, which references public documents that are easily available to you. (In fact, I would be glad to send them to you.) Rule 8.3 of the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct states that a lawyer possessing unprivileged knowledge of misconduct "shall report such knowledge to a tribunal or other authority empowered to investigate or act upon such violation." Public documents, which you are aware of, indicate that Rob Riley owns a company that has engaged in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation." It is your duty to report this information to an appropriate authority. Do you intend to fulfill your duty?

* Re: Your alliances with UAB--How many times have you represented UAB, or people affiliated with UAB, in legal matters? Public records indicate you represented six UAB administrators in the Brittany Benefield case, which might be the ugliest chapter in UAB history. Benefield was 14 years old when she enrolled at UAB and moved into a campus dorm. She allegedly became a sexual plaything for several UAB football and basketball players and wound up suing the university.

I ask about your ties to UAB administrators because here is something I find interesting: I wrote about Rob Riley's involvement in the HealthSouth litigation on March 13, 2008. Thanks to your comments a few weeks ago on an Alabama-based listserv, we know that is a sensitive topic for you. We also know that two of Riley's partners in Performance Group LLC are on the staff at UAB. On April 16, 2008--a little more than a month after I wrote the Riley/HealthSouth piece--the harassment from my boss at UAB got so bad that I wound up complaining to her superior about age discrimination and filed a formal grievance in UAB Employee Relations. Roughly three weeks after I filed the grievance, I was fired, contrary to multiple university policies.

Follow me on this timeline: Write about Riley/HealthSouth in March, get harassed unmercifully by supervisor in April, get fired in May. Call me paranoid, but I see a possible cause and effect going on there.

You admit in your response that you tried to squash Sam Stein's original report at Huffington Post about Riley and HealthSouth. Having failed in that effort, is it safe to say that you, Riley, and perhaps UAB officials weren't happy to see a Birmingham blogger (me) pick up on it?

Here's the bottom-line question: Given your ties to Rob Riley and UAB, do you know anything about who is behind my unlawful termination?

Anyone who has followed my blog for a period of time knows that I've studied and written about honest-services mail/wire fraud extensively. I strongly suspect that honest-services fraud, and perhaps other federal crimes, are present in my firing.

As a former federal prosecutor, you surely are concerned about such matters. And as a private attorney, you are pursuing a fraud case involving HealthSouth. What about UAB? Are you concerned about fraud that has gone on there? Do you have firsthand knowledge of such fraud?

Here is one final question: In your critique of my post on an Alabama listserv, you actually don't criticize my original reporting at all. Rather, you seem irked about issues that first were raised in Sam Stein's report at Huffington Post.

In fact, you state that anyone familiar with the appointment of lead and liaison counsel in the HealthSouth lawsuit would laugh at the notion that Rob Riley's entry into the case was connected to Siegelman or the result of "legal-political insider trading."

Stein, however, quotes an anonymous source who says that Riley entered the case specifically because of his political connections. And a key source in Stein's case was Scott Horton, a New York attorney, Columbia University law professor, and legal-affairs contributor for Harper's magazine.

Horton, by the way, did not seem to find Riley's role to be a laughing matter. Stein reports:

"[Riley] very aggressively thrust himself into that suit as a late comer," said Scott Horton, a law professor at Columbia University who has written extensively on these issues for Harper's magazine. "He knew that Fuller had made statements suggesting that he felt he had once been a target of a politically motivated attack by Siegelman. He knew that this would make someone predisposed against Siegelman and perfect hanging judge. And he would reap the benefit of the class action suit on the side."

Stein went on to discuss connections between Riley's knowledge of the criminal case and his role in the civil case. Again, Stein quoted Horton. And Horton wasn't laughing:

"Rob Riley approved of the strategy of dragging Scrushy into the [criminal] case because it would have benefits for him in the class action suit," said Horton. "It was clear that he was intently following what was going on in Fuller's court and knew that the conviction of Scrushy in that case would have strong benefits in the class action suit."

Are you saying that Scott Horton doesn't know what he's talking about?

And here's an even better question: If a Scrushy conviction would pay dividends for Rob Riley in the civil case, it also would pay dividends for you, wouldn't it? After all, you were even more directly involved in the Siegelman/Scrushy criminal case than was Rob Riley. And unlike Rob Riley, you were involved in the HealthSouth lawsuit from the beginning.

The questions Scott Horton raises about Rob Riley would also apply to you, wouldn't they?

Is that why you were so interested in quashing Sam Stein's reporting on the subject? Is that why you were so irritated by my reporting on the subject?

Does all of this have something to do with why I currently find myself out of a job?

Songs For Murphy

Regular readers know that our blog is inspired by, and dedicated to, the memory of Murphy Abigail Shuler (1993-2004), our wonderful miniature schnauzer who helped keep us more-or-less functional during the worst of our legal travails.

I never sit down to write a post without thinking of Murphy. Sometimes that makes me sad because we still miss her terribly. But mostly it makes me grateful for the 11 years we had her. And it almost always makes me smile, thinking about the funny things she did--and the goofy things she inspired us to do.

Take singing, for example. I couldn't carry a tune in a wheel barrel--and Mrs. Schnauzer isn't a whole lot better. Murphy seemed to take so much joy in simple things--a trip to the Sonic drive-in, a game of hide-and-seek. She even seemed to get a great kick out of us singing to her, no matter how off key we were. (Schnauzers are a forgiving audience, one of their many great traits.)

One of our first "Murphy songs" came when we noticed how much she loved to go for walks. Our neighborhood has five streets, and on a steamy Alabama summer day (think 95 degrees, with 85 percent humidity), "The Murph" was content to go up and down just our street. Then she would happily go back in the house and plop down next to one of the air conditioning vents.

But on a cold day, and especially on a wintry night, it was a different story. She would want to walk the entire neighborhood, and it wasn't unusual for us to take her on walks of two miles or more. And if it was major cold for Alabama--say, in the middle teens, with frost coming off every breath--we almost had to drag her back in the house.

Schnauzers are native to Germany, and this paragraph from an article about the history of the breed, probably explains why Murphy loved cold Alabama nights:

All Schnauzers had their origin in the neighboring kingdoms of Wurttemberg and Bavaria. These are agricultural sections where the raising of sheep, cattle, and other livestock has been a major occupation for years. Since railroads were not known, sheep and cattle had to be driven to market, which meant that dogs were necessary to help the shepherds.

Like most Americans, I'm somewhat geographically challenged. But I'm pretty sure Bavaria is a cold place, so I guess that explains why the Murph liked frosty weather in Alabama.

Anyway, on one cold night when we could barely keep up as Murphy scurried around the neighborhood, one of us said, "Murph, it's like you could walk 500 miles." That led us to include this classic '80s hit from The Proclaimers in our repertoire for the Girl:



Another song was inspired by the fact that Murphy always seemed to feel so darned good. She was like a female, canine version of Jack Lalanne. If she had been human, she would have been one of these people who can't wait to get out of bed so they can do jumping jacks and pushups and squat thrusts and junk like that. Murphy's zest for life prompted us to think of a classic from James Brown. The notion of a guy as white as me trying to channel the Godfather of Soul is absurd, I'll admit. But Murphy inspired us to try the impossible:



As Murphy became more and more central to our lives, we couldn't imagine not having her around. That made us think of a Bee Gees classic from the 1960s--although we altered the lyrics to "lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my schnauzer:"



Maybe our favorite "Murphy Song," appropriately enough, came from a band whose roots are firmly planted in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was inspired by the Girl's solid little build. We've read that some miniature schnauzers weigh in the 10- to 12-pound range. But that wasn't our girl. She was 18 to 20 pounds of solid muscle. "Murph, you're built like a brick s--thouse," one of us said one day. That prompted us to try our version of this Commodores classic: (On the video, notice future solo star Lionel Richie playing saxophone in the background. That's Walter Orange on lead vocals.)

Is Key Figure in Siegelman Case Walking An Ethical Tightrope?

We recently posted about Birmingham attorney Doug Jones and his curious response to one of our posts here at Legal Schnauzer.

On the surface, it would appear that Jones and I are on the same political "team." He served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama under President Bill Clinton. He was lead counsel for three-plus years on the criminal defense team for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

But Jones has taken exception to my recent reporting on a massive federal lawsuit against a number of entities and people connected to Birmingham-based HealthSouth Corp. Maybe that's because Jones appears to be straddling some uncomfortable ethical fences. And maybe my reporting is hitting close to home because Jones, while a Democrat on one hand, has a huge financial stake in the HealthSouth lawsuit on the other.

Based on our review of some of the 1,600-plus documents in the HealthSouth case file, it looks like one of the biggest money grabs in the history of Birmingham lawyering. In fact, I'm told that some area firms and lawyers have pretty much staked their futures on the case.

And Doug Jones is right in the middle of it. That's quite a turn of events for the former U.S. attorney who looked so righteous in successfully prosecuting the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Jones is one of the chief plantiffs' lawyers in the HealthSouth case, and one of his colleagues is Rob Riley, the son of current Alabama Governor Bob Riley and a long-time political adversary of Don Siegelman. One of the key defendants in the HealthSouth lawsuit is former CEO Richard Scrushy, who was Siegelman's codefendant in the criminal case that landed them in federal prison.

Jones' main beef with my post about the HealthSouth lawsuit seems to be that it spotlighted the ethical tightrope that Rob Riley seems to be walking between the Siegelman/Scrushy criminal case and the HealthSouth civil case. Perhaps Jones didn't like my reporting because he is walking the same ethical tightrope that Rob Riley is walking.

Actually, there are probably several hundred million reasons my reporting struck a nerve with Doug Jones. The HealthSouth lawsuit already has produced more than $500 million in settlements, with more likely to come. You don't have to be a math whiz to see that massive amounts of attorney fees are at stake these days on the Birmingham legal scene. And it comes at a time, I'm told, when many lawyers and firms are hurting in a down economy.

You might say that Me and Mr. Jones "have a thing going on." But it's hardly the lovey-dovey kind of thing. Mr. Jones evidently didn't care for my reporting, and I didn't much care for Mr. Jones' statements that I had jumped to "absurd conclusions based on what appears to be purely political motivations."

What political motivations are you talking about, Mr. Jones? In case you haven't heard, someone cheated me out of my job at UAB (where I worked for 19 years), and evidence shows it was because of my blog content supportive of Don Siegelman, your former client. And you, of all people, are questioning my "political motivations"?

Here's a tip, Mr. Jones. My motivations here at Legal Schnauzer are not political. They are part personal and part related to justice, simple right and wrong. For eight-plus years, I've witnessed gross corruption in our justice system--the kind that landed Don Siegelman, your former client and an innocent man, in federal prison. I've witnessed multiple federal crimes committed by lawyers and state judges in the Northern District of Alabama. As a former prosecutor in this district, you should be concerned about the kind of sleaze that exists in an area you once presided over.

If one of your goals as U.S. attorney was to discourage public corruption, it looks like you failed miserably. Shelby County is well-known as a legal cesspool, and I'm hearing a growing number of reports that Jefferson County isn't much better.

When I decided to write a blog about the corruption I had witnessed, I received numerous anonymous threats, including one that specifically threatened my job. About a month after receiving that threat, I was fired at UAB. The university's administration upheld my firing, even after its own grievance committee found I had been wrongfully terminated.

As a quick-thinking attorney, you might have guessed that I'm not real happy about that turn of events, particularly since we recently passed the first anniversary of my "firing." And you would be right.

But I'm starting to wonder if you might know something about my firing at UAB. The chances are extremely strong that your new chum, Rob Riley, knows something about it.

Beyond my personal situation, your response to my reporting on the HealthSouth lawsuit raised questions in my mind about a number of subjects:

* Your actions in defense of Don Siegelman;

* Your motives and alliances regarding the HealthSouth lawsuit;

* Your motives and alliances regarding Rob Riley, particularly in light of the fact that Riley is an owner of Performance Group LLC, a physical-therapy company that allegedly has a serious problem with health-care fraud;

* Your motives and alliances regarding UAB, my former employer. This is of particular interest since your represented several UAB administrators in at least one very ugly, high-profile case.

So hold on, Mr. Jones. We've got some questions coming on.

(To be continued)

Are Crimes of the Bush Administration "Prosecutable"?

If I had to pick my favorite syndicated newspaper columnist, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald certainly would be in the five finalists.

Pitts is a strong, reasoned, progressive voice in the South--if you consider Florida the South. And as an African-American male, he has a finely tuned ear on matters of injustice.

So imagine my astonishment when I read a recent Pitts column, essentially saying that we should give Bush officials a free pass on their apparent crimes.

Pitts states that the Bush administration's primary offenses were incompetence and arrogance, which are not illegal. He goes on to write:

Still, most of the signature sins of the Bush gang--Katrina, Iraq, torture, politicizing the Justice Department--are not so much violations of law as defilement of the public trust.

That is not--obviously--a small failing. But that doesn't make it prosecutable.

Pitts seems to be saying that violating the constitution is not prosecutable. That's an argument I've never heard before. And it doesn't seem to square with "The People v. Dick Cheney," a recent piece by Karen Greenberg at Mother Jones.

Greenberg reports:

The list of potential legal breaches is, of course, enormous; by one count, the administration has broken 269 laws, both domestic and international. It begins with illegal wiretapping and surveillance (which in the view of many experts violated the Fourth Amendment, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for starters), the politicization of the Justice Department and the firing of nine US attorneys, and numerous instances of obstruction of justice—from the destruction of cia interrogation tapes to the willful misleading of Congress and the public. Perhaps the paramount charge that legal experts have zeroed in on is the state-approved torture that violated not just the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture but also the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the 1996 War Crimes Act, which prohibits humiliating and degrading treatment and other "outrages upon personal dignity."

The administration has broken 269 laws? That sounds pretty prosecutable to me.

Such noted legal experts as Jonathan Turley of Georgetown University and Scott Horton of Columbia have said that Bush officials must be held accountable for their actions. Horton compares the Bush administration to a criminal enterprise, so he appears to see its actions as prosecutable.

At times, Pitts doesn't seem to believe his own argument. He wonders if America has the stomach for holding the Bush crowd accountable, and that is a legitimate concern. He even notes that certain right-wing voices would go apoplectic in the face of accountability for the Bushies, and then notes:

You might reasonably say we should not forestall justice just because people threaten temper tantrums. Good point.

Yes, it is a good point. And here's another one: Real people--who bleed and breathe and laugh and cry--have been victims of the Bush Justice Department, or people associated with it. I know, because I am one of those victims.

And I've just been on the periphery. I know of at least four people--Paul Minor, Wes Teel, John Whitfield, and Richard Scrushy--who are being held political prisoner in the United States right now. And former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman might be headed back to prison because the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals unlawfully upheld his conviction.

Leonard Pitts is a smart guy, so I wonder if he really believes what he wrote about Bush officials and their apparent crimes. It also makes me wonder if the Obama administration, which apparently wants to "look forward and not backward," is sending out this message to certain media outlets.

Alabama whistleblower Jill Simpson has repeatedly raised questions about White House Counsel Greg Craig and his former law firm, Williams & Connolly, which represents numerous Bush luminaries--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Dubya himself. Simpson has raised concerns that Craig is more interested in protecting his old firm's clients than in achieving justice. And the Pitts column makes me wonder if the White House has launched a media offensive to help convince the public that we should let bygones be bygones.

How is this for irony? Barack Obama rode into the White House on a trail that was blazed by people like Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and many more. Does Obama think those civil-rights pioneers turned this country in a better direction by turning a blind eye to the sins of the past? How sad it would be if our first black president acted in a manner that is contrary to the lessons of America's civil-rights movement.

Pitts concludes by making an important point. He says that we, the people, largely are responsible for the mess Bush created:

Yes, the Supreme Court put Bush in office the first time, but 51 percent of us returned him there four years later, by which time we should have known better. But the Bush gang played our fears as old men in the park play chess, i.e., obsessively and with skill, a brilliant game of half truths, dire warnings, moral incoherence. And we--most of us--fell for it.

Pitts is right about that. A frightening number of Americans were duped by the Bush crowd. So the public must shoulder a large chunk of the blame.

But that doesn't mean our current representatives should not hold Bush officials accountable. The evidence is powerful that they did commit crimes. And those crimes are prosecutable.

Siegelman and Scrushy Should Have Testified in Their Own Defense

The testimony of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in a state-court civil case has been big news in Birmingham.

Accounts of Scrushy's performance on the stand has taught us at least one thing here at Legal Schnauzer: Scrushy and former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman should have testified in their own defense in the Montgomery criminal case that resulted in their convictions.

According to press reports, Scrushy did not crack under intense cross examination from shareholders' attorney John Haley, described by The Birmingham News as one of Alabama's "shrewdest litigators."

The civil case marked the first time that Scrushy had testified about the massive accounting fraud that nearly sank HealthSouth. In the end, it appears that Haley barely laid a glove on Scrushy.

The former CEO did not back down under stiff questioning, making a compelling case that he was one of the largest losers in the HealthSouth fraud.

Perhaps the strongest part of Scrushy's testimony came when he discussed his plans for mergers during the fraud period:

There were big plans for HealthSouth mergers during the fraud period, and Scrushy never objected to showing the books to outsiders.

In 1999, he said, he was deeply involved in merger talks with an Ohio-based nursing home company. Scrushy lawyer Jim Parkman produced a 20-page memo from Scrushy to the other firm's chief that contained detailed financial and operational notes on HealthSouth.

"Why would a CEO involved in fraud produce this document?" Parkman asked.

"You wouldn't do it," Scrushy said.

No one that I'm aware of ever has disputed that Scrushy is a bright, tough individual. Now we know that he also is a strong witness when questioned under fire. We also know that Don Siegelman is a pretty sharp fellow, one who almost certainly would make a strong impression on a witness stand.

All of which makes us think lawyers in the criminal case made a huge mistake by not having their clients take the stand in their own defense.

If Scrushy can fight off John Haley, he surely would have had little trouble against the ding dongs prosecuting the government's case for U.S. Attorney Leura Canary in Montgomery. If Siegelman can mount the kind of effective public offensive he has shown after his conviction, he surely would have made a strong case on the stand--probably preventing the conviction in the first place, even with a corrupt judge like Mark Fuller in charge.

I'm sure the Scrushy/Siegelman lawyers had valid reasons for not having their clients testify, and we have speculated about what some of those were. It seems clear the government had not proven its case, so declining to testify probably made sense at the time. Also, defense testimony would have dragged the trial out and possibly tested the patience of jurors.

From where I sit, having a defendant decline to testify makes sense when you have a client who maybe isn't terribly articulate, has a criminal history, or is likely to make a negative impression on a jury. But with smart, articulate clients like Scrushy and Siegelman, I'm thinking it was a huge mistake to not have them testify.

