A Response to Eddie Curran

If you check my post titled "Alabama's Incestuous Press" on July 22, you will notice a comment from someone claiming to be Eddie Curran, a reporter for the Mobile Press-Register.

Curran is the reporter whose investigative work broke the Don Siegelman story. In a press release last week, Louis Franklin (acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama) said it was Curran's reporting, not any push from the White House, that instigated the investigation and prosecution of Siegelman.

As you can tell from reading his comment, Curran does not seem to be pleased with my July 22 post. He takes a shot or two at the Legal Schnauzer blog and asks me to provide evidence that I ever e-mailed him, and did not receive a response, about the judicial wrongdoing I have witnessed in Alabama.

Under the assumption that the person who left the comment actually is Eddie Curran, I will respond to his remarks:

I e-mailed Mr. Curran on January, 23, 2007, and here are the contents of that e-mail:


___________________


Eddie:
I e-mailed you a few months back about a possible article on judicial wrongdoing in Alabama. You evidently were not able to pursue the story at that time, but I wanted to update you on my story idea, particularly in light of the recent national coverage (Adam Cohen in The New York Times) about the Jack Cline case in Alabama.

The Cline story is a sad case of a man becoming ill, apparently due to exposure to toxins in the workplace, but being unable to successfully sue because of poorly reasoned statutory and case law. Mr. Cline died earlier this week, prompting national coverage on his case.

As sad as the Cline story is, it evidently does not involve wrongdoing by judges. They seem to have simply applied the law as it is written--even though the law makes no sense.

My case is a matter of multiple trial-court judges repeatedly making unlawful rulings, and Alabama appellate courts allowing it to stand (misusing the state's "no opinion affirmance" rule). So far, I've been pretty much a lone voice crying in the wilderness on this issue. But I've become aware of a prominent attorney in Montgomery who is willing to speak out about it. He says numerous attorneys have told him of having unlawful trial rulings upheld with no-opinion affirmances by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals (exactly what happened to me.) The attorney I know says most lawyers are unwilling to speak out for fear of judicial retribution. But the lawyer I know says he is willing to speak out. And he seems to think the problem is widespread.

If you are interested, I would be glad to provide his contact information. Of course, I also would be glad to provide information about my case, which could be Exhibit A of how Alabama courts abuse the constitutional rights of average citizens.

Best,

Roger Shuler


_______________________


I never received a response to this e-mail. As you can tell from the first sentence, I had e-mailed him a few months prior to this and received no response. I'm looking for that e-mail, but I have changed e-mail accounts since then, and I may not be able to find it. (Note: This copy above is from a draft of the January 23 e-mail I wrote to Mr. Curran. I also have the sent version, which appears to be identical, but in the e-mail account I used at the time I'm not sure how to cut and paste copy out of a sent e-mail. If anyone knows how to do that, I'm all ears.)


I believe the e-mail I can't find was sent between January and May 2006. Mr. Curran might be able to find it in his records. I will continue looking for any other e-mails related to Mr. Curran.

For the record, I've also e-mailed Register reporters Ben Rains and Brendan Kirby. Never heard from Mr. Rains. Did hear from Mr. Kirby, and we had 2-3 e-mail exchanges. He seemed to have some interest, but never did anything, to my knowledge.

As for Mr. Curran, I assume he would agree that it's rather unimportant who sent what e-mail when at this point. The more important issue is that there is a major story out there showing that one third of Alabama's government (the judicial branch) is corrupt from the district and circuit levels up to the Supreme Court. It involves federal crimes (mail fraud), and U.S. law enforcement agencies have been notified of it repeatedly and done nothing about it to my knowledge. This is precisely the kind of "selective prosecution" that Democrats say they will investigate in the U.S. House. On a state level, this all started when an attorney named Bill Swatek (who has a long history of ethical problems with the Alabama State Bar) filed a bogus lawsuit against me. Under Alabama law, the lawsuit had to be dismissed (summary judgment) in a matter of 6-8 months, and Mr. Swatek should have been held accountable for filing a lawsuit with no basis in law or fact. Instead the lawsuit dragged on for about five years, costing me and Alabama taxpayers thousands of dollars--and Mr. Swatek got away without a scratch.

It might help that Mr. Swatek's son, Dax Swatek, is a fund-raiser/consultant for a number of GOP politicians, including Gov. Bob Riley. That seems to protect Bill Swatek from having to answer for his abuse of the justice system. So you see this appears to have ties to the executive branch, too.

If you are, in fact, Eddie Curran, and if you are interested in pursuing another important story, please contact me here at Legal Schnauzer. I would be glad to show you what I'm talking about. The law involved is so simple, and the wrongdoing is so blatant, that it is not hard to explain.