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."