Former Auburn football coach Pat Dye used to say that "hindsight is 50-50, " and that's what I am using here. But think how easily the prosecution's key points could have been countered.

Nick Baily said he asked Siegelman, "What's (Scrushy) going to want for (his check)?" and the governor replied, "The CON board"?

Siegelman could testify, truthfully I presume, "I never was asked that, and I never gave that response."

The prosecution claims the Siegelman-Scrushy meeting involved a discussion of a something-for-something deal?

Siegelman could testify, truthfully I presume, "I wanted Richard to serve on the CON board because he had done so under three previous governors, and he was the most high-profile healthcare executive in our state. It would look bad not to have him on the board. Our discussion about the donation to the lottery campaign was a separate matter. One was not contingent on the other."

Prosecutors claim Scrushy badly wanted to serve on the CON board? Scrushy could back the testimony of former Alabama Power CEO Elmer Harris and say, "I'd been on the board a long time and was tired of being on it. I really didn't want to do it. I only agreed because our new governor asked me to do it."

Even with a corrupt judge and a goofy jury, it seems that kind of testimony would have resulted in an acquittal.

As for the current civil case, it continues in Birmingham this week. But from what I can tell, Scrushy acquitted himself pretty darn well on the stand.

That's not to say Scrushy will prevail in the case. It's a bench trial before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Allwin Horn, and I know from firsthand experience that Horn is a sorry excuse for a judge.

Horn already has ruled against Scrushy once, ordering him in 2006 to repay $47.8 million in bonuses, plus interest. My guess is that Horn already had determined how he was going to rule in the trial before testimony ever began.

I look for Horn to find in favor of the plaintiffs, in an amount that is roughly half of the $2.6 billion they are asking for. That sounds like a nice comfortable thing for the judge to do, and it should make the Birmingham legal community happy. If there is anything I've learned about Jefferson County judges, they want to keep the local lawyers happy.

Why did the Scrushy side agree to have Horn hear the case as a bench trial? My best guess is that they thought it would be easier to appeal under those circumstances than if a jury had heard the case.

Was Richard Scrushy really in the dark about the fraud going on at HealthSouth? Before I read his testimony from the current civil case, I found that pretty hard to believe. But now I'm not so sure. I think it's certainly possible that Scrushy was in the dark.

Either way, with Allwin Horn in charge, don't look for justice to be served. I imagine Scrushy's lawyers already are planning their appeal.

As for the criminal case in Montgomery, I think Scrushy's recent testimony shows that he and Siegelman easily could have beaten those flimsy charges if they had taken the stand.

Is Obama Going on a Crime Spree?

Is President Barack Obama, in making his choices for ambassadorships, engaging in a criminal enterprise?

If you take the findings in the Don Siegelman case as legitimate, the answer apparently is yes.

That answer, of course, would be ridiculous. But it illustrates the ridiculous nature of the Siegelman prosecution.

Benjamin Sarlin, of The Daily Beast, reports that Obama plans to appoint Chicago investment banker Louis Susman as an ambassador in London:

Susman, like previous presidential friends posted to places like London and Paris, has one major thing to recommend him: money. The Democratic fundraising legend got behind Obama's candidacy early and later bundled some $300,000 in donations toward his inauguration. As John Kerry's national finance chairman, Susman raised a staggering $247 million for that campaign in 2004 and he has worked on several presidential campaigns in the past as well.

Obama is hardly alone in appointing money men (and women) to ambassadorships. It's become a presidential tradition:

Recent examples of the ambassador-as-money-man include Robert Tuttle, one of George W. Bush’s ambassadors to the Court of St. James, a California auto dealer who raised $100,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign and an additional $100,000 for his inauguration. St. Louis businessman Sam Fox, Bush’s ambassador to Belgium, donated $50,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 and raised more than $200,000 for Republicans. Ronald P. Spogli, the ambassador to Italy, who raised more than $100,000 for Bush's re-election. There are many, many others like them with similar totals next to their names.

So the George W. Bush administration was awash in pay-to-play schemes--and Obama apparently is following suit--and Siegelman could get a 20-year prison sentence for his appointment of campaign supporter Richard Scrushy to a health-care board?

What's the difference between the Siegelman transaction and those that have been practiced by numerous presidents, including the current one? None that I can see, except this: Don Siegelman was governor of Alabama, a state where Karl Rove had deep ties and the connections to make sure it stayed in the "red" column.

Justice in America. Ain't it great?

Hey, Morley Safer: If You Want to Trash Somebody, Try These Folks

Veteran CBS news man Morley Safer recently trashed blogging and other forms of "new media." In our view, Safer was way off base.

If Safer wanted to trash something that probably deserves trashing, he should scrutinize what we call the "citizen journalism movement."

What is the citizen journalism movement? It consists of folks like Dan Gilmour, Jeff Jarvis, and Amy Gahran, who have blogs that purport to discuss and promote citizen journalism.

But when the "rubber meets the road" in citizen journalism, these folks seem to be missing in action.

What do I mean? Well, consider this scenario: Someone practices citizen journalism and exposes corruption that has statewide, regional, even national implications. The citizen journalist then is cheated out of his job at a public university by political forces that want to shut him up.

It's hard to imagine a more compelling issue in citizen journalism. And it just happens to describe exactly what has happened to me.

And yet when I contacted Gilmour, Jarvis, and Gahran to let them know about my experiences, I didn't receive as much as a courtesy brushoff.

Why is that? I suspect it's because they see my site as "partisan" and me as a "liberal." And just like their brethren in the mainstream press, they are terrified of being labeled as the "liberal media."

Of course, if these so-called experts on citizen journalism actually looked at my site, they would see it's not partisan at all. It started because of corruption I had witnessed, not from any desire to promote one party or another.

Any partisan tone comes from the fact that the wrongdoers in my personal story, with one or two exceptions, have been Republicans. Those are just the facts, and they dovetail with the corruption we've seen on the national stage from the George W. Bush administration.

I don't expect Gilmour & Co. to "solve" the problems I've encountered from practicing citizen journalism. But if they aren't going to report on such cases, at least a little bit, what is their purpose?

From reading their work, it appears Gilmour & Co. attend a lot of conferences and scratch their chins quite a bit about various heady issues. But if they aren't going to address the challenges real-life citizen journalists can face, what are they really trying to accomplish?

Hey, Morley Safer: Bite Me

I've long been a fan of Morley Safer. But the veteran CBS newsman got up my Schnauzer fanny with his recent trashing of citizen journalism.

Safer, a longtime correspondent on 60 Minutes, started by voicing valid concerns about the decline of newspapers and what it could mean for our "right to know." But then he proceeded to diss various forms of "new media," including blogging:

“The blogosphere is no alternative, crammed as it is with the ravings and manipulations of every nut with a keyboard. Good journalism is structured and structure means responsibility,” he said. He added later, " . . . I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery.”

Safer proves he's good with a sound bite, as you might expect from a television guy. The line comparing citizen journalism to citizen surgery sounds sharp and insightful.

But if you get beyond the catchiness of Safer's statement, you realize that he is way off base.

Comparing journalism to surgery is ridiculous and points to Safer's arrogance. Surgery is a complex field that only a tiny percentage of people can master. Journalism ain't surgery. I know; I've got a degree in journalism, so it can't be all that hard.

A better comparison for journalism might be to "citizen construction." I have known people who earn their livings doing one thing, but also are capable of tackling impressive building projects.

My late father, for example, could build gorgeous grandfather clocks, probably far superior to the ones you find in department stores.

A neighbor who used to live on one side of us--not the moron who lives on the other side and has caused us legal headaches--built the deck on the back of his house. Not long after he finished it, we had a professional come to look at storm damage we'd had on our deck. The pro noticed the deck next door and said, "Who in the world built that deck?"

"The guy who lives there," I said.

"Wow, I couldn't begin to build a deck of that quality," the pro said. "It would cost me way too much to do it."

Citizen journalism, like any field, can have its abusive practitioners. It's up to the public to sort those out. But Safer, of all people, should understand the vital role new forms of journalism already play.

Consider the piece 60 Minutes did on the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama. That piece never would have gotten off the ground without the reporting of Scott Horton at his blog No Comment on the Harper's magazine Web site. And the story picked up critical momentum, leading to the 60 Minutes piece, thanks to the work of "new media" journalists such as Larisa Alexandrovna at Raw Story and Glynn Wilson at Locust Fork News-Journal.

Horton, a Columbia University law professor, probably is not who Safer had in mind when he talked about the nuts in the blogosphere. But Horton produced his groundbreaking work on a blog, generating material that Harper's probably would not have run in its magazine, at least not in such a timely fashion.

Alexandrovna and Wilson have strong journalism credentials--again, they probably are not the kind of people Safer had in mind. But as in most fields, citizen journalism produces both wheat and chaff. And I suspect there is more wheat out there than Safer would care to admit.

Safer apparently failed to discuss the myriad ways the modern mainstream press has failed to do its job. Consider the story of judicial corruption in Alabama that launched Legal Schnauzer:

I witnessed the sleaze in Shelby County first hand and mentioned it to several mainstream journalists in the Birmingham area. "Oh yeah, I've heard stuff like that goes on down there Columbiana," they would say, or words to that effect. Did they do anything about it? Nope.

It was left to me to tell the story, and I wound up losing my job because of it. Has the mainstream press picked up on that story? Not really. Raw Story, No Comment, and OpEd News--all forms of new media--have covered it. The Chronicle of Higher Education, a mainstream outlet, did a brief item about it, only because it could pick up on Raw Story's investigative work.

Meanwhile, I've uncovered all kinds of wrongdoing at UAB--some of which I've written about already, with much more to come. Has the mainstream media shown any interest, even though this is an institution that receives massive amounts of public funds? Nope.

So you see, Mr. Safer, there are large and expanding gaps in coverage provided by the mainstream press. Various forms of "new media" are helping to fill those gaps.

You should be grateful for that trend. Your news organization already is relying on it.

Retired Federal Judge Urges Investigation of Siegelman Case

A retired federal judge is calling on the U.S. Justice Department to conduct an investigation of the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama.

U.W. Clemon, who served as a U.S. District Judge in Birmingham for almost 30 years, made his request in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Clemon now is in private practice with the firm White Arnold & Dowd.

Clemon presided over a federal case against Siegelman in Birmingham, which involved charges of Medicaid fraud. It ended with the judge throwing out a conspiracy charge due to lack of evidence, leading prosecutors to drop the charges.

But the Bush Justice Department was not finished with Siegelman. Prosecutors then brought bribery and honest-services fraud charges in Montgomery. With Bush-appointed judge Mark Fuller at the controls, that case resulted in a conviction.

In his letter, Clemon calls the Birmingham case against Siegelman "the most unfounded criminal case" he ever presided over.

Andrew Kreig, a veteran attorney and investigative reporter, has a detailed report at Huffington Post, with the latest on the Siegelman case:

One of the most experienced federal judges in recent Alabama history is denouncing the U.S. Justice Department prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Birmingham calls for a probe of misconduct by federal prosecutors ─ including their alleged "judge-shopping," jury-pool "poisoning" and "unfounded" criminal charges in an effort to imprison Siegelman.

The full Clemon letter has not been released, but Kreig provides key details:

Clemon's letter last week to the Justice Department said that U.S. Attorney's office "undertook considerable judge-shopping" in its attempt to steer the Siegelman case away from him in what he called "a baseless and futile effort to have me disqualified." Clemon, who introduced his letter by saying that he was writing as "a private citizen," continued as follows:

"Two of the AUSAs [Assistant U.S. Attorneys] rather blatantly attempted to poison the jury pool. After the Defendants moved that any alleged [Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] 404(b) materials be filed under seal, and with full knowledge that the motion was under submission, the AUSAs on the very next business day filed the materials as a matter of public record. The predictable poisonous publicity ensued. Although both AUSAs were subsequently sanctioned, the success of their efforts necessitated my decision to sequester the jury."

Clemon continued:

"The testimony of the witnesses called by the Government at the James conspiracy hearing [one that is requested under the 1979 federal appeals court case U.S. v. James] conclusively established that there was absolutely no basis for a conspiracy charge. When I granted the Defendants' motion to dismiss the conspiracy count, the AUSA forthwith moved to dismiss the remaining case against Mr. Siegelman and Mr. Hamrick [Paul Hamrick was a former aide to Siegelman. In 2006, the jury acquitted Hamrick of all charges in his second trial with Siegelman]. The motion was granted, and the case was dismissed with prejudice against those Defendants."

In a footnote in his letter, Clemon cited testimony by the former Siegelman aide Bailey, a key government witness in both the first and second federal prosecutions against the former governor. In that 2004 court testimony, Bailey denied that he knew about "an unlawful conspiracy of any kind," a story that Bailey would change in his later testimony before Fuller.

"I have no personal knowledge of the facts and circumstances surrounding Mr. Siegelman's subsequent prosecution and conviction in the Middle District of Alabama," Clemon continued in his letter last week. "But given my experience with his unwarranted prosecution in the Northern District, and in the interest of ensuring that Justice Department cases are handled fairly and consistent with its commitment to justice, I strongly support a thorough investigation by your office of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in Mr. Siegelman's prosecution in the Middle District."

In related matters, Kreig reveals that Siegelman codefendant Richard Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth Corp., has hired an investigative firm:

Siegelman's co-defendant Scrushy hired Investigative Group International, a politically well-connected private detective agency, to explore new grounds to win his freedom from prison. Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth, Inc., has said he was the innocent victim of a political "vendetta" against Siegelman. In 2007, Scrushy mounted a major but unsuccessful effort to show that Fuller's Doss Aviation holdings created the appearance of bias by the judge toward federal authorities who are the contractor's major customers. Doss Aviation services include training Air Force pilots and refueling Air Force planes, including the President's Air Force One.

On the subject of Doss Aviation, Alabama attorney and whistleblower Jill Simpson has provided key information:

Dana Jill Simpson distributed today on an Alabama email list for Siegelman and Scrushy supporters an overview from the Doss Aviation website of its global activities in 2007. Beginning in February of that year, Simpson volunteered to help Scrushy avoid what she regarded as wrongful imprisonment.

In April 2007, Fuller rejected the Simpson-assisted Scrushy arguments of judicial bias. Simpson, a longtime volunteer for Republicans in opposition research, then swore out an affidavit in May 2007 alleging to Fuller that prominent Alabama Republicans had sought as early as November 2002 to frame Siegelman. In September 2007, Simpson amplified her statement with 143 pages of sworn testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's staff. She swore, among other things, that she heard from a Republican colleague in early 2005 that Fuller "hated" Siegelman, and would be appointed as judge in his case to "hang" him. Those charges have been denied in affidavits or media interviews by Republicans. Simpson says she has no recollection of meeting Fuller, although he was a contemporary at the University of Alabama.

In her informal email today commenting on Doss Aviation's importance to others concerned about the case, Simpson wrote (with punctuations and capitalizations here formalized):

"This company was doing more than anyone could imagine....They, my friends, really do appear to be almost a wing of the Air Force....In fact, the $178 million, 10-year Doss In-Flight Screening Program was awarded right during the middle of the Siegelman case....It is time our government starts answering questions about how one company has been allowed to have so much power providing fuel to our military and training our Air Force."

Justice Doesn't Come Easily for Victims of Discrimination

Several federal juries, even in conservative Alabama, have sent clear messages to wayward employers: "If you discriminate, harass, and retaliate, we will hold you accountable--and we will make you pay."

In spite of that encouraging trend, plaintiffs in employment cases still face a hard road. A recent Wall Street Journal article reports that several studies show discrimination cases tend to fare worse in court than other kinds of civil cases. And that is likely to remain the case, even though the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act--which has its roots in Alabama--has been passed.

One study showed that federal plaintiffs in discrimination cases won in court 15 percent of the time, compared to 51 percent in other kinds of civil cases. Reports the Journal:

The odds against winning discrimination cases have some employee lawyers reluctant even to try. "We will no longer take individual employment-discrimination cases, because there's such a high likelihood of losing," New York plaintiffs' attorney Joe Whatley Jr. says. Job-discrimination case filings declined by 40% from 1999 to 2007, federal court records show.

Whatley has practiced in Alabama and is a principal in Whatley, Drake & Kallas, which has an office in Birmingham.

One concern is that quite a few employment cases now are dismissed before they even get started:

Equally troubling to critics, though, is that federal judges also now routinely terminate employment-discrimination cases through motions to dismiss, meaning that the plaintiffs aren't allowed to conduct fact finding to support their claims, according to a law-review study due to be published in August by the University of Illinois College of Law.

The study analyzed the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2007 ruling in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, which authorized federal judges to dismiss cases unless plaintiffs can detail enough facts in their initial complaints to state a "plausible" claim--a higher standard than previously existed. Although the Twombly case involved an antitrust dispute, it has since been applied broadly to discrimination cases, says Joseph Seiner, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, who wrote the study.

The news is not all dreary for plaintiffs. In fact, some experts say the poor win rate in court is not necessarily a bad sign. Strong employment cases, they say, tend to settle before ever reaching the courtroom. "If it's a real case, they settle," one defense lawyer says. "Employers aren't dumb."

I Had a Facebook Impostor!

I had resisted the temptation of Facebook, and it hadn't seemed all that hard--or so I thought.

Then I got an e-mail from Greg Smith. And that changed everything.

Now I'm immersed (somewhat) in the Facebook culture--I even had a Facebook impostor--and I don't know what to make of it.

I had resisted the pull of Facebook for a couple of reasons. One, it seemed like it would be a major time gobbler--and hey, even we unemployed guys have to watch our schedules. Two, I just didn't "get" it. If someone is your friend, you know it, right? So what's the point of Facebook? (There I go being all practical again.)

But that began to change when I got an e-mail from Greg Smith, asking me to be his friend on Facebook. There was only one catch: I didn't know anyone named Greg Smith.

My first reaction was to blow it off. But I kept thinking: "Who in the heck is this guy?" And the only way to find out was--you guessed it--to join Facebook. (The folks behind the site must have ties to the tobacco industry. They clearly understand addiction.)

When I signed up to Facebook and checked out Greg Smith's profile, I discovered that he's an incredibly cool guy. He's a publisher. He lives in London. He's involved in several edgy sounding businesses. He's in an "open relationship." And he seems to be friends with an impressive number of certified babes.

Even Mrs. Schnauzer was intrigued.

"Look how cool this guy is," I said. "And he lives in London."

"Wow," Mrs. Schnauzer said.

"And look at all the babes he's friends with."

"Gosh, they are babes. Certified, too."

"He wants to be my friend."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Sign up. Quick!"

So now I'm on Facebook. And for a while, I even had a Facebook impostor, which was the most exciting thing to happen to me since I discovered chocolate raspberry truffle in a waffle cone at Bruster's.

After learning how cool Greg Smith is, I quickly discovered that someone else was claiming to be Roger Alan Shuler in Birmingham, Alabama. And this person was claiming to be an alumnus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), my former employer.

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm the only Roger Alan Shuler in Birmingham, and I'm not a UAB alum. (I'm a University of Missouri guy--hurray, hurrah, Mizzou, Mizzou! Bully for Old Mizzou, rah, rah, rah rah! Mizzou-rah, Mizzou-rah, Mizzou-rah! Tigers!) So I figured someone was pulling a fast one. I suspect it was a UAB sports fan who didn't like my criticism of UAB's current administration. When you clicked on the "UAB alum" section, it said, "Roger Shuler has no friends at UAB."

Hah, hah. I got the joke. Pretty good.

I contacted Facebook about the impostor, and assuming their customer service is as dreadful as Google's, I figured it would be two or three years before the problem was solved. But a nice fellow named Brett took care of it in a matter of days. Turns out Facebook has a lot of impostor problems, so I guess they take it seriously.

Anyway, I am back to being the Elvis, the original, of Roger Alan Shulers in Birmingham. (First time I've ever been compared to Elvis; naturally, I had to do it myself.)

Once I was on Facebook, I was curious if anybody I knew was out there. If any of my friends were going to be on there, I figured it would be Doug Gillett, my old coworker from the UAB Publications Office. Doug is a "leading-edge" kind of guy and was the first blogger I ever knew.

Sure enough, Doug is a big-time Facebooker, with 450 or so friends! His friends include University of Georgia football icons Vince Dooley and Herschel Walker. And I think he has one or two supermodels among his friends. Doug's cubicle at work is a shrine to French broadcasting babe Melissa Theuriau. If he gets her to be a friend, I will truly be knocked out.

Doug's Facebook page is pretty much a Who's Who of folks I used to work with at UAB. Scrolling through it kind of made me homesick for my old job. After all, the overwhelming majority of people I worked with are great folks. Then I saw the faces of several manager types, and I wasn't quite so homesick anymore.

Now that I'm a Facebookie, I really don't know what to do with it. Friends put a lot of stuff up on my "wall," and I enjoy checking that out. I guess I'm supposed to occasionally put up a deep thought, but anything that comes close to a deep thought usually goes on my blog. As a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, my deep thoughts this time of year usually range from "Yippee, the Cardinals won" to "Dammit, the Cardinals lost."

The other issue is: How many friends should you have? For several days I had two or three friends, and that was embarrassing. My goal became to reach double figures. Once I passed 10, I thought, "Hey, 20 friends would be pretty cool."

I'm a little over 20 now, and 30 is starting to look good. (You see what I mean about addiction?)

I've decided that 50 would be a nice round number to get to. Then I'll stop trying to add friends--"I swerz," as they say on LOL Cats.

It's pretty cool the way people from all over can "find" you on Facebook. Several of my old buddies from Kickapoo High School in Springfield, Missouri--Mark Harrell, Mark Ellis, Bill Doran--found me. (Still waiting for Kickapoo's most famous alum, Brad Pitt, to find me.) My niece, Erin Simkins Gerhardt, who lives in Detroit, Michigan, found me. I found Joe Rassenfoss, a buddy from the Birmingham Post-Herald and Mizzou, who now lives in Colorado.

Who knows what lies ahead on Facebook. But I can always say that I'm friends with Greg Smith--and his impressive band of certified babes.

U.S. Attorney Nominee Draws Mixed Reviews in Schnauzer World

The Obama administration finally is moving toward replacing our godawful U.S. attorneys, with the announcement that Joyce White Vance is the nominee for the Northern District of Alabama.

That means Alice Martin is on her way out the door, and that can only be seen as good news.

But we have mixed feelings about the Obama nominee. And it's clear that she will be under considerable pressure from our local newspaper, which has gone to comic lengths to praise the abominable Ms. Martin.

Why would I have concerns about Joyce White Vance? Well, I probably wouldn't if her name was Joyce White. It's that last name that bothers me.

Joyce White married into one of Alabama's best-known judicial families. Her late father-in-law, Robert Vance, was a U.S. circuit judge until he was killed by a mail bomb in 1989. Her husband, Robert Vance Jr., is a Jefferson County circuit judge.

I've heard nothing but good things about Joyce White Vance as an individual. Someone who used to work in the Northern District office told me she has the highest regard, both personally and professionally, for Ms. Vance. For good measure, my source said Alice Martin dislikes Vance because the latter is respected and liked among the staff. If Alice Martin doesn't like someone, that's a good sign to me.

The bad sign, in my view, is that I'm not sure we need a U.S. attorney who is part of Alabama's "judicial royalty." Martin has focused on alleged corruption in the political and business worlds. But from where I sit, some of Alabama's worst corruption rests in the judicial and legal worlds.

Is Joyce White Vance going to take a serious look at the corruption that permeates the courthouses and law firms in her district? I doubt it.

It's particularly unlikely when you consider that Robert Vance Jr. is one sorry excuse for a judge. I know because I've seen him operate in an up-close way. And he's a Democrat, by the way.

Vance was assigned to a legal-malpractice claim I filed against the first attorneys I hired to defend me against a bogus lawsuit from my criminally inclined neighbor. The attorneys were Jesse P. Evans III and Michael B. Odom, and at the time, they were with the Birmingham firm of Adams & Reese/Lange Simpson. They since have shuffled on over to Haskell & Slaughter.

To put it in a short and not-so-sweet way, Robert Vance Jr. screwed me to the wall. He dismissed my lawsuit when, by law, it could not be dismissed. I will go into details in a future post, but it's elemental stuff. Anyone who knows a thing about Rule 12(b)(6) of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, and checked the public file, would readily see how Vance cheated me. (By the way, I'm pretty sure that Rule 12(b)(6) is standard in all jurisdictions, federal and state. It deals with motions to dismiss, which are supposed to be granted only in rare circumstances, none of which existed in my case.)

I've had some people explain it by saying, "Oh well, some judges just don't like legal malpractice cases."

My response? If you don't like certain kinds of legal cases, don't become a judge. No one forced Robert Vance Jr. to accept his appointment to the bench--from Don Siegelman, of all people.

Based on my experience, Robert Vance Jr. is more interested in protecting corrupt lawyers and law firms than he is in providing justice for citizens who have been victimized by lawyers.

That makes me think Vance's wife has cushy relations with the local legal community, as well. Heck, if she wants to go after a corrupt judge, she won't have to look far--just across the supper table.

Vance already is facing political heat from our local fishwrapper, and she hasn't even taken office yet. The latest comes from columnist John Archibald at The Birmingham News.

Archibald says it is critical that Vance continue the crime-fighting efforts started by the estimable Ms. Martin. Archibald says that Vance, like Martin, must "stand for the people."

I used to have some respect for John Archibald. I thought he seemed fairly broad-minded for a Birmingham News columnist. In fact, I even met with him a few months back when he showed signs in print that he was interested in looking into wrongdoing in Shelby County. When I checked back with Archibald a few weeks later, he said he couldn't work on the stuff I had spoon fed him because he was working on a much bigger Shelby County story--about really bad corruption. Great, I said, I look forward to reading it.

That was several months ago. Has the story about really bad corruption in Shelby County appeared in the paper? Nope. Will it appear? I suspect Sheryl Crow will produce Karl Rove's love child first.

It's becoming increasingly clear that John Archibald is little more than a toady for the white, over-the-mountain, evangelical, Briarwood Christian crowd the News is concerned about.

What else can explain the following garbage about the challenges Joyce White Vance will face?

She will have tough decisions to make, a tough job to do and--yeah, I'm going to say it--a tough act to follow.

Say what you will about Martin, but she has pursued corrupt officials in a way few prosecutors in this state's history have done. Black ones and white ones, Democrats and Republicans, those elected to local and statewide offices.

I believe Vance will continue the people's work. She better. For all our sakes.

The crimes will not go away with Alice Martin, and neither can the will to pursue them.

I don't know whether to laugh or hurl when I read delusional junk like that. I'm almost embarrassed for John Archibald that he would pucker up and kiss Alice Martin right on the fanny in such a public way.

Archibald says Martin has gone after white Republicans in the Northern District? Can he name one besides former Jefferson County Commissioner Gary White? And court documents indicate White was targeted only because he refused to provide false evidence against former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.

Evidently Archibald has never heard of Alex Latifi. And Archibald & Co. persist in ignoring the mountains of evidence that Alice Martin is far more corrupt than anyone she has ever prosecuted.

Archibald's most recent handiwork must mark at least the sixth time since Obama was elected that the News has pushed for Alice Martin's crime-fighting crusade to continue. It's almost as if the newspaper has a personal stake in keeping the Martin philosophy in place.

And maybe it does. I've heard whispers that if the Obama Justice Department takes a serious look at political prosecutions in Alabama, it could focus on the curiously cozy relationships between prosecutors and the newspapers in Birmingham and Mobile.

Now that would be an interesting fight for Joyce White Vance to tackle. Is she up to the task?

Why Is There a New Judge in Pennsylvania Case, But Not for Don Siegelman?

We learned in recent days that the Cyril Wecht prosecution in Pennsylvania is falling apart. Why? Because a biased trial-court judge was forced off the case.

You heard that right. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last September that District Judge Arthur J. Schwab must step down and be replaced by a judge who could be impartial in the case.

If you have been following the Don Siegelman case, this news might cause you to have (borrowing a phrase from Keith Olbermann) a "WTF Moment."
Just yesterday, we wrote in detail about Alabama U.S. Judge Mark Fuller and the myriad grounds that he has shown bias in handling the Siegelman case. Our report even raised allegations that Fuller had committed fraud on the court in the Siegelman matter.

Yet Fuller remains on the Siegelman case while Schwab, also a George W. Bush appointee to the federal bench, gets the boot in Pennsylvania.

The issue of recusal has been raised in the Siegelman case, but Fuller has refused to step down, and the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has done nothing to force him.

Did a new judge make a difference in the Wecht case? Oh, just a little. The new judge, Sean J. McLaughlin, threw out key evidence, crippling the government's chances of retrying Wecht, who is a renowed forensic pathologist.

And get this. The new judge actually wanted to force the government to prove its case within the framework of this document we call the U.S. Constitution. Reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

McLaughlin said his ruling should not be viewed as a "legal technicality."

"These rulings are grounded in well-established Fourth Amendment principles which serve as a bulwark against unwarranted governmental intrusion into the private affairs of every citizen, not just this defendant," McLaughlin wrote. "The importance of these principles transcends this particular case."

I'll be damned. A judge who thinks a defendant's right to a fair trial is a serious matter. Who could have guessed that such a judge existed?

No such judges apparently sit on the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the one that recently upheld most of the convictions against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy.

Which raises these troubling questions? Does justice in America depend largely on where you live? Is it a matter of residing in the right judicial circuit? And is the 11th Circuit, which oversees Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, controlled by serious jurists or political hacks?

We will be taking a serious look at these question in the next few days.

The First Anniversary of My Unlawful Termination at UAB

Today marks the first anniversary of being cheated out of my job at UAB.

Last May 19 I walked into a meeting with Dale Turnbough (associate vice president for public relations and marketing) and Anita Bonasera (director of employee relations) and was handed a termination letter, telling me I was being relieved of my duties after 19 years on the job. This was after I had been placed on administrative for 12 days.

I recently showed the termination letter to someone who is intimately familiar with labor and employment matters. "You can tell they didn't have grounds for firing you," she said. "The letter is filled with generalities, but there is nothing about a specific reason for the termination."

My favorite part is how the letter makes two or three references to policy violations, but never says what the policies are. That's because I didn't violate any policies. But that's a small matter to UAB when it is trying to do someone's political bidding.

So what do you do on the first anniversary of being cheated out of your job? I'd never considered that question before. Do you "celebrate"? Do you hold a vigil of some sort.

Here in Schnauzer world, we plan to "keep on keepin' on" with the same activity we've been doing: blogging about our broken justice system; investigating the people and entities who, evidence suggests, played a role in my unlawful termination; laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against UAB (actually the University of Alabama Board of Trustees) and the individuals responsible for my firing.

Actually, I don't like to use terms like "firing" and "termination" because they suggest that this was about employment issues. And I'm convinced it wasn't; it was about politics.

UAB pretty much admits that. Its own grievance committee found that I was wrongfully terminated. And how did UAB react to that? By trying to force two more adverse job actions on me--saying I could only return to work with two written warnings in my file and to a job other than the one I had before.

I sat through the entire grievance hearing and knew that UAB had no grounds to support discipline of any kind, much less two written warnings, so I wasn't about to take that deal. Plus, with three written warnings in an 18-month period of time you are automatically fired. Clearly, UAB was trying to set it up to fire me all over again.

Why would a university act in such a nutty, malicious, and deceitful fashion? UAB itself had no motivation to act that way. So someone external to the university clearly is pulling the strings. My guess is that something I had written on my blog had threatened someone either politically or financially, and they decided I needed to be unemployed.

But here's what is so stupid about that strategy: If someone is writing a citizen-journalism blog that you don't like, the last thing you want to do is cost him his job. That only gives him more time to conduct research on relevant subjects.

When I was working full time, I threw Legal Schnauzer together on the fly, in my spare time. (Contrary to Dale Turnbough's allegations, I wasn't doing it at work; UAB's own investigation by an IT guy showed that.)

Since being fired, I've uncovered all sorts of interesting information about sleazy GOP-style politics in Alabama. Some of it appears to be connected to my termination; some of it isn't. I've already written about some of it; much of it is coming in future posts.

We've uncovered important information about such political/business/legal figures as Rob Riley, Bob Riley, Alice Martin, Dax Swatek, William Cobb "Chip" Hazelrig, Mark Fuller, Doug Jones, and more. We are following numerous leads about rampant wrongdoing at UAB, which points to the wretched "leadership" of President Carol Garrison. We also are working on a series of posts about Garrison's personal misconduct, which probably should have resulted in her dismissal early in her tenure.

We also are working on a story about a company owned by a member of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees. This company was implicated several years ago in a massive reinsurance-fraud case in Pennsylvania, but federal prosecutors failed to follow up on the Alabama aspects of the case. Is someone who runs a criminal enterprise serving on the UA Board of Trustees? Certainly looks that way, and we will be reporting on it here at Legal Schnauzer.

We are intrigued by the recent exit at UAB of Cheryl E.H. Locke, the human-resources director who made the bad-faith offer for me to return under improper conditions. She since has taken what appears to be a lesser job at Wake Forest. Why? My guess is that Cheryl Locke actually has a conscience, and she was tired of doing the bidding of a corrupt UAB administration. UAB still has a lot of great qualities as an institution, but someone with a conscience is likely to be uncomfortable under the current regime.

What have we learned in the past year? Well, we've received a high-level education in how to fight corruption. Actually, Mrs. Schnauzer and I have been doing that for eight or nine years when it comes to the corrupt courts in Shelby County, where we live. But the ante gets raised considerably when someone goes after your job.

It's been heartening to see the attention my case has received in the press. Lindsay Beyerstein at Raw Story, Robin Wilson at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Scott Horton at Harper's, and Joan Brunwasser at OpEd News (Part One and Part Two) all have covered issues raised by the case.

I've always believed in the idea that knowledge is power, and that's what Legal Schnauzer strives to be about. We try to gain knowledge about matters you aren't likely to find in the mainstream press and share it with readers, letting them know how the justice system in our country really "works."

I'm often asked about the status of my legal case against UAB. There isn't much new to report on that. Employment cases have to go through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and I filed a discrimination complaint--called a charge--on November 6, 2008. The EEOC has 180 days to conduct an investigation of the matter, which means I should receive notice any day that the investigation has been concluded.

Unfortunately, I'm told that, as a government bureaucracy with a heavy caseload, the EEOC is noted for running over the 180-day time frame. I'm also told that sometimes the EEOC does a useful investigation and sometimes it doesn't do much of anything, other than sending a right-to-sue letter. A lawsuit cannot proceed until the EEOC has completed its work, so it may be a few more weeks before I hear anything.

I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Web, and the legal issues seem clear. Age discrimination, gender discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliation, and defamation certainly are present. The key concept on most employment issues is "disparate treatment," and there is ample evidence of that.

My case goes beyond standard employment issues, to First Amendment violations. That is likely to be front and center. The case against UAB is overwhelming, but I (of all people) am aware of how judges can cheat parties and deny justice. I'm also aware that I'm the "little guy" going against an institution with a huge advantage in resources. Nothing will be certain in the days ahead.

With an honest justice system, UAB has serious problems--both in my case and in several others. But we don't have an honest justice system; that's the whole reason I started this blog. So who knows what will happen.

Thorough discovery in my case probably would lead in all kinds of interesting political directions. It probably would reveal civil fraud and perhaps even criminal activity.

Under federal law, the public has an "intangible right" to the honest-services of UAB officials. That right clearly was violated in my case--and that goes beyond any wrongs committed against me. That's a wrong against the public, and that's why it's a crime.

Would a federal prosecutor, even in the age of Obama, have the guts to bring such a case? Probably not. But the public should know that the people who currently lead UAB have established an environment where criminal activity can, and almost surely does, take place.

While this will start off, I suspect, as a standard employment case, it really is about a "political hit." Will we be able to determine who actually was responsible for it? I'm sure as heck going to try.

Year one of my post-UAB life has been interesting. Year two is likely to be even more so.

Siegelman Judge Committed Fraud on the Court

Mark Fuller, the federal judge who oversaw the Don Siegelman trial, committed fraud on the court by failing to disclose his bias against the former Alabama governor. That means the judgment against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy should be vacated, says an attorney who has conducted extensive research on Fuller's legal and business activities.

"The evidence is clear to me that Judge Fuller failed to disclose his bias in the Siegelman case and committed fraud on the court," said Paul Benton Weeks, an attorney in Springfield, Missouri. "It is an example of what the Supreme Court has called an 'inexcusable' failure of a judge to remove himself from a case."

Weeks spoke at a media teleconference this morning as a follow up to an investigative report by veteran attorney and journalist Andrew Kreig that was published last Friday at Huffington Post. Kreig reports that Weeks is initiating a renewed call for impeachment amid allegations that Fuller tried to defraud Alabama's state-employee pension system and earned millions of dollars from military contracts during the Bush administration.

Weeks said he uncovered Fuller's misconduct with the assistance of Gary McAliley, a Siegelman appointee who took over as district attorney for two south Alabama counties after Fuller was named to the federal bench by George W. Bush.

"Fuller was deeply concerned that McAliley was going to indict him," Weeks said. "When that concern passed, Fuller became determined to stay on the Siegelman case because he wanted revenge."

Weeks compared Fuller's actions in the Siegelman case to those of a Louisiana judge in Liljeberg v. Health Svcs. Acq. Corp, 486 U.S. 847 (1988). Liljeberg involved ownership of St. Jude Hospital in Kenner, Lousiana. Loyola University had an interest in the hospital, and the judge who heard the case was a Loyola trustee. The judge failed to disclose his relationship to Loyola, and the Supreme Court ruled that was grounds for vacating the judgment in the case.

"If a judge knows something that others in the case don't know, and it would cause an appearance of bias, he has an obligation to identify it and get out of the case," Weeks said. "The Supreme Court said in Liljeberg that the judge's failure to do this was inexcusable."

Weeks said Fuller's actions also raise issues that were addressed in Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U.S. 238 (1944). That case involved a fraud on the court that was discovered years after the judgment had been entered. The Supreme Court found that such a fraud required the judgment to be set aside.

Fuller's actions in the Siegelman case rise to the level of a fraud on the court, Weeks said. What is fraud on the court? Here is how one court described it:

Fraud on the court is fraud which seriously affects the integrity of the normal process of adjudication. Gleason v. Jandrucko, 860 F.2d 556, 559 (2nd Cir. 1988). It involves far more than an injury to an individual litigant or a case of a judgment obtained [simply] with the aid of a witness who, on the basis of after-discovered evidence, is believed to possibly to have been guilty of perjury. Id. (citations omitted) (alteration in original). The concept embraces that species of fraud which does or attempts to, defile the Court itself, or is a fraud perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial machinery cannot perform in the usual manner its impartial task of adjudging cases presented for adjudication. Kupferman v. Consolidated Research & Mfg. Corp., 459 F.2d 1072, 1078 (2nd Cir. 1972) (quoting 7 MOORES FEDERAL PRACTICE ¶60.33, at 515 (1971 ed.).26

The court goes on to describe the elements of a fraud on the court:

The Sixth Circuit has ruled that the elements of fraud upon the Court consists of conduct:

1. On the part of an officer of the Court;

2. That is directed to the judicial machinery itself;

3. That is intentionally false, willfully blind to the truth, or is in reckless disregard for the truth;

4. That is a positive averment or is concealment when one is under a duty to disclose;

5. That deceives the court.

Fuller was an officer of the court in the Siegelman case and concealed a bias that he was under duty to disclose. That, Weeks said, constitutes a fraud on the court.

Weeks first became interested in Fuller when the newly confirmed judge was assigned in 2002 to Murray v. Scott, a class-action lawsuit in which Weeks represented a plaintiff.

Weeks said his investigation showed that, while a district attorney in south Alabama, Fuller had attempted to defraud the Retirement Systems of Alabama out of approximately $330,000 on behalf of one of his employees. The fraud, Weeks said, was an attempt to reward the employee for handling many of the DA's duties while Fuller was in Colorado overseeing Doss Aviation, a company of which he is majority owner.

The investigation, Weeks said, convinced him that Fuller "should not be on the federal bench--or any bench."

Weeks compiled a lengthy affidavit, which included a sworn statement from Siegelman appointee McAliley, and that quickly led to Fuller's recusal from the Murray case.

But Weeks did not forget about the Alabama judge. In fall 2007, he read about the Siegelman case and saw that Fuller was handling it. That set off alarms in Weeks mind.

"When word got out about Fuller's misconduct as DA, he said they were coming after him for political reasons," Weeks said. "Well, he was referring to Gary McAliley, a Siegelman appointee.

"It was not humanly possible for Fuller to then preside over the Siegelman case in a fair and objective way."

Weeks' concerns led him to make his affidavit publicly available in fall 2007. And they have led him to speak out now.

"After the investigation, I was convinced that Fuller was a danger to the federal judiciary," Weeks said. "He had no sense of right and wrong, no respect for the public, and certainly no respect for the law."

Flashing Brassieres and Other Hazards in the Workplace

Why do we have so many employment lawsuits in the United States? I'm starting to think it's simply a reflection of who we are: We have quite a few knuckleheads in the population, which means we have knuckleheads in the workplace. And knuckleheads lead to workplace problems.

Just ask Melissa Blessing, a Perryville, Missouri, woman who worked at a chain of hardware and building-supply stores in southern Missouri and Illinois. Her brassiere, and a number of knuckleheads, helped land her in the middle of a court case.

Blessing, the only woman in a lumberyard, was the target of regular pranks from her male coworkers. One day, the fellas put up a sign that read "Show me your boobies, please."

When they made a special point to show Blessing the sign, she tried to walk away. But the taunting continued, and she finally flashed a glimpse of her bra in an effort to make it stop.

That got her fired, while the men involved were not disciplined. For good measure, a man replaced her.

After a lengthy court battle, Blessing prevailed on discrimination and sexual harassment claims. But you can only shake your head at how such a situation ever was allowed to develop--and that the company defended its handling of the matter, probably spending tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Makes me think it was a miracle that I worked at UAB for 19 years before coming across a subset of knuckleheads who were corrupt enough to cheat me out of my job.

Here is a summary of the court's finding in the Blessing case:

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cole County. Buchheit, Inc., Appellant, v. Missouri Commission on Human Rights, Respondent, No. 65985 (Mo. App. W.D., February 20, 2007, Breckenridge, J.

Buchheit terminated Melissa Blessing after an incident in which she briefly showed her brassiere to male co-workers after they encouraged her to do so. Blessing filed a charge of discrimination with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (“MCHR”) claiming she was discriminated against on the basis of her gender. MCHR agreed with her, finding she had established a prima facie case of gender discrimination and that the reasons Buchheit put forth for terminating her were pretextual. Having found in her favor, MCHR awarded her $1,644.00 in lost wages and $4,000.00 in non-economic damages.

Held: Affirmed. After establishing that Buchheit had appealed from a final judgment, the court of appeals went about affirming MCHR's findings and conclusions. The facts of the underlying case are rather involved, but ultimately, the court of appeals, in a long opinion, emphasized Buchheit had not been entirely consistent in its testimony about handling and disciplining Blessing. Basically, a spirited incident occurred, in which Blessing was the only female employee. She was the only one who exposed herself, as Buchheit maintained, in that she briefly showed a part of her brassiere. Buchheit claimed the other male employees were not similarly situated to her because they had not exposed themselves. The court of appeals agreed with MCHR that all the employees who participated in this incident were similarly situated, so MCHR was justified in finding Blessing had been treated differently because of her gender. None of the male employees were terminated over this incident.

Was justice served in this case? Not from this Schnauzer's perspective. I'm amazed that Blessing didn't receive far more than roughly $5,600 in damages. Makes me think the company got off way too easily. Also makes me think the Missouri Commission on Human Rights is a worthless bureaucracy that is high-minded in name only.

Judge in Siegelman Case Faces Renewed Impeachment Effort

Mark Fuller, the Alabama federal judge who oversaw the Don Siegelman case, is facing a renewed impeachment effort amid allegations that he tried to defraud a state pension system and earned millions of dollars from military contracts during the Bush administration.

Missouri attorney Paul Benton Weeks said Fuller punished Siegelman in retaliation for an investigation Weeks conducted in 2003 that revealed extensive financial wrongdoing in two Alabama counties where Fuller had served as district attorney. A Siegelman appointee assisted in the investigation, which showed that Fuller engaged in criminal behavior before being appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush, Weeks said.

Meanwhile, a new investigation shows that Doss Aviation, with Fuller as majority owner, has been awarded more than $300 million in federal contracts since Fuller began presiding over the Siegelman case in 2005.

The latest on the Siegelman case comes from an investigative report at Huffington Post by veteran attorney and journalist Andrew Kreig, who currently is a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

Weeks and Kreig will conduct a media teleconference at 10 a.m., Eastern time, on Monday (5/18). A Department of Justice spokesman and Judge Fuller have been invited to participate in the teleconference. Kreig sent interview requests to Fuller via U.S. mail and telephone. He has received no response.

Reports Kreig:

The Alabama federal judge who presided over the 2006 corruption trial of the state's former governor holds a grudge against the defendant for helping to expose the judge's own alleged corruption six years ago. Former Gov. Don Siegelman therefore deserves a new trial with an unbiased judge─not one whose privately owned company, Doss Aviation, has been enriched by the Bush administration's award of $300 million in contracts since 2006, making the judge millions in non-judicial income.

These are the opinions of Missouri attorney Paul B. Weeks, who is speaking out publicly for the first time since his effort in 2003 to obtain the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller of Montgomery on Doss Aviation-related allegations.

Kreig's report comes at a critical time in the Siegelman case. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld most of the convictions against Siegelman. Federal prosecutors are asking that the former governor receive a 20-year sentence, almost triple his original sentence. With the 11th Circuit refusing last week to grant a review by the entire court, the case stands to return to Fuller for resentencing.

That's a frightening prospect, Weeks says, because Fuller clearly is not impartial toward the former governor. Fuller's grudge originated with the financial impropriety that Weeks uncovered with the help of Gary McAliley, a Siegelman appointee who succeeded Fuller as district attorney over two south Alabama counties:

"Siegelman deserved a fair judge, and what he got is one who holds a grudge against him for my impeachment effort," says Weeks. "If Fuller had a trace of honor he would have recused himself immediately. Instead, he's part of the machine that pounded down the defendant. It makes a huge difference to a defendant whether the judge is protecting your rights, or letting prosecutors stifle them. All Siegelman needs to do to win a new trial is to put my 2003 affidavit on the table as Exhibit A."

Weeks practices law in Springfield, Missouri, and decided to conduct a routine investigation after the newly confirmed Fuller was assigned in 2002 to Murray v. Scott, a class-action lawsuit in which Weeks represented a plaintiff.

What was supposed to be a routine background check on a judge turned up information that was anything but routine. The initial check uncovered enough troubling information that Weeks traveled to Alabama to conduct a thorough investigation. He wound up with a sworn statement from McAliley, outlining corruption in the district attorney's office where Fuller had presided:

Weeks put his evidence into a comprehensive filing to Fuller on July 25, 2003. The filing alleged "clear evidence of criminal misconduct" by Fuller both before and after he became a federal judge. Weeks wrote, "The evidence of criminal wrongdoing identified in this affidavit implicates lying and perjury; criminal conspiracy and criminal attempt to defraud the Retirement System of Alabama (RSA) of approximately $330,000; and, misuse of the office of district attorney and federal judge in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy and criminal attempt to defraud."

What was at the heart of Fuller's corrupt activities? Kreig reports:

According to Weeks's statement, the problem was Fuller's cozy arrangement with his state staff that enabled him to lead Doss Aviation in Colorado Springs while also drawing a full-time salary as state district attorney in Alabama. Weeks suggested that the pay raise and pension fight for the investigator were, in effect, hush money.

The affidavit prompted Fuller's recusal from the Murray case. But Weeks' call for impeachment went nowhere in Washington, D.C. Weeks drove from Missouri to Washington to hand deliver his evidence to every member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds initial jurisdiction over impeachment actions. Weeks also delivered copies to judicial, justice, and legal oversight groups. He never heard back from anyone, and the matter died.

Meanwhile, new evidence shows how much Fuller and Doss Aviation have gained financially during the Bush years. Reports Kreig:

Recent additional research by the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University found that Doss Aviation has been awarded more than $300 million in federal awards since Fuller began presiding over the Siegelman case in 2005. The scope of Doss Aviation's work is illustrated by the company's website, http://www.dossaviation.com/. Among other things, it displays a photo of Doss Aviation refueling the presidential plane Air Force One as part of its extensive refueling work for the Air Force. The website also describes the company's vital role in training Air Force pilots, and in manufacturing uniforms for federal military and civilian employees.

Fuller never should have been assigned to the Siegelman case, Weeks says:

"I just wish I had known about Siegelman's case before his trial so they [defendants and attorneys] could have been able to understand the kind of animus Fuller has to have for Siegelman," Weeks says. "I guarantee that Fuller blames Siegelman for my affidavit. If you look at how Fuller treated Siegelman, he clearly hates him."

"What's remarkable is that Siegelman has never been given a real chance to show why it's not appropriate for Fuller to be his judge," Weeks says. "The material I produced was never available. I think it was put into a separate file to keep it hidden."

Why has new Attorney General Eric Holder been reluctant to review the Siegelman case, even after asking that charges be dropped against former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)? Kreig provides some insight:

Weeks believes that Attorney General Holder finds it politically indelicate so far to step into Siegelman's case, especially so soon after he condemned the prosecution of former Sen. Stevens. "If it's one case of misconduct, authorities can look like heroes for investigating it. If it's two, they're opening the floodgates for reviews of all their questionable conduct."

Kreig notes that the 11th Circuit's ruling upholding most of the Siegelman conviction has not quieted critics who say the prosecution was politically driven and unlawfully conducted. The real problem, Weeks says, started in the trial court with Judge Mark Fuller. And Weeks does not intend to let that issue rest:

"There needs to be oversight beyond that appeals court," Weeks concludes. "They really contained the problem pretty well up to now. But there's no statute of limitations for impeachment, and this case shouldn't end with a new judge and new trial, or dropped charges against Siegelman and Scrushy," he says.

"I've been a fan of good judges for my entire 28 years as a lawyer," he says. "But when you get a bad one, with all the power that they hold, that's about as close to the devil here on earth as you can find."

It's Politics As Usual On Siegelman Appeal

Associated Press is reporting today that the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a petition for a hearing before the full court in the Don Siegelman case.

A three-judge panel earlier had upheld most of the convictions against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy. With today's ruling, denying an en banc review, the only recourse for Siegelman and Scrushy--at least through the courts--is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The chances for anyone having a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court are slim. But attorneys for Siegelman and Scrushy, Vince Kilborn and Art Leach, say they are going to file a petition for review, and the issues at hand might be important enough to attract the Supremes' attention:

Leach said a centerpiece of the appeal to the Supreme Court will be the question of whether a crime was actually committed. Defense lawyers have argued there wasn't proof that Scrushy and Siegelman had an explicit deal to swap the campaign contributions for the appointment.

Kilborn said the case is of national importance because it involves the level of proof required to show campaign contributions were bribes.

"The Supreme Court, in my opinion, will take a long look at that," Kilborn said.

Nothing much surprises us here at Legal Schnauzer about our broken justice system. And we certainly are not surprised by today's ruling.

I have reviewed the three-judge panel's ruling, and other relevant documents, and it clearly is unlawful on numerous levels. We plan to start a series of posts next week that will show exactly how the 11th Circuit cheated Siegelman and Scrushy on appeal.

It's not even a close call that both the trial and appellate courts got this case wrong. But the sad truth is that our courts no longer are about justice; they are about politics--and nothing about that has changed in the first four months of the Barack Obama administration.

The judges on the 11th Circuit have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that our courts are honest. And if Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy have to pay a price for keeping that myth alive, so be it.

Here's the truly sick thing about the 11th Circuit's handling of the Siegelman appeal: If the trial court had botched it just a little, I suspect the appellate judges would have overturned it. But trial judge Mark Fuller is so corrupt, and botched it on so many grounds, that there is almost no way to correct the decision without making it clear that the federal courts have a sleazebag in their midst.

Remember that Mark Fuller owes his judgeship to U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Here is how Scott Horton reported it at Harper's:

One of the charges against Siegelman, on which he was convicted, was that he had accepted gifts from an Alabama lobbyist. When that lobbyist testified, he made the point that he done the same thing–except in a much larger way—with Alabama Republican Senator Jefferson Sessions, without the Justice Department raising any questions about it. Now, as we have already noted, Judge Fuller owes his judgeship in part to Jefferson Sessions, moreover, he was an active supporter and campaign donor to Sessions’s senatorial campaign.

Horton goes on to point out the critical role that Sessions former deputy, Bill Pryor, played in the Siegelman investigation. And where is Pryor now? On the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, as a George W. Bush appointee:

Moreover, Sessions’s deputy and successor as Alabama Attorney General was Bill Pryor, who played a key role in directing the prosecution of Siegelman. When Sessions’s name came up, the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section lawyer objected, asking that this evidence be excluded, and Fuller complied. No charges were ever brought against Sessions, nor was any investigation ever undertaken. Yet Siegelman was convicted on this charge.

The bottom line? A serious review of the Siegelman case would show that trial judge Mark Fuller acted in a corrupt, possibly criminal, manner. And any review of Fuller is going to lead to scrutiny of Bill Pryor, Jeff Sessions, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush.

Somebody has decided that the country "can't handle the truth" about the Siegelman case. So it is being covered up.

Starting next week, we will show you exactly how the 11th Circuit is participating in the cover up.

Obama Continues to Look the Other Way on Crimes of the Bush Administration

Why does the Obama administration seem to be covering up crimes of the Bush administration?

That is one of many important issues Larisa Alexandrovna raises in a powerful report at Raw Story.

Writes Alexandrovna:

Why is no one being held accountable? It is one thing to overlook a series of bad choices made in good faith. But the issues at hand have nothing to do with good faith or even bad choices. The allegations of criminal activity and extreme and willful abuses of power by officials of the Bush administration fall directly under the very definition of high crimes. . . .

The Watergate break-in, for example, appears insignificant against the backdrop of the Bush-Cheney legacy. No, the crimes are not small or even limited to a single genre or type of crime. From the outing of a CIA officer for political payback, to the massive illegal domestic surveillance program, to a policy of torture that resulted in multiple homicides; high crimes were committed and more startling, no one has been held to account.

Alexandrovna is particularly outraged at this week's news that federal prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, almost triple his original sentence:

Attorney General Holder stepped into former Senator Ted Steven’s corruption case on the grounds that federal prosecutors behaved unethically and possibly in a criminal way. This was the right decision, but why Stevens and no one else? Why are federal prosecutors demanding harsher sentencing in a case where the prosecutorial misconduct was far worse than it was in the Stevens’ case?

I might be able to answer Alexandrovna's last question; at least I have a theory about it.

In the Stevens case, a federal judge helped point out prosecutorial misconduct. In the Siegelman case, a federal judge was part of the misconduct. And based on the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' flawed ruling that upheld much of the Siegelman conviction, it now appears that appellate judges are involved in a cover up of what really took place in Montgomery, Alabama.

My guess is that Attorney General Eric Holder has no problem pointing out, and dealing with, wayward prosecutors. But you can't deal with the Siegelman fiasco without looking into the conduct of corrupt judges. And that goes to the very heart of our justice system.

The Siegelman case shows that our justice is corrupt to its core, that even some of those we call "your honor" are, in fact, dishonorable.

My guess is that Holder simply does not want to deal with that--or, in a best-case scenario--he has not yet figured out how to deal with it.

Barack Obama unquestionably inherited an unholy mess from the Bush administration. And it's unfair to expect it to be solved in four months.

But the crimes in the Bush Justice Department simply must not be papered over. I can understand if Holder needs time to figure out how to tell the American people that their justice system is corrupt from top to bottom.

But he needs to get on the stick. A former governor in Alabama, who committed no crime, is looking at going to prison for the rest of his life.

HealthSouth Lawsuit Provides Some Comic Relief

Lawsuits with $2.6 billion on the line are not known for producing moments of levity.

But such a moment occurred the other day in the HealthSouth lawsuit that is wrapping up its first week here in Birmingham.

Former chief financial officer Weston Smith testified via videotaped deposition in Jefferson County Circuit Court that former CEO Richard Scrushy knew about the accounting fraud. Smith said he shared his concerns about signing false financial certifications with former HealthSouth legal counsel Bill Horton.

According to Smith, Horton told him to sign the document anyway, adding, "You can't walk away from the mafia."

The alleged discussion between Smith and Horton has its comic elements. But it's also serious, alarming stuff--on several levels.

For one thing, if proven, the allegation against Horton probably would result in his disbarment.

Second, it's interesting to note that Horton has since landed at the Birmingham firm of Haskell Slaughter. I love some of the information provided in Horton's bio at the firm's Web site. Consider this:

A nationally recognized speaker and author on healthcare, corporate and securities law, and professional responsibility topics, Mr. Horton has held leadership positions for several years with the American Health Lawyers Association and the American Bar Association's Health Law Section.

Are you kidding me? This guy was chief counsel at a company where one of the largest frauds in U.S. history was going on under his nose. He evidently was clueless about what took place, but now he's an expert on healthcare law and professional responsibility? What does he tell people at these speaking engagements? How not to be a general counsel?

Haskell Slaughter is developing quite a cadre of lawyers with connections to our Legal Schnauzer story. And I've yet to see one acquit himself in an honorable way.

You've got Jesse P. Evans III, the first lawyer I hired to defend me against a neighbor's bogus lawsuit. Evans could not even manage to get a case dismissed when we filed properly executed and supported motions for summary judgment that the other side did not respond to. By law, summary judgment must be granted in such cases, but Evans repeatedly lied to me in an effort to cover up the corrupt activities of Shelby County Judge J. Michael Joiner. Evans even told me that Joiner is "one of the best judges in this part of the country." I still want to vomit when I think of that.

Evans' sidekick, Michael Odom, has joined him at Haskell Slaughter. Odom handled most of the actual work on my case, and under normal circumstances, I suspect he's a pretty decent guy and maybe even a good lawyer. But at Evans direction, I suspect he had little choice (if he wanted to advance in his career) but to lie his ass off about what was taking place in my case.

Evans is so immersed in the sleazy legal culture that I'm not sure he has a conscience. But in my interactions with Odom, he showed signs of at least having had a conscience at one time. And I wonder sometimes how he sleeps at night, knowing what his firm did to my wife and me. But it seems a lot of folks check their consciences at the door when they enter law school, so maybe that's how Michael Odom sleeps just fine.

If the law was not a self-regulated profession, if the field had real oversight, Horton, Evans, and Odom all probably would be disbarred. Of course, if the field had real regulation, they probably wouldn't pull such stunts in the first place. Horton might have actually headed off the fraud at HealthSouth, and Evans/Odom might have dealt with me honestly.

Finally, the Haskell Slaughter roster also includes former Clinton-era U.S. attorney Doug Jones. We know that Jones has formed an alliance with sleazebag GOP attorney Rob Riley in a massive federal lawsuit involving HealthSouth. And we have learned that Jones doesn't seem the least bit concerned that court documents indicate that a physical-therapy company owned by Riley apparently is acting in a fraudulent manner.

All of this makes me wonder about the culture of Haskell Slaughter. Sounds like the place could use a good scouring--or perhaps a massive injection of ethics.

Bill Horton evidently thought he was in the "mafia" at HealthSouth. To me, looks like he's still in the mafia at Haskell Slaughter.

Striking a Nerve With a Key Figure in the Don Siegelman Case

Have you ever said or written something and then wondered why it seemed to strike a nerve with a certain person?

We recently had such an experience here at Legal Schnauzer. It involved a central character in the Don Siegelman case. And it left me wondering about possible conflicts of interest involving the Siegelman criminal case and an ongoing federal lawsuit against people and entities connected to HealthSouth Corp.

For what it's worth, it also raised a number of questions in my mind about my unlawful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

It started with a post we titled "Does Rob Riley Engage in Fraud While He 'Fights' Fraud?" And it ended with a heated missive from Doug Jones, a prominent Alabama Democrat who served as lead counsel on Siegelman's defense team for roughly three years. Jones did not represent Siegelman during the trial.

Jones also happens to be one of the chief plaintiffs' lawyers in the massive federal lawsuit involving HealthSouth. Chief among the defendants in that case is former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, who was Siegelman's codefendant in a criminal case that landed both of them in federal prison.

Progressives in our state have tended to see Doug Jones as one of the "good guys," even an heroic figure at times. Jones served as U.S. attorney under Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. He received national attention in 2001 when he reopened and successfully prosecuted the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing case of 1963. He testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in October 2007 about selective prosecution in the Bush Justice Department.

Doug Jones and I would seem to be political "brothers in arms." On the same day that Jones testified before Congress, documents were entered that contained numerous references to my reporting on the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, a political prosecution with many similarities to the Siegelman case.

From the tone of Jones' response to my post about Rob Riley and the HealthSouth lawsuit, we don't seem to be on the same wavelength at this point. Maybe that's because Jones, like Riley, is one of the lead plaintiffs' lawyers in a case against Scrushy and others that has generated more than $500 million in settlements--with more to come. You can only imagine what kind of attorney fees that case might generate.

Why did Doug Jones react to my post about Rob Riley in a fairly hostile way? What does his response say about a Birmingham legal environment that seems to be awash with conflicts of interest?

First, let's consider the post in question. It ran on March 31, 2009, and noted the curious lead role Rob Riley had assumed in the massive HealthSouth lawsuit. Rob Riley, a Homewood attorney, is the son of Alabama Republican Governor Bob Riley, one of Don Siegelman's primary political adversaries.

My post noted that, because of his ties to the Siegelman/Scrushy criminal case, it appears Rob Riley had access to inside information that he was able to use to his advantage in the civil case against Scrushy and others.

Sam Stein, of Huffington Post, first raised this issue in a report in March 2008, noting that Rob Riley engaged in what amounted to "legal-political insider trading." My post borrowed heavily from Stein's work, and I added some original reporting, highlighted by this:

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.

Jones, in a response at a progressive listserv run by Pam Miles of Huntsville, Alabama, made it clear he didn't much care for my post. He proceeded to trash me, saying I knew "nothing about" the events covered in my Legal Schnauzer post. He labeled my work as "innuendo and speculation" and said I had jumped to "absurd conclusions" out of what appear to be "purely political motivations."

Those are strange words for Doug Jones to be hurling at a progressive blogger/citizen journalist, someone who has repeatedly stood up for one of Jones' former clients--Don Siegelman. It's even more strange when you consider that strong evidence indicates I lost my job at UAB because my blog has been supportive of Siegelman and critical of the Bush Justice Department.

Jones' response went from strange to alarming, in my mind, when I realized that he has legal connections to UAB. In fact, Jones' words raised troubling questions on a number of fronts, including:

* Jones' actions in his defense of Siegelman;

* Jones' motives and alliances connected to the HealthSouth lawsuit;

* Jones' motives and alliances regarding Rob Riley, who is an owner of Performance Group LLC, a fledgling physical-therapy company that stands to gain from a weakened HealthSouth, even though Riley's company faces allegations of health-care fraud that so far have been covered up by Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama;

* Jones' motives and alliances regarding UAB, the place where I was fired under curious circumstances, roughly a month after first writing about Rob Riley's role in the HealthSouth litigation. Jones has represented UAB in at least one high-profile legal matter, and two of Riley's partners in Performance Group are on the staff at UAB.

We will soon be raising a number of questions about these and related matters. But first, let's take a look at Jones' response to my piece.

Why did our post strike such a nerve with Jones? What do Jones' words reveal about the tight rope he has walked between the Siegelman/Scrushy criminal case and the HealthSouth civil case?

Here is Jones' full, unedited response, as posted on Pam Miles' listserv:

I try to limit my responses to most of the posts on Pam's distribution list, but when someone writes to something that they obviously know nothing about and hit hits close to home, then I am compelled to respond. Such is the case with Roger's post below. I have been involved as liaison counsel in the HealthSouth securities fraud case since the beginning of the case in August of 2002, even before the FBI raid that occurred in March of 2003. As such I have been privy to facts and not just innuendo and speculation. So let me try and clear the air on this once and for all:

To begin with I should explain that in any securities fraud case there are usually a number of complaints that are filed and both the plaintiffs and their lawyers seek appointment as "leads" from the court. The lead plaintiffs are usually large institutional investors with huge losses from the drop in the stock price. The law also states that there is a presumption that the investor or combination of investors with the largest loss should be appointed as the lead plaintiff to maintain the class action on behalf of all investors. The lead counsel is the law firm that brings that lead plaintiff to the table. Lead counsel will often have a local or liaison to assist in the case. Liaison counsel can and usually does do a good bit of work on the case, which is a all done on a contingency basis. To imply, however, that liaison counsel is some how a "lead" counsel is very misleading.

It is true that Rob Riley was not involved in the early stages of the litigation. His entry into the case, however, was more fortuitous than sinister. Until 2005, my former law firm and I were the sole liaison counsel in the case. The Coughlin Stoia firm from San Diego and the Lowey Danenberg firm from NYC were designated by the Court as the lead counsel and their clients were the lead plaintiffs. However, as the litigation progressed a conflict of interest developed for the institutional investor plaintiffs and they moved to withdraw from the case. At that time the Court opened up the lead plaintiff and lead counsel appointments again. A number of new institutional investors and their lawyers applied for the lead plaintiff and lead counsel positions, including the New Mexico Retirement Systems who had sought Rob Riley as their local counsel. The Court heard arguments from all plaintiffs and their lawyers seeking lead status. During the appointment process the primary lawyers for the New Mexico Retirement Systems, the Labaton Sucharow firm, and the Coughlin Stoia firm struck a deal whereby they would jointly put forth their respective clients as co-lead plaintiffs and the two firms as co-lead counsel. As part of the deal, Rob Riley (for the Labaton firm) and I (for the Coughlin firm) were named as co-liaison counsel. The appointment of Rob riley was solely the result of these negotiations by the lead counsel and had absolutley nothing to do with Siegelman, Scrushy or Judge Fuller. I tried to explain all of this to Mr. Stein of the Huffington Post. Anyone that was involved involved in the appointment of lead and liaison counsel will simply laugh at the suggestion that Rob Riley's entry into the case was somehow connected to Siegleman or the result of "legal-political insider trading." We both had to go through the appointment process with the court.

It is true that Riley had very little experience in securities fraud cases at time that he was selected by the Labaton firm as their local counsel. However, B'ham did not have many plaintiffs counsel that were experienced in this type litigation and all of those were already involved in the case and thus had conflicts. Moreover, while experience is helpful it is not a prerequisite for local counsel. All facets of the litigation are controlled by the lead counsel, which in the HealthSouth case was 2 of the best in the country. I will candidly say, however, that Rob Riley and his firm have provided assistance in all phases of the HealthSouth litigation and have done an outstanding job. It is a more than a stretch, however, to suggest that Rob Riley "engineered" the 445M dollar settlement paid by Healthsouth and their insurers.

I have no knowledge of whether or not Rob Riley has an interest in any health care related firm, but the fact is that the HealthSouth debacle was of Healthsouth's own making, not the plaintiff lawyers who brought the case for stockholders who lost literally billions of dollars, and certainly not Rob Riley. The settlement against HealthSouth was presented to the court for approval by lead counsel, not me or Rob Riley. The settlement against EY will be presented by lead counsel, not me or Rob Riley.

Rob Riley and I have many, many political differences, but the HealthSouth case and our duties to our clients and the stockholder class is not one of them. The bottom line here is before anyone decides to jump to absurd conclusions based on what appears to be purely political motivations they should check out facts from those involved and try and actually learn at least something about the legal proceedings they are writing about.

(To be continued)

Depression Runs Rampant Among Lawyers

A growing number of lawyers are grappling with depression and other emotional problems, according to a report in the National Law Journal (NLJ).

The growing pressure on attorneys was underscored by the apparent suicide on April 30 of Mark I. Levy, a prominent attorney in the Washington office of Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Stockton.

Some experts point to the stress caused by a slumping economy. But others say the problem goes deeper than that:

Administrators from a sampling of lawyer assistance programs report that laid-off attorneys, struggling solo practitioners, third-year law students without jobs lined up and others have been reaching out for help more than ever before. Lawyers who already had emotional problems or addictions are being pushed over the edge by the added stress of the slow economy and its ramifications, they said.

Susan Riegler, a psychologist and clinical director of a lawyer-assistance program in Illinois, said she is starting a second weekly therapy session for depression:

"This really picked up in December," Riegler said. "I was getting more people than ever calling me in tears. By and large, what I see is depression and a feeling that things won't turn around, or I hear from people who had a lifestyle they can no longer afford."

An increasing number of frustrated law students have been calling, she said. So have solo practitioners who don't have enough work to keep the lights on, or are afraid to turn down cases and end up working around the clock. Some attorneys who have lost their jobs face something of an identity crisis as well. "People have always asked them, 'What do you do?' and they've said, 'I'm a lawyer,'" she said. "When they lose that role in life, it's pretty confusing."

Based on my experience, I think something deeper might be going on in the legal profession. Numerous lawyers in the Birmingham area have told me that they are well aware of rampant corruption in the profession, driven largely by bad judges, but they feel powerless to do anything about it. Try to stand up to a corrupt judge, and your career can be ruined. Report a bad judge to an oversight agency, and you are likely to be ignored.

Honest lawyers clearly are aware of incompetent colleagues who make very nice livings, and enjoy professional success, because they "are in bed with" certain judges. That has to be demoralizing. And to see deserving clients get cheated in court, and only be able to shrug your shoulders about it, has to be wearing.

A lawyer friend recently provided some interesting insight into the profession. "Lawyers have almost no control over their lives. Their schedules are set by judges, opposing counsel, availability of clients and opposing parties. For many lawyers, their lives are not their own."

For an alarming number of lawyers, that apparently takes quite an emotional toll.

Dax Swatek Lands in the Midst of the Troy King Investigation

Dax Swatek, an Alabama GOP consultant with ties to Bob Riley, Bill Canary, and Alice Martin, finds himself in the middle of a federal investigation of Alabama Attorney General Troy King.

Swatek is a lead character in our Legal Schnauzer story and certainly is a "person of interest" in my unlawful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

What does the King investigation mean for Republican politics in Alabama? The answer is unclear, but it could get real juicy. And it could be more signs of a major rift in the GOP ranks.

The Birmingham News reports today that federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records about King's travel, purchases, and any gifts he might have received while in office.

The News reports:

Sources familiar with the investigation said prosecutors are looking into a number of areas, including whether King used his office to investigate opponents of political allies and whether he violated the state's ethics law.

The report goes on to state that prosecutors are seeking all correspondence and communication related to certain lobbyists and companies. That's where Swatek's name--and a number of other interesting names--comes in:

The subpoena sought all documents related to communication with Alabama Power Co., the Atlanta Braves, the Montgomery Biscuits minor league baseball club, Auburn University, ALFA Insurance, the Alabama Nursing Home Association, the Business Council of Alabama, Republican political consultant Dax Swatek, AU lobbyist Sherry Fulford, gambling magnate Milton McGregor and others.

Whew, that's quite a crowd. While they apparently have ties to Troy King, many of them also have ties to Governor Bob Riley and his son, wheeling and dealing Rob Riley.

So who is really the target here--Troy King, Bob Riley, Rob Riley, or some unfathomed combo platter of GOP sleaze?

The King investigation has been curious from the outset. It originates in the Middle of District of Alabama, but it is being run by Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

On the surface, King appears to have gotten crossways with Bob Riley on gambling issues. Martin, a long-time Riley ally, might be going after King for those reasons.

But we have reported about a possible rift between the Riley and Martin camps, apparently over Martin's deep desire to receive an appointment to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

As we learned earlier this week, that appointment went to state finance director Jim Main. Riley probably went with Main because Martin, the subject of multiple federal investigations, would be a controversial pick, possibly drawing unwanted scrutiny toward Riley.

Could Alice Martin be highly ticked that she was left out in the cold on the court appointment, considering that the Obama administration is likely to pull the plug on her U.S. attorney gig pretty soon?

Could Alice Martin be going after Troy King on the surface, with an eye toward information that could be damaging for Bob Riley?

Is it a mere coincidence that news of the King subpoena comes only days after news that Martin did not get the judgeship she wanted?

Some have speculated that Martin is going after King so that the attorney general position will open up and she can receive an appointment there. But if Riley passed her over for a court appointment, why would he go with her for attorney general?

How strange is this whole situation? Consider that Dax Swatek has been campaign manager for both Riley (2006 governor's race) and Martin (2000 race for Court of Criminal Appeals).

Here are a couple of things to always keep in mind regarding Alice Martin:

* When she opens an investigation, the law and facts probably have nothing to do with it. Politics almost always is front and center.

* The Birmingham News is almost certainly going to be in Alice's corner, cheering her on. The relationship between the newspaper and the Birmingham prosecutor is strange, unprofessional, and borderline creepy. If Alice Martin feels wronged about something, you can bet the Birmingham newspaper probably feels wronged, too.

The News' account says that "others" were named on the subpoena. But it chose to name a number of Riley allies, including Dax Swatek, Auburn University, and the Business Council of Alabama. I suspect there is a reason for that.

Is it possible that Alice Martin, getting the cold shoulder after years of carrying water for the Alabama GOP, is now determined to shine light on some Republican dirt? If so, she surely knows where to look.

Is it possible that hell hath no fury like a prosecutor scorned?

How will this investigation play out? Hard to say. But I suspect it's about more than any wrongs that Troy King may or may not have committed.

Miss California Isn't The Only Conservative Female Hypocrite Out There

Thanks to Carrie Prejean, Miss California in the Miss USA contest, conservative female hypocrisy has become front-page news.

But Ms. Prejean, who it was announced yesterday will keep her crown, is hardly alone when it comes to women who are phony balonies about their "conservative values."

In fact, we know of a wannabe movie star who has Alabama roots and probably is a far bigger phony than Carrie Prejean could ever think of being. For good measure, our "Hollywood conservative" has strong connections to our Legal Schnauzer story.

Prejean stepped in doo-doo when, after declaring herself a gold-plated Christian and trashing the idea of gay marriage, semi-nude photographs of her showed up on the Web.

That didn't look so good. But when it comes to female conservative hypocrisy, Ms. Prejean is a minor leaguer compared to Barret Swatek.

Who is Barret Swatek? You've probably never heard the name because she is a 32-year-old "actress" with hardly a decent credit to her name. Perhaps she is best known for a recurring role in the television series 7th Heaven from 2000 to 2003.

She was in the hit movie, The 40 Year Old Virgin, as "bar girl." I haven't seen the movie, but I understand Swatek shared billing with a potted plant. I hear that if you bent down to take a sip of your Coke, you missed her "star turn."

What are her connections to our Legal Schnauzer tale? Swatek grew up in Birmingham, and her father is William E. Swatek, the sleazebag attorney who filed a bogus lawsuit against me on behalf of our criminally inclined neighbor, Mike McGarity. Daddy Swatek has a 30-year history of ethical violations with the Alabama State Bar, including a suspension of his license and a criminal trial on perjury charges.

Barret Swatek's brother is Dax Swatek, a Republican "consultant" in Montgomery with ties to Bill Canary, Karl Rove, and other GOP "luminaries." Interestingly, news comes today that Dax's name appears in a subpoena as part of an investigation of Alabama Attorney General Troy King. That could get interesting. More on that coming up pronto. I'm hearing that Dax has some other potentially major legal woes on his plate. Hmmm.

Another brother, Chace Swatek, reportedly flunked the California bar exam and flopped as a real-estate developer on Alabama's Gulf Coast before returning home to try his hand in Daddy's slimy law practice.

Since Barret Swatek has a scant track record and little discernible talent, her main claim to fame seems to be that she is a "Hollywood conservative." Gee, she's even appeared with Sean Hannity. What a gal!

How does Swatek display her bedrock conservative values? Well, she has an interesting way of doing that.

The New York Post reported in 2004 that Swatek and Hollywood producer Mike DeLuca had been an item for about a year. Calling DeLuca a "tomcat," the Post reported:

FORMER New Line and DreamWorks mogul Mike DeLuca (now an independent producer) has a new girlfriend -- "7th Heaven" actress Barret Swatek , 27. To many people's surprise in Hollywood, DeLuca, who is known as a tomcat, has dated Swatek for almost a year. They've been through a lot. In a romantic mishap six months ago, "Mike was carrying her down the stairs of his home and missed a step," a source reports. The two went tumbling down the stairs "and they both broke their ankles. They were seen all around town in matching casts and crutches." Swatek is said to be a die-hard pro-George Bush Republican like DeLuca.

How cute! They were both for Dubya.

Is DeLuca really a tomcat? You might say that--if you want to give tomcats a bad name.

DeLuca has had his share of hits on the big screen--The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Seven, Boogie Nights, Wag the Dog. But he seems to have a fondness for receiving oral sex--in public places. As one reporter put it:

Michael De Luca is best known for receiving a blowjob at age 32 from the sister of actor Cary Elwes and producer Cassian Elwes in front of guests (such as ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGER, EMMA THOMPSON, JOHN MALKOVICH and QUENTIN TARANTINO) at a pre-Oscar party thrown by then head of the William Morris motion picture division, Arnold Rifkin at his home in March, 1998. De Luca and the woman were escorted from the party by security guards.

DeLuca's "tomcat" ways don't end there:

At his surprise 32nd birthday party at Lucky Cheng's in New York, De Luca was photographed having a transvestite lick whipped cream off his bare chest for a photo spread in Creme & SuGar magazine.

And you gotta love these conservative values:

De Luca exudes a don't-give-a-damn attitude. He has a record of public fistfights and drunken driving. He prefers to wear denim and leather over suits and ties and enjoys riding a Harley.

Heck, this guy would have been a perfect fit in the Family Swatek. But alas, it appears he and Barret went their separate ways. Maybe he was too conservative for her.

At last report, our gal Barret is starring in an Internet sitcom called My Two Fans. (Sounds like an appropriate title.) The Swateks must have connections at The Birmingham News because the newspaper goes to almost comic lengths in an attempt to portray Barret as a legit movie star.

The paper recently tabbed her "Queen of the World Wide Web."

I've got news for our local fishwrapper. Being called "Queen of the World Wide Web" ain't exactly a compliment. Quite a few "queens of the Web" probably draw far bigger audiences than Barret Swatek ever will. They are called amateur porn stars.

Mike De Luca probably would like to meet them.

Federal Prosecutors Want Siegelman To Get a Longer Sentence

Federal prosecutors will seek a 20-year prison sentence for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman when he receives a new sentencing hearing in federal court in Montgomery, according to a report just out from Associated Press.

Siegelman originally received a sentence of roughly seven years following his conviction on federal corruption charges. The new recommendation comes after a panel of three appellate judges dismissed two of the seven charges the former governor was convicted of and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

AP reports:

Prosecutors made the recommendation in a letter to federal probation officers. The probation officers will prepare a report recommending a new sentence to U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller.

Siegelman and his attorneys noted the absurdity of prosecutors asking for an extended sentence after an appellate court had thrown out two felony counts.

Today's report is alarming for a couple of reasons:

(1) It lends credence to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that upheld most of the convictions against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy. Our research of the ruling, and the relevant law and facts, indicates the 11th Circuit's ruling was flawed, unlawful, and a continuation of the politics that have permeated the case from the outset.

(2) It indicates that federal prosecutors are acting as brazenly under the Barack Obama administration as they did under George W. Bush. We now have Eric Holder as attorney general, but today's news indicates that makes zero difference to the prosecutors who ramrodded the Siegelman case.

Is the 11th Circuit's ruling flawed? The answer is yes. You certainly won't hear about that from federal prosecutors, and no one in the mainstream press is likely to examine the ruling closely enough to determine whether it is legit or not.

But we have studied the ruling and found it be full of holes. Our findings are coming soon.

Here is How Republicans Practice "Financial Terrorism"

Today marks the one-year anniversary of our house being stolen by corrupt Republican officials in Shelby County, Alabama.

Actually, that statement is not 100 percent accurate. (More on that in a moment.) But it illustrates a common tactic that Republicans use against their perceived enemies.

I call it "financial terrorism."

I'm hardly alone as a target of financial terrorism, as practiced by America's right wingers. Alabama attorney Jill Simpson, a GOP whistleblower in the Don Siegelman case, has been the target of a mysterious automobile "accident" (her car was run off the road) and an even more mysterious fire at her home.

The goal of the GOP crowd that orchestrated the Siegelman (Alabama) and Paul Minor (Mississippi) cases in the Deep South probably involved more than possible prison sentences. My guess is that Karl Rove & Co. wanted to ruin the men financially. And they probably have come close to succeeding.

In some cases, the GOP resorts to what you might call "techno/financial terrorism." One Alabama Web journalist has seen his servers attacked on more than one occasion. A major national Web journalist recently has seen her e-mails and other electronic data mysteriously disappear.

Mrs. Schnauzer and I are convinced that Alabama GOPers have tracked our phone records and used that information to cost her several jobs. We also have little doubt that our bank and other personal records have been checked. This is particularly easy with us because our situation involves multiple corrupt judges. And who signs orders to produce bank and phone records? Judges, of course.

So what about our house? Longtime readers will remember the saga from last spring, which involved several steps:

* Writ of execution--We received this document from a sheriff's deputy, threatening to seize our cars and/or house in order to satisfy a "judgment" against me in the amount of $1,525. The "judgment" was the result of a lawsuit brought by our troublesome neighbor, Mike McGarity. The judgment was not remotely lawful (long story), but Shelby County Circuit Judge G. Dan Reeves signed it, so that apparently gave the sheriff the authority to conduct a harassment campaign regarding our property. The judgment, by the way, had sat idle for three years, with no one ever sending a demand letter. But McGarity's attorney, William E. Swatek, suddenly became interested in the money when I started this blog, telling the world about the sleazebags who run the Shelby County Courthouse.

* Notice of Levy--We received this document after threats to seize our cars didn't fill us with the desired amount of fear. The notice of levy specifically threatened seizure of our home and the lot it sits on. Trust me: You haven't lived until you come home to find a Notice of Levy taped to your garage door.

* Notice of Sheriff's Sale--This little baby, also taped to our garage door, informed us of the date and time that our house was scheduled to be sold, on the courthouse steps in Columbiana, Alabama.

The corrupt folks who run Shelby County gave us the impression that our entire house was going to be sold, and we were going to be thrown into the streets. Only after conducting our own research did we realize that they could not do that for several reasons: (1) My wife jointly owns our house, and she was not a party to the judgment, so they could not touch her portion of our house; (2) They could only touch my portion of our house in roughly the amount of the judgment; (3) The result of a sheriff's sale is a document called a sheriff's deed, which is similar to a lien and sits quietly on the property until the owner tries to sell it. At that point, the sheriff's deed must be dealt with.

That's what I meant when I said they didn't actually steal our entire house. But they did steal the full ownership rights to our house. And in the process, they violated our civil rights in multiple ways and probably committed several federal crimes. If the Obama Justice Department ever appoints real U.S. attorneys in places like Alabama, perhaps they will do something about it. I'm definitely going to try to do something about it in a civil matter.

For good measure, Mrs. Schnauzer and I were on hand last May 12 to videotape the bogus sheriff's auction of our house. Bill Swatek, our neighbor's dirtbag lawyer, was the "winning bidder"--and we now occasionally get mail for him at our house. Think I'm going to call and have him come over and mow "his" lawn.

Swatek, by the way, is about as sleazy a lawyer as they come--and that's saying something. He's been disciplined by the Alabama State Bar three times, including a suspension of his license, and he's been tried for perjury. But he still has a bar card and is able to pull off stunts like the one you see in this video, which is kind of a cross between High Noon and Smokey and the Bandit.

Just how sleazy is Bill Swatek? Here is an overview. Want to get a feel for his sleaziness in all of its glory? Check out our three-part video series:

* Bushies Protect Alabama Attorney With an Unsavory Past

* An Alabama Portrait of Sleaze in the Age of Rove, Part II

* An Alabama Portrait of Sleaze in the Age of Rove, Part III

What have we learned from our encounter with GOP financial terrorism? Many things. But a couple of things stand out:

(1) Republican bad guys tend to be stupid--I often hear Karl Rove referred to as a "genius." Nothing could be further from the truth. Rove and his minions are dumb criminals, who make very little effort to cover their tracks. I don't have the first day of law school, and I figured out how they operated a long time ago. Other Americans can do the same thing.

(2) Republican bad guys are unbelievably arrogant--I'm convinced these people believe no one will ever really fight back against them. I think they believe progressives, Democrats, liberals, and moderates are a bunch of wusses, who will let them get away with most anything. I can't speak for all progressives, but I know some individuals who aren't going to sit around forever and just take it.

I get the feeling that GOP bad guys have never asked themselves this question: "What if we pushed the wrong person too far? What if that person decided to push back in a rather painful way?"

Maybe it's time they started thinking about that.

Have You Hugged Your Kitty Kat Today?

Our kitty kats, the brother-and-sister combo Baxter and Chloe, are not hurting for affection. In fact, they probably get more "ooey gooeys" than they really want.

But Mrs. Schnauzer and I have decided we are going to give them a few extra hugs every day. It's the least we can do since they are helping to keep us healthy.

Scientists have known for awhile that there are health benefits to pet ownership, that people who interact regularly with animals are healthier than people who don't.

But now we learn that cats especially seem to have positive effects on health. One study found that cat owners are significantly less likely to die from a heart attack than people who don't own cats.

Interestingly, the study did not find such a protective effect for dog owners.

What is it about cats that cause them to promote good health? Neurologist Adnan Qureshi and others have several theories:

Some suggest that a cat's unique and soothing purring may be the key. Others say it's a matter of the owner's personality, not the cat itself: Cat owners contend that "people who own cats tend to have easy going and accepting personalities because cats don't go by anyone's vision, they do what they want," Qureshi said. Dog owners, on the other hand, tend to be more controlling, and thus prone to unhealthy anxiety, the theory goes.

Maybe it's just that cats don't get too riled up about anything (hat tip to LOL Cats and the "Pooties and Woozles" diaries at Daily Kos):



As you can tell from the title of our blog, we are dog lovers and always will be. In fact, our little corner of cyber space is inspired by Murphy (1993-2004), our wonderful miniature schnauzer who kept us more or less functional during the worst of our legal travails.

One of our big goals in life is to someday have another miniature schnauzer--and maybe a mixed breed. But we sure are thankful to have Baxter and Chloe around.

We like to think we have given them a good home, at a time when they needed one. We have long suspected, though, that they probably do more for us than we do for them. Now it looks like we were right about that.

Bush Did the Same Thing That Landed Don Siegelman in Prison

Recent Texas governors, including George W. Bush, took major donations from people and then appointed them to state boards and commissions.

That comes from an article in the Houston Chronicle, spotlighting a common political practice that landed former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in federal prison--under the Bush Department of Justice.

Neither Bush, nor other Texas governors, was investigated or prosecuted for their appointments.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry (a Republican) has received almost $5 million in donations from people he appointed to state boards and commissions. And the newspaper reports that other Texas governors, including one who goes by "Dubya," have followed the same practice.

Siegelman, you will recall, accepted a $500,000 donation for an education-lottery campaign from Birmingham businessman Richard Scrushy and then appointed Scrushy to a health-care oversight board--one he had served on under three previous governors.

That transaction led to their prosecution and conviction on federal corruption charges. Scrushy is serving a federal-prison sentence as we write this, and Siegelman might be headed back to prison after the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of his conviction.

So why isn't Rick Perry on his way to the federal pen? There are several reasons: (1) He's a Republican, and only Democrats have been targeted for such "crimes" in the era of Bush. (Why do you think they call them political prosecution?); (2) Such transactions, while they might appear unseemly, have never been considered crimes under federal law. They only became crimes when Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain," initiated a jihad against Democrats over the past eight years.

Want to talk about hypocrisy? Get this line from the Chronicle story:

Appointees represent a significant lever or power to any Texas governor, an office with comparably limited powers. Perry’s predecessors, Ann Richards and George W. Bush, also accepted donations from appointees.

In other words, Karl Rove's boss practiced exactly the same behavior that has turned Don Siegelman into a federal "criminal."

What a country.

As for Siegelman, he isn't just sitting around saying, "WTF." He is making every effort to help Americans understand the hypocritical and bogus nature of his (and other) political prosecutions.

Reports Sam Stein of Huffington Post:

A lobbying effort to persuade the Justice Department to intervene in the politically tainted case against Don Siegelman has intensified in recent days, as a deadline for appealing the charges against the former Alabama Governor nears.

After being released on appeal bond last spring, Siegelman was convicted in March by a Court of Appeals on charges of bribery, conspiracy and obstruction for appointing a prominent donor to a state post. Now he is pushing for a rehearing of his case--which critics say was orchestrated by state and national Republican officials--with the hope of replacing the three-judge panel with a larger eight-judge panel that comprises the entire 11th Circuit. He should hear a decision on his appeal any day.

"If we get a rehearing then we have a few months to pursue options with the Department of Justice," Siegelman told the Huffington Post in an interview. "If we don't, then I'm going to be re-sentenced to prison by the same judge and prosecutors which I say, parenthetically with an exclamation point, is probably the most bizarre twist yet. I'd be still fighting the same right-wing [Karl] Rove-anointed and Bush-appointed prosecutors even with [Barack] Obama and [Eric] Holder in charge."

Federal intervention appears to be unlikely, Stein reports:

The DOJ says there is virtually nothing it can do when it comes to Siegelman's appeal. "Because Mr. Siegelman has requested the full 11th Circuit Appeals Court to review the recent ruling by the three-judge panel, the Department will continue to litigate this matter in the courts, not in the media," said DOJ spokesperson Laura Sweeney. "The decision whether to hold an en banc hearing is the court's, not DOJ's."

Siegelman recently received support from Professor Bennett L. Gershman, author of the book, Prosecutorial Misconduct:

"I have never encountered another prosecution in which it appears so clearly that the prosecutors were zealously bent on pursuing an individual, rather than on a crime," reads the note, obtained by the Huffington Post. "As an example of bad faith prosecution, the Siegelman case may be without parallel.... There is no better example of the corrosive effect on the reputation of the Department of Justice... than the prosecution of Don Siegelman."

Meanwhile, TPM Muckraker recently reported that Rove is expected to testify before Congress in early June.

Here's a question someone might want to ask Rove right up front: As governor of Texas, George W. Bush routinely appointed his donors to boards and commissions. Why did that same behavior, when practiced by Alabama Democrat Don Siegelman, suddenly become criminal under Mr. Bush's Justice Department? Please explain.

A Bad Judge Is Handling Mega Lawsuit Against Richard Scrushy

Former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy, the codefendant in Don Siegelman's criminal case, has been brought to Birmingham from a Texas federal prison for a civil trial that is scheduled to begin today.

Alarmingly, the case will be overseen by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Allwin Horn. As we have shown from firsthand experience, Horn is one stinker of a judge.

The trial is the latest chapter in a case styled Tucker v. Scrushy, which started in 2002 when HealthSouth shareholder Wade Tucker filed a derivative claim on behalf of the company in state court.

This case is separate from an ongoing federal lawsuit, which has seen some $500 million of settlements and features Rob Riley (son of Alabama GOP Governor Bob Riley) as a front-and-center attorney.

Horn has overseen the state lawsuit since its inception, so it looks like the judge will have one last hurrah before he retires on June 1. The Birmingham News reports that it will be a bench trial, at the agreement of both sides, so the whole enchilada is in Horn's lap.

That's a scary thought based on what I've seen of Horn. I wouldn't trust him to run a corner lemonade stand.

Remember, Horn is the judge who was too lazy to look up the actual law in my legal malpractice case against Birmingham attorney Richard Poff. Horn said that if I didn't like the way he ruled, "you can appeal me," never mind the taxpayer dollars that would be wasted on an issue that didn't need to be appealed.

To top it off, Horn showed that he was too lazy to read documents that had been put under his nose, and he couldn't even manage to follow his own orders. Horn ordered Poff to present a certified copy of his bankruptcy case to prove that I had not been included as a creditor in that case. That, of course, was unnecessary because Poff had already admitted in documents submitted to Horn that I wasn't listed as a creditor in the bankruptcy case.

Then when Poff failed to appear for a hearing in Horn's office, and failed to produce the documents he had been ordered to produce, Horn let him get away with it and dismissed my case--even though, by law, it could not be dismissed.

The law in my legal-malpractice case could not have been more clear or more easy to follow. Horn insisted that I had to go to bankruptcy court and get permission to proceed with my legal-malpractice claim in state court. But Poff had not included me as a creditor in his bankruptcy case, so I had no standing to do anything in that court.

In fact, as we showed in a post about one year ago, Horn stood the actual law on its head. The controlling case law can be found at Watson v. Parker (264 B.R., 685, 2001). Under Watson, the burden was on Poff, not me, to reopen his case in bankruptcy court if he wanted to try to have my claim discharged. If Poff didn't do that, under the law, my case was to proceed in state court.

I don't know who is right and who is wrong in the Tucker vs. Scrushy lawsuit. It seems clear a major financial scandal took place at HealthSouth, and Scrushy may or may not have been in the middle of it. But I don't like the chances of justice being served with Allwin Horn at the controls.

And I also get alarmed when I see lawyers swarming like locusts around a case that is generating millions of dollars in legal fees. It makes me wonder if the case has become a money grab, with little concern for facts, law, justice and other such minor concerns.

The Tucker vs. Scrushy lawsuit will involve tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars. And yet Allwin Horn--who we have shown is lazy, ignorant, corrupt, or some combination of all three--will run the show from the bench.

Just how much money is at stake in Tucker v. Scrushy? Jimmy DeButts, of the Birmingham Business Journal, recently reported that two firms were splitting $26.2 million in legal fees from the case. I suspect many lawyers and judges will commit all kinds of legal atrocities in a mad scramble for that kind of cash.

Here is something to ponder: Horn is a corrupt Republican, and his successor will be appointed by our corrupt Republican governor, Bob Riley. Riley's son, Homewood attorney Rob Riley, plays a leading role in the HealthSouth litigation in federal court, representing plaintiffs against Scrushy and other individuals/entities.

(Rob Riley, by the way, has extensive connections to UAB, which just happened to unlawfully terminate yours truly not long after I had written a post about Riley's numerous conflicts of interest in the HealthSouth lawsuit. Much more on that coming up.)

Scrushy was Don Siegelman's codefendant in a criminal case, and Bob Riley was one of Siegelman's chief political adversaries.

And get this: Birmingham lawyer and former U.S. attorney Doug Jones was serving on Siegelman's defense team while also representing plaintiffs in the HealthSouth civil case in federal court. Guess who later would join Jones on the plaintiffs' side, against HealthSouth and Siegelman codefendant Scrushy? None other than Rob Riley.

Jones, who is known as a Democrat, supposedly had Siegelman's best interests at heart. But how could he fully represent Siegelman in a criminal case while going after Siegelman's codefendant in a civil case? And how could he have full loyalty to Siegelman and then side with Rob Riley, the son of Siegelman's chief adversary, in a civil case involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

Would Doug Jones (or Rob Riley, for that matter) recognize a conflict of interest if it fell out of the sky and landed in his lap? Much more is coming about "Me and Mr. Jones." On an Alabama listserv, "we've had a thing going on." And it reveals a lot about where Doug Jones' motivations and loyalties might lie.

But back to Allwin Horn and the Tucker v. Scrushy lawsuit in state court. Is the deck stacked against Scrushy? Sure looks like it.

What are the chances that Scrushy will get a fair hearing in a trial run by Allwin Horn? Not very good, I would say.

Alice Martin Loses Out on Coveted Judgeship

Governor Bob Riley has appointed state finance director Jim Main to an open seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. That means Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, lost out on a position she reportedly wanted in the worst way.

So where will Martin land once the Obama crowd gets around to ousting her from her Bush-appointed role? That should be an intriguing story.

Several theories are floating around.

One has her going after Attorney General Troy King so that she can step into that role when, and if, King is indicted.

Another has her asking the Obama team for a one-year extension so she can lead the prosecution of Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, a black Democrat.

Scott Horton, of Harper's magazine, calls Martin perhaps the most corrupt public official in the country and notes that she is not the only Bush "true believer" who wants to stay on under Obama.

We have posited the notion that Martin is going after King only as a threat to Riley, sending the message that "you had better appoint me to the judgeship I want or I will come after you, too."

Martin and Riley have been long-time allies, so Martin undoubtedly knows all kinds of dirt on the governor and his son, Homewood attorney and general wheeler-dealer Rob Riley Jr.

With Martin being investigated by multiple federal agencies, our guess is that Riley considered her too "hot" for the judicial appointment. More importantly, Riley probably figured that such a controversial choice would send unwanted scrutiny his way.

So is Alice Martin seriously miffed at the governor and his son? Our guess is yes. Would she actually open an investigation of the Rileys as her days dwindle down in the Department of Justice?

Now that's an interesting scenario. If Martin pledged to do that, and vowed to come clean on political prosecutions she has brought against Democrats, a fair number of Alabama progressives might push Obama to keep her on for awhile.

And I might be first in line.

In fact, we've already reported about one case where Alice Martin has access to copious loads of dirt about Riley Jr. A physical therapy company owned by Riley, Performance Group LLC, has been hit with allegations that it practices health-care fraud.

Martin refused to intervene in the case not long after it was filed last summer, leaving the complainant hung out to dry. Of course, Martin was all palsy-walsy with the Rileys then, and it seems clear she refused to intervene in an effort to protect Junior.

Partially as a result of Martin's willingness to look the other way, Junior Riley has been able to move forward with his lead role in federal litigation against former leaders of HealthSouth Corp. That case already has generated more than $500 million in settlements, with more to come.

Junior Riley and a horde of some 150 plaintiffs' lawyers figure to bring home serious bacon from their fees in the HealthSouth case. But that little plan could be short-circuited if someone were to look into allegations that Riley himself is engaged in health-care fraud.

Alice Martin knows all about the case against Rob Riley, his partners, and Performance Group LLC. So does a certain Legal Schnauzer.

Stay tuned.

Is Eric Holder Compromised on Torture and Justice Issues?

A central figure in the Don Siegelman case is calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate possible torture cases, following Attorney General Eric Holder's troubling appearance yesterday before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee.

Jill Simpson, an Alabama attorney and GOP whistleblower in the Siegelman case, said questioning by senators Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) indicates Holder is compromised on torture--and perhaps other justice issues.

"It clearly became apparent why we don't currently have a torture investigation going on in this country, even though everyone pretty much now admits we tortured folks and even killed at least 8 people while torturing them," Simpson said.

Shelby and Alexander asked Holder about the CIA's "rendition" program, which moved terrorism suspects from one country to another. The senators asked Holder how many renditions he authorized during the time he was a deputy to Clinton attorney general Janet Reno.

"Clearly from the line of questioning they are warning him if he goes down the torture path, they will show he was involved with renditioning during the Clinton Era when he worked at the DOJ," Simpson said. "It appears Eric Holder may have conflicts that cause him to consider his self interest, as opposed to the American people and their interest in seeing we follow the rule of law."

Larisa Alexandrovna, at her at-Largely blog, said the questioning from Shelby and Alexander amounted to thinly veiled blackmail:

Are Alexander/Shelby saying that if you investigate our (Republican's) current crimes, then we will investigate alleged crimes from nearly a decade ago when you (Democrats') had the presidency? Yes, that is exactly what they are saying.

Simpson says Shelby and Alexander exposed a weakness in Holder and the Obama regime. "The reality is this they have (Holder) over a barrel, and we need an independent prosecutor that will look at everyone involved in the torture mess."

Could Holder be compromised on other issues? Simpson, a former GOP insider who knows how the party operates, suggests the answer is yes.

Here in Alabama, the Siegelman case and other apparent political prosecutions under the Bush Justice Department are front and center. Evidence suggests that former White House strategist Karl Rove was in the middle of that activity. But the Obama White House has pushed for Rove to testify before Congress unsworn, in a non-public setting.

Rove, Simpson says, could have been behind the questioning from Shelby and Alexander. "The Republicans questions suggest they know Mr. Holder was involved with renditioning folks back to his Clinton days. They have clearly researched Mr Holder and probably have used Karl Rove's best opposition researchers on this matter. Therefore we need to get someone who has never participated in renditioning and torture to be the prosecutor.
"Based on the questions yesterday, it is apparent that Mr Holder is not the guy to do that kind of investigation--nor is he the guy who should decide who does the investigation, as Shelby and Alexander have suggested roads may lead even to him.

"Obama should appoint an independent prosecutor, as it is apparent the Republicans believe his attorney general was involved in renditions of a questionable nature."

If Karl Rove & Co. have Holder over a barrel on torture, will that also be the case on political prosecution and other issues? Is Obama's attorney general in a position of weakness?

The answers appear to be yes.

UAB's Anonymous Donor Should Rethink Gift

MEMO

To: UAB's anonymous $5-million donor

From: Legal Schnauzer

You are to be commended for your support of higher education, particularly here in Alabama. And your desire to help provide scholarships for women and minorities is to be applauded.

But as someone who worked at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for 19 years before being cheated out of my job for political reasons, I can tell you that UAB--in its current state--is not deserving of your support. That's why I would encourage you to rethink your gift to an institution that clearly does not support your ideals.

Let me be clear: UAB itself is most deserving of your support. The institution has many outstanding students, faculty, staff, and programs. But the current administration, under President Carol Garrison, is weak and corrupt. The university's human-resources function, which reports to Vice President Richard Margison, is a trainwreck.

Your gift, in its current form, will only go to further the goals of an administration that has proven to be wasteful, deceitful, discriminatory, and perhaps criminal.

Based on the terms of your donation, I gather that you are a progressive. But UAB's current leadership is anything but progressive. Consider my experience: I got fired because I write a blog, on my own time and with my own resources, that espouses progressive ideals. What controversial notion have I promoted on my blog? The need for honest government, particularly in our courts. That's the kind of idea that UAB's current administration apparently wants quieted. And my experience shows that UAB caves to pressure from Alabama's corrupt Republican Party. Do you really want to support that?

It appears you picked UAB because it has a female president. But you might want to take a second look at that. Just because a university has a female president doesn't mean it furthers the cause of women and minorities. Carol Garrison has proven to be little more than a toady for the "good old boys" who run the University of Alabama Board of Trustees.

Why does UAB have a female president? It's not because of any noble intentions. The university's first female president, W. Ann Reynolds, proved to be a disaster--firing and running off female administrators left and right. Upon her exit, it was clear that Reynolds would sue the UA board, so they went after Garrison as a replacement in order to reduce their exposure in court. So much for high mindedness.

Have Carol Garrison, Richard Margison & Co. done anything to further the cause of women and minorities? Just check public documents. The university has been sued for discrimination by several veteran faculty members, including Susan Key, Rosalia Scripa, and Horace Huntley--all women or minorities, and all lawsuits that could have easily been avoided.

Consider other examples of the wasteful and deceitful ways UAB currently conducts business:

* Multiple medical trainees from India, women and minorities, have alleged discriminatory practices at UAB's program in Huntsville. Court documents indicate some immigrant trainees were not properly paid, a case that currently is before a judge in Ohio and has attracted press attention in India.

* At least two employees have sent racist or homophobic messages from university computers, but UAB apparently has taken little or no disciplinary action.

* Court documents indicate that UAB administrators intentionally fudged the numbers on a salary study of female professors, trying to show the university's statistics in a misleading light.

The situation at UAB apparently is so bad that its former human-resources director, a woman, bailed out to take a lesser job at another university.

Even UAB's announcement about your gift was peculiar, maybe deceitful. Your anonymous donations first came to light back in February, and The New York Times wrote about them in April. But UAB is just now getting around to announcing its gift?

Garrison explains: "We had not announced it because we were trying to respect the wishes of the donor."

What? I've seen nothing in news reports that indicate you wanted the gifts themselves to be hushed up. You just wanted your identity to remain secret.

So what were UAB officials really thinking? Who is running this train in Birmingham that can't seem to stay on the tracks?

I assume you would like your money to be well managed. But what kind of record does UAB's recent administrations have in that regard? Consider this item from one of our recent posts:

A case involving two whistleblowers outlines massive research fraud at UAB. The case was "settled" with the university paying roughly $3 million, but court documents indicate the actual fraud was at least 100 times that amount.

Let that sink in for a moment. Court records indicate that UAB defrauded the federal government out of at least $300 million, and pretty much got away with it. Do you really want these folks managing your money?

It's certainly not my place to tell you what to do with your resources. But I hate to see people's good intentions go to waste.

Would you really like to help UAB and the people who study and work there? Here is a suggestion:

Add a few conditions to the terms of your gift. Make it contingent upon the following actions from UAB and the UA Board of Trustees:

* A thorough review will be conducted of the university's human-resources practices, focusing on events that have led to a number of recent discrimination lawsuits. Corrective action will be taken;

* A legitimate study, one with real numbers, will be conducted regarding salaries for female professors at UAB;

* An investigation will be conducted of the improper, and probably unlawful, influence certain conservative political groups have over the UA Board and UAB administration;

* An investigation will be conducted regarding the use of university equipment for sending hateful messages, with appropriate discipline handed down;

* UAB and the UA Board will turn over all relevant documents regarding research fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice and will make true restitution to federal health-care programs;

* If the above actions show that various UAB administrators and UA Board members should be dismissed--and they almost certainly will show that--a thorough housecleaning will commence. If an investigation shows that criminal acts have been committed, that information will be turned over to the proper authorities.

UAB has a proud history and a bright future. But the university is floundering under its current leadership. You could do UAB, Birmingham, and Alabama a great favor by leading an effort to expose wrongdoing and restore UAB's reputation as a place of forward thinking and high ideals.

Alabama Jury Awards Almost $6 million in Employment Case

Employment lawsuits tend to be David v. Goliath situations.

On one side, you usually have an individual employee, who claims to be the victim of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or some other unsavory action in the workplace. On the other side, you usually have a business or institution that probably has a distinct advantage over the individual in terms of resources. If the business or institution is large, the resources difference can be vast.

But sometimes, the little guy (or gal) wins and sends shockwaves through the employment world. We've seen several recent examples of that, and the latest comes close to home here in Alabama.

A federal jury in Montgomery returned a $5.79-million verdict against Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama and a mid-level manager for sexual harassment, negligence, and retaliation.

The jury awarded Tammy Edwards $795,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages against Hyundai. The jury also returned a $10,000 punitive verdict against manager Mike Swindle.

Court documents showed that Swindle harassed Edwards for five months, routinely directing lewd comments toward her. On at least one occasion, he pressed his body against hers and propositioned her.

Birmingham attorneys Alicia and Kenny Haynes represented Edwards. "The jury awarded double what we were asking for," Alicia Haynes said. "They were upset at the negligence."

When Edwards complained about the harassment to upper management, she was retaliated against, Haynes said. The company placed Edwards in a job she physically could not perform, then forced her to take medical leave. She eventually left the company.

We have seen other recent cases where workplace victims prevailed in court. Another Alabama jury awarded $500,000 in a discrimination case against a Birmingham aviation company. A jury in Boston awarded $1.6 million in a case where a female neurosurgeon was subjected to a hostile work environment.

Many of the issues in the Edwards case hit home here at Legal Schnauzer. My supervisor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Pam Powell, harassed me because of my age for the last five months I was there.

And I know all about retaliation. When I complained to Powell's superior (Dale Turnbough) about the age-based discrimination and harassment I was experiencing--and also filed a formal grievance in UAB Employee Relations--I was placed on administrative leave and then fired.

There are a number of differences between the Edwards case and my experience.

I worked at UAB for 19 years, the last 12 of those under the same supervisor, who I'd had a good relationship with until the final five months I was there. Edwards started at Hyundai in January 2006, and Swindle began harassing her almost immediately. Based on the length of time it takes lawsuits to work through to a jury trial, it appears Edwards worked at Hyundai for about a year.

While sexual harassment was at the heart of the Edwards case, violations of the First Amendment probably will be front and center in my case against UAB. Evidence strongly indicates I was fired because I dared to write a blog that is critical of the Bush Justice Department--even though UAB's own grievance hearing showed I wrote the blog on my own time, with my own resources.

Perhaps the biggest difference in the two cases is that I was fired, and Edwards was not. For good measure, I was fired in direct violation of UAB's own policies.

Does that mean my case against UAB is worth almost $6 million or more? Nope. Does it mean I will win my case and receive any award at all? Nope.

I think it's safe to say that no two employment lawsuits, no two juries, and no two judges are the same. Experience tells me the biggest hurdle I face will be the judge. I've been told by more than one attorney that some federal judges simply do not give plaintiffs a fair shake in employment cases.

In fact, that's just one of several hurdles employment plaintiffs have to get over. We will take a look at those hurdles in a bit.

Legal Schnauzer Is In the Spotlight at OpEd News

As a journalist with 30-plus years of professional experience, I am used to asking questions.

Having questions put to me is a little different experience. But it's one I enjoyed as part of a recent article by OpEd News' Joan Brunwasser, spotlighting Legal Schnauzer.

I have cross posted much of my work at OpEd News, and it is a pleasure to be part of a grassroots news organization with broad national reach. And I know firsthand that OEN has a highly educated audience. I can tell from checking my blog statistics that many readers who find Legal Schnauzer through OEN come from colleges and universities.

Part I of Brunwasser's interview focuses on the events that led me to start a blog about justice-related issues. And it shows how my difficulties with a troublesome neighbor connected me to a larger justice story that led to the doorstep of the Bush White House:

RS: The neighbor hired a lawyer with strong family ties to Alabama's Republican Party. And the judge in the civil case was a Republican. So the case was not dismissed, and it wound up costing us more than $40,000.

I came to see that my experience had connections to a much bigger story.

I started the blog in June 2007, just a few months after the U.S. attorney firings became a national story. The [former Democratic Governor] Don Siegelman case in Alabama became the best known example of an apparent political prosecution. And my little experience, believe or not, had connections to the Siegelman case.

JB: In what way?

RS: My neighbor's lawyer was a man named William E. Swatek. Swatek's son, Dax Swatek, is a GOP "consultant" in Alabama, and one of his primary mentors has been a man named Bill Canary. According to the sworn testimony of Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson, Bill Canary was at the heart of a conspiracy to initiate a bogus prosecution to "take care of" Don Siegelman. And Canary, according to Simpson, worked this out with a longtime associate, Bush White House strategist Karl Rove.

We also discussed the possible pitfalls that can await any crime victim in state courts. That's because of a "disfavored tort" called malicious prosecution, which allows a defendant who is found not guilty to turn around and sue his victim:

JB: Did you go into the criminal complaint against the neighbor assuming it would be a piece of cake?

RS: No. No one wants to file a criminal complaint, particularly against someone who lives nearby. But we had exhausted all other remedies. We had multiple eye witnesses to his trespassing, so we had not only probable cause but "actual cause," so a malicious prosecution lawsuit should not have been a concern.

But that's in theory. The reality is that our justice system is populated with a fair number of corrupt lawyers and judges, and we encountered those. Bill Swatek has a bar card, and he filed a malicious prosecution claim even though he was in court and heard his client confess to the crime. Because of his son's ties to the Alabama Republican Party, Swatek gets all kinds of favorable treatment from GOP judges in Shelby County, where we live. I've always been respectful of authority figures. Like many Americans, I assumed that people who wear robes and are called "your honor" are, in fact, honorable people. It's sobering when you realize that is not the case.

Perhaps my biggest surprise was how blatant the corruption was. In my case, neither the corrupt judges nor lawyers did anything to hide what they were doing. Our courts are so packed with cases that the bad guys apparently have little fear of being caught. I strongly encourage anyone involved in a legal case to educate themselves at a nearby law library. Don't rely on what a lawyer (yours or the other person's) says. And certainly don't assume that the judge is ruling correctly.

I decided to fight back by starting a blog to expose the wrongdoing. But as Brunwasser shows, being a whistleblower comes with risk. The content of my blog made me a target in my job as an editor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where I had worked for 19 years:

RS: In the fall of 2007, Harper's Scott Horton referenced my reporting on the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, which has many similarities to the Siegelman case. Also that fall, my reporting was referenced in documents submitted at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's hearing on selective prosecution.

Apparently, that made me a target at work. Strange events started happening on the job in December 2007 and got so bad that I filed a formal grievance against my supervisor. Roughly three weeks after filing that grievance, I was fired.

I have tape recorded evidence that indicates I was targeted because of my blog and its content about the Siegelman case.

It has been almost a year since my unlawful termination. I have filed a complaint with the EEOC regarding age discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination.

Part II of the interview focuses on my reporting about the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor cases and my thoughts about how the Obama administration can restore a badly broken justice system:

JB: Tell us about your involvement in the Siegelman case, Roger. Are you at all hopeful about the Obama administration taking up the case and doing right by Siegelman?

RS: My interest in the Siegelman case was a matter of location, timing, and connections.

I live in Siegelman's home state and was following the case closely for several years before I ever started a blog. The political angle of the Siegelman prosecution was becoming a national story just as I started Legal Schnauzer.

A lot of my work on the Siegelman case, so far, has been interpretive. The national leader on the story has been Scott Horton, of Harper's, an Alabama native. Without him, I doubt that the story ever would have gained legs. Glynn Wilson, at Locust Fork News, has done critical original reporting, particularly on the role of whistleblower Jill Simpson. And Larisa Alexandrovna, at Raw Story, has done splendid investigative work, providing critical detail and context to the overall story.

My role has been to take their work and bring it home to a local level. I've shown how the Siegelman case connects to my case in Alabama state courts and what it means when a state has fundamentally corrupt state courts. I've tried to show how national justice issues can filter down to affect regular folks.

JB: What do you think of the new administration?

RS: I've been disappointed so far. Obama's statement about "looking forward, not backward" is poorly thought out and could come back to haunt his presidency. Turning a blind eye to corruption is not the kind of "change" many people voted for.

It's not Obama's place to sweep Bush wrongdoing under the carpet.

I think Obama certainly can clean up the Justice Department, to a great degree. But we also must determine exactly what happened under Bush and hold people accountable for wrongdoing.

It's critical that people understand: We have political prisoners in the United States in 2009. I know of at least three--Paul Minor [one of the biggest donors to Mississippi Democrats] and his two codefendants. And Don Siegelman might be headed back to prison. This is the kind of stuff that happened in Stalin's Soviet Union.

If Obama tries to move forward while obstructing the truth of the past eight years, I think it will cost him large chunks of his progressive base, the people who put him in office.

Were Siegelman and Minor Prosecutions True "Inside Jobs"?

Don Siegelman, Paul Minor, and their codefendants hardly stand alone as targets of a rampaging Bush Justice Department. But why have those two Deep South prosecutions stood out as examples of "justice" run amok?

Perhaps it's because the judges who presided over the cases clearly were in on the fixes.

After studying the behavior of U.S. District judges Mark Fuller (Siegelman case) and Henry Wingate (Minor case), we've known for some time that they were part of the "inside jobs" that resulted in bogus convictions.

But it appears that view is becoming more well understood around the nation.

The National Law Journal (NLJ) reports that more than a dozen federal district judges have taken the extraordinary step of contacting the Justice Department since January to express concern about serious misconduct by federal prosecutors.

Scott Horton, legal-affairs contributor at Harper's magazine and a law professor at Columbia University, notes:

These cases come out of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan and Georgia. Strangely, no judges in Alabama or Mississippi have raised questions, even though senior figures in the Justice Department are now persuaded this is the seat of the most serious and most deeply entrenched abuse. Seems like the Alabama and Mississippi federal judges get along just fine with a little prosecutorial misconduct, no?

That's right, and it's because they are part of the misconduct.

In an article titled "Holder Promises Speedy and Transparent Reviews of Attorney Misconduct," NLJ's Andrew Longstreth reports that Attorney General Eric Holder appears to be taking the concerns of federal judges seriously.

The Longstreth piece currently is available online only to premium subscribers. But here is the full piece, which could have implications for the Siegelman and Minor cases:

When Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., took office earlier this year, rebuilding morale at the Justice Department was one of his top priorities. But The National Law Journal's Joe Palazzolo reports that after the botched case against former Alaska senator Ted Stevens--in which the judge found that prosecutors had withheld evidence--he's also having to reassure federal judges of Justice's commitment to reviewing complaints against his own attorneys. We'll have to see what that does to morale.

According to Palazzolo, Holder met with the nation's chief federal district judges on April 21 in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, which was closed to the public, Holder promised improvements to the Office of Professional Responsibility and asked the judges to contact him personally about questionable prosecutor conduct. Palozzolo reports that Holder even gave his cell phone number to the judges. How's that for service?

Chief Judge Mark Wolf of the District of Massachusetts took Holder up on the offer, reports Palazzolo. In a letter to Holder last week, Judge Wolf encouraged Holder to look into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct stemming from a high-profile mafia case and the prosecution of an FBI agent.

Assessing allegations of prosecutorial misconduct will be the job of Mary Patrice Brown, whom Holder appointed to the Office of Professional Responsibility after Washington federal district court judge Emmett Sullivan dismissed the government's case against Stevens. At the meeting Holder praised Brown. "She sounds like she's really a ball of fire," one judge at the meeting told Palazzolo.

Minor Convictions Appear to Be on Shaky Ground

The convictions in the Paul Minor case in Mississippi might have been missing a fundamental element in the primary alleged crime.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, currently reviewing the Minor case, has asked the federal government for materials that show it had grounds for getting involved in the case.

According to a report by Larisa Alexandrovna at Raw Story, the government based its case on the notion that state judges are "agents" of the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts, which receives federal funds. But the appellate court now seems to be questioning whether the government had jurisdiction to bring the primary charge in the case--federal funds bribery under 18 U.S. Code 666.

The federal funds bribery statute applies only when:

. . . the organization, government, or agency receives, in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.

Dunn Lampton, the Bush-appointed prosecutor who brought the case, argued that state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield were agents of the Administrative Office of Courts, which receives federal funds. But Alexandrovna reports:

The reality, however, is that judges are not in charge of buying staplers and office furniture, or training clerks in using a computer system. These functions are all administrative and do not involve the judges themselves, who in the state of Mississippi are elected to the bench. The use of the 666 statute has therefore raised many eyebrows, including those of the three-judge panel of the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Federal funds bribery also was at the heart of the Don Siegelman case in Alabama. But as governor of a state that receives federal funds, Siegelman clearly fell under the statute--even though evidence strongly indicates neither he nor codefendant Richard Scrushy violated the law.

In the Minor case, because it involved state judges who did not administer federal funds, the government might never have had jurisdiction to bring a 666 case. And yet, three men remain in federal prison as we write this because of a prosecution that now appears to be largely ungrounded in law.

The Minor convictions also included counts of honest-services fraud and conspiracy. But those long have looked shaky at best.

A fundamental element of honest-services fraud is that the public must actually be deprived of honest services. But the underlying lawsuits in the Minor case were correctly decided based on the facts and the law, so honest-services fraud could not be present.

And conspiracy is essentially a "piggyback" charge that must ride on the tails of some other count. Without a bribery or honest-services fraud conviction, the conspiracy conviction cannot stand.

Scott Horton, legal-affairs contributor for Harper's magazine and a professor at Columbia University Law School, tells Alexandrovna the Fifth Circuit's questions do not appear to bode well for the government:

“It's always problematic speculating about what thoughts are behind a question. But in this case, the questions are certainly bad news for the prosecution. They suggest that the panel is having problems understanding how the conduct alleged by the prosecutors is actually a crime. . . . The questions also suggest that there is some sensitivity on this panel to the issue of selective prosecution--they are a head-on attack on the good faith of the prosecution itself. That's very rare in an appellate case like this, but in this case, the prosecutors ran into a buzzsaw during oral argument, so perhaps it's not so surprising."

The Siegelman and Minor cases long have been seen as "companion pieces," two Deep South prosecutions that spotlight corruption in the Bush Justice Department. But they now seem to be on very different appellate tracks.

While the Fifth Circuit (based in New Orleans) seems to be raising serious questions about the Minor case, the 11th Circuit (based in Atlanta) already has upheld most of the convictions in the Siegelman case. During oral argument, as Horton notes, the Minor prosecutors ran into a "buzzsaw." But the appellate panel in Atlanta asked almost no substantive questions of prosecutors in the Siegelman case.

Siegelman has filed a petition seeking an en banc review of the entire 11th Circuit. But one must wonder why an appellate court seems to be on the right track in the Minor case, while another appellate court is upholding unlawful trial-court findings in the Siegelman case.

We have been studying the 11th Circuit's finding in the Siegelman case, and we soon will be showing in detail how the three-judge panel butchered the appeal.

Will Obama Build a Justice Department on Rock or Sand?

The 100th day of Barack Obama's presidency passed the other day, and much has been written on the subject, most of it laudatory.

A passage that resonates here at Legal Schnauzer came from Joe Klein's article, "The Rock Builder," at Time magazine. Klein praised Obama for his determination to get America's financial house in order by building on a firm foundation.

That raised this question: Will Obama use the same concept to get America's justice house in order?

Klein noted Obama's effective use of a parable from the New Testament to explain his approach to lifting America out of a financial crisis. The parable, from Luke 6:48, sends an important message at the outset of the Obama presidency. The president drew on the parable in an April 14 speech at Georgetown University, and Klein writes:

In prose that was spare and clear and compelling, the President proceeded to describe how his Administration had responded to the financial crisis, the overriding challenge of his first 100 days in office. He had covered this ground before, nearly as well, in his budget message to Congress. But now Obama went further, using a parable from the Sermon on the Mount — the need for a house built on rock rather than on sand — to describe a future that was nothing less than an overhaul of the nature of American capitalism. "It is simply not sustainable," he said, "to have an economy where, in one year, 40% of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets."

Obama is correct to say that America must move its financial house off shaky ground and rebuild on solid principles. But has the president taken a look at our justice system in the first 100 days?

Justice in America, during the eight years of George W. Bush's rule, featured unscrupulous prosecutors, crooked federal judges, corrupt state courts, inept oversight agencies, and a betrayed citizenry. Some of those citizens (see Siegelman, Don and Minor, Paul, among others) actually were imprisoned for political reasons, as if they lived in Josef Stalin's Russia. Others were cheated out of their jobs and faced other forms of economic terrorism (see Schnauzer, Legal).

Obama clearly has stated that America's financial house was built on sand. But if he takes a close look, he will find that America's justice house was built on sewage--heaping mounds of nasty, disgusting, stomach churning, foul smelling sewage.

What is Obama's plan for fixing the problem. He hasn't made that clear, but it seems to be to "look forward, not backward." That apparently means that Obama will attempt to rebuild our justice house on the same shaky, stinking foundation where it already is rotting.

Obama has hired Eric Holder as the architect for our new justice house. And together, they apparently plan to throw a few layers of dirt over the sewage and put the house on top of that.

What is likely to happen? In a few years--five, 15, 25--sewage will start seeping up through the flooring, and America again will have a nasty mess on its hands.

It's encouraging to hear Obama borrowing from high-minded sources as he tries to explain the path out of America's current predicament. The Sermon on the Mount contains some of the most profound words ever written, and that's a good place to start. But perhaps Obama needs to reread Luke 6:48 and ponder how it might apply to a strong and renewed American justice system.

How do you build a justice house on rock and not sand (or sewage)? You start by conducting a thorough investigation of wrongdoing in the Bush Justice Department. You pursue vigorous prosecutions against any officials who appear to have committed crimes in the pursuit of "justice." You lay out for the American people exactly how their justice system has been compromised. You show how the corruption goes beyond the federal level to the state and local level. And you present a plan for effective oversight--of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, the works--so that the mass of sewage will not gradually build again.

Obama also might want to read a splendid new piece by Robert Parry at Consortium News. Our dysfunctional government, in recent years, has featured what Parry calls the Democrats' "Battered Wife Syndrome":

In recent years, the Washington political dynamic has often resembled an abusive marriage, in which the bullying husband (the Republicans) slaps the wife and kids around, and the battered wife (the Democrats) makes excuses and hides the ugly bruises from outsiders to keep the family together.

It's time Democrats quit letting themselves, and America's ideals, be bullied. Bill Clinton is the most recent Democratic president who tried to paper over Republican wrongdoing by throwing a few layers of dirt on it. It didn't work for Clinton, and it won't work for Obama.

So what will it be, Mr. President? Rock or sand?

Do Americans deserve a justice system that is build on a firm foundation?

Is Bob Riley Caught Red-Handed in a Federal Crime?

An article in yesterday's Montgomery Advertiser reveals that Alabama Governor Bob Riley apparently has committed a federal crime--not once, but twice.

The article, by reporter Sebastian Kitchen, was meant to provide details about the two political parties' financial condition heading into Alabama's 2010 election.

But Kitchen, perhaps inadvertently, reveals that Riley appears to have violated federal bribery and honest-services fraud statutes. Riley certainly committed crimes if the Don Siegelman case is to be believed as the law of the land.

Siegelman, Alabama's former Democratic governor, and codefendant Richard Scrushy, the former CEO of HealthSouth, were convicted on federal corruption charges in 2006. At the heart of the case was a transaction where Siegelman accepted $500,000 from Scrushy for an education-lottery campaign and then appointed Scrushy to a position on a state health-care board, where he had served under three previous governors.

Now, let's take a look at what Kitchen reveals in his reporting about the Alabama's GOP's swelling coffers.

First, Kitchen states that Riley is chairman of the Alabama GOP's Campaign 2010 fund-raising effort.

Then, comes this nugget about Raymond J. Harbert, CEO of Harbert Management Corporation in Birmingham:

Some of those donors to the Republican Party include Raymond Harbert of Birmingham, who Riley appointed to the Auburn University board of trustees as an at-large member in March 2009. He donated $10,000 in 2008.

Let's review that information briefly. Harbert made a donation to a fund-raising campaign, chaired by Riley, and then was appointed by Riley to the Auburn University board of trustees.

But that isn't the only curious transaction in Kitchen's story. We also have this regarding Birmingham physician Swaid Swaid:

Dr. Swaid N. Swaid, who Riley appointed to the Certificate of Need Review Board, donated $5,000 in 2008.

Again, let's review. Swaid gave to a campaign chaired by Riley and then was appointed by Riley to a spot on the Alabama Certificate of Need (CON) Review Board.

Both of these transactions sound an awful lot like the alleged crimes in the Siegelman/Scrushy transaction, do they not? And Swaid even was appointed to the same board to which Scrushy was appointed.

A devil's advocate might point out that there was no proof of a quid pro quo in Riley's transactions with Harbert and Swaid. But a student of the Siegelman/Scrushy trial knows that a quid pro quo was not shown in that case either, and U.S. Judge Mark Fuller's jury instruction did not require one.

A devil's advocate might also point out that the amounts of Harbert's and Swaid's donations were not nearly as large as the one from Scrushy. But if memory serves us correctly, the amount of the donation was not an overriding factor in determining whether a crime took place in the Siegelman/Scrushy case.

Finally, the donations apparently went to the Republican Party, not to Riley personally. But that also was the case in the Siegelman/Scrushy matter.

Scrushy currently is in federal prison, and Siegelman might be heading back, because Siegelman received a donation from Scrushy and then appointed the CEO to a state board.

That is exactly what appears to have taken place with Bob Riley's donations from Raymond Harbert and Swaid Swaid.

Why is Congress Treating Karl Rove and Roger Clemens Differently?

I can't even read Sports Illustrated these days without being reminded about our screwed-up justice system.

Consider the April 27 issue of SI, which includes "Fall From Grace," a story about the looming legal woes of baseball great Roger Clemens. I've never been a Clemens fan. While the big Texan is unquestionably one of baseball's all-time great pitchers, he has long come across as an arrogant jackass who cheated the game by using performance-enhancing drugs.

But SI now reveals that Congress treated Clemens in a much tougher way than it apparently plans to treat former Bush White House strategist Karl Rove. Suddenly, Clemens seems like a sympathetic character.

We've known for weeks that Congress plans to let Rove testify unsworn, in a private setting, about apparent politicization of the Justice Department under Bush.

SI makes it clear that Clemens was offered no such accommodations when he testified before Congress in February 2008 about baseball's steroid problems.

Consider this passage from "Fall From Grace":

Flanked by his lawyers, Rusty Hardin and Lanny Breuer, Clemens entered room 2157 of the Rayburn Building, took the oath and promptly declared, "I have not used steroids or growth hormone." He repeated this denial, in various formulations, six times in the first 30 minutes of the exceedingly awkward meeting.

These were probably the most important sentences Clemens had ever uttered. The sworn statements were direct and unequivocal, and they were recorded verbatim. From that moment forward, if it were ever proved that Clemens had used steroids or HGH, he could be prosecuted for lying to Congress. For much of the deposition he sat silently while his lawyers spoke to the investigators, clarifying the pitcher's answers and bashing the methodology of the Mitchell Report. Clemens had eagerly looked forward to testifying. It was his chance to demonstrate resolve and, it seemed, to blow off steam.

We learn that the statements were sworn. And that's why Clemens is in such hot water now--because "he could be prosecuted for lying to Congress."

Congressional aides have tried to convince us that any testimony before Congress is de facto sworn testimony, meaning that Rove could face charges of lying to Congress. But that doesn't seem to square with SI's reporting on the Clemens case.

It also adds credence to Alabama lawyer (and Siegelman-case whistleblower) Jill Simpson and her contentions that Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig is trying to protect Rove.

After all, Rove is one of several former Bush officials who have been represented by Williams & Connolly, Craig's former law firm.

Clemens was represented by a couple of big hitters--Rusty Hardin, of Houston, and Lanny Breuer, of the D.C. firm Covington & Burling. President Obama has named Breuer to head the criminal division of the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder.

Breuer clearly has clout, but he's not a Williams & Connolly guy. Maybe that's where Clemens went wrong.