Events leading to my wife's broken arm suggest rule of law is almost as extinct in Missouri as it is in Alabama

Missouri Sheriff Jim Arnott

That a Missouri deputy would assault and shatter the left arm of a 55-year-old woman--my wife, Carol--might seem outrageous enough. But a review of court documents shows that events leading to Carol's broken arm were almost as disturbing as the brutal nature of the attack itself.

What might be called Missouri's "justice apparatus"--lawyers from multiple firms, a judge, a sheriff, even a landlord--acted so far outside the rule of law that it almost makes Alabama's dysfunctional court system seem quaint by comparison.

Do concepts found in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--due process, equal protection, etc.--mean anything, anywhere, in this country. I'm starting to think the answer is no.

Carol's arm was broken--so badly that it required trauma surgery and probably will return only to 75 percent usage, at best (see X-ray below)--in the course of an attempted eviction. But court documents show that Missouri tenant-landlord law was butchered in the process, bringing to mind the kind of "justice" portrayed in the Smokey and the Bandit movies.

How sour was our first taste of Missouri "justice"? Two documents that I prepared--neither of which drew written opposition from an opposing party--spell it out. First, we'll look at a Motion to Quash Execution, which was filed in Greene County Circuit Court at 11:54 a.m. on September 8, 2015, the day before the eviction was scheduled. (The full motion can be read at the end of this post.) What are the document's key points?

The court had no jurisdiction over the defendants, Carol and me

If you rent property in Missouri and ever have a dispute with a landlord, you quickly will realize the playing field is grossly unlevel in the other guy's favor. Missouri has a special system for tenant-landlord cases where certain niceties that apply to most cases--the need for personal service of defendants, 30 days to respond with an answer, having a counterclaim heard at the same time as the plaintiff's complaint, etc.--are largely ignored. If a tenant association got together and challenged the Missouri system in federal court, the whole shebang almost certainly would be found grossly unconstitutional. (That could be the subject for a post all of its own.)

How did this loosey-goosey system play out in our case. We never were personally served with the complaint, but in tenant-landlord cases, Missouri allows a "posting-mailing" form of service. (See RSMo. 535.030(2).) This lets a landlord "serve" a tenant by posting the complaint on the door, and he can get away with just that . . . almost. But the pesky "mailing" component of the service process remains. This hurdle is so low that a 300-pound snail should be able to clear it. But the Missouri court--and the lawyers involved--were so inept that they could not clear it. The docket (which you can find by going to case.net and searching for "Trent Cowherd v. Roger Shuler") shows that the complaint never was sent via U.S. mail, as required by the second portion of the "posting-mailing" scheme.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's broken arm

This means lawful service never was completed, and Missouri courts (in theory) take that seriously. The law holds: "Proper service of process must be accomplished before a court can obtain jurisdiction over the person or property of defendant." Reisinger v. Reisinger 39 S.W. 3d 80 (Mo. App. E.D., 2001). 

But the law does not stop there. Missouri courts also have held: "[A] personal judgment rendered by a court without personal jurisdiction over a defendant is void and may be attacked collaterally." Crouch v. Crouch, 641 S.W. 2d 86 (Mo., 1982).

Bottom line? The Greene County Court had no jurisdiction over us, and Judge Kelly Halford Rose's order to allow the eviction was void.

A deputy broke Carol's arm because of an order that was void--and every judge, lawyer, and sheriff involved should have known that. My motion spelled it out well in advance of the eviction.

How, for example, did Gregory Lulich, attorney (from the Lowther Johnson law firm) for landlord Trent Cowherd, not know this? It isn't complicated. Public records show that Craig Lowther, the firm's named partner, is quite the landlord himself, but he doesn't have a clue about tenant-landlord law? Does Lowther abuse his own tenants while encouraging Trent Cowherd to do the same?


The Notice of Eviction did not appear to be signed by a judge

An eviction can only be carried out under the authority of a court; it's not something a tenant and a sheriff can effectuate on their own--I believe this is the case in all 50 states. Even Missouri seems to recognize that an eviction is a serious matter--one that is ripe for abuse--and must be authorized by a judge. (See RSMo. 534.350.)

The eviction notice that was attached to our door did not appear to be signed by a judge--either by Kelly Halford Rose or anyone else. I scoured it from one corner to another and could not find anything that looked like a judge's signature. Could I have missed it? That's possible, but at this point, I believe the eviction notice was not signed by a judge, as required by law.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott was on hand for our eviction--Why? I have no idea--and as I tried to explain to him that we had filed a Notice of Appeal that put an automatic stay on execution of the eviction, he shrugged his shoulders and uttered the sheriff's usual phrase, "Well, I've got a court order."

"Is it signed by a judge?" I asked. "The notice that was attached to our door did not appear to be signed by a judge." (Our copy of the notice, like much of our important paperwork, was lost in the chaos of the eviction process. It should be in the official court file.)

"Well, it's in my car," Arnott said.

"Can I see it?"

"I'll show it to you before I leave."

Did I ever get to see it? Nope--Arnott's deputies were too busy brutalizing my wife.


The judge was disqualified because she received an improper ex parte communication

On August 24, one day before the docket hearing in our case, my attorney-brother, David Shuler, sent a letter to the trial judge, Kelly Halford Rose. It was one of the most vile and nasty pieces of correspondence I've seen written about anyone--much less about my wife and me, by my own brother. In so many words, David trashed Carol and me and said he was going to do everything in his power to ensure that landlord Trent Cowherd prevailed in the case, and we lost--no matter what the facts and the law showed.

Trent Cowherd
(From Facebook)

Again, we lost our copy of the letter during the eviction, but it is part of the official docket. (Interestingly, my brother has a duty to serve me as a party in the case, but he has never done it. I've asked him via e-mail three times to serve me with a copy, and he hasn't done it yet.) The letter proves that an attorney who supposedly was in the case to represent our mother actually was striving to help another party, the landlord. In essence, the record suggests, my brother was pulling a con on the court. If that letter was not prejudicial to the point that it required the judge's recusal, I'm not sure what would be. (I plan to have more on this letter in an upcoming post.)

(When we were growing up together in the same household, I always thought of David as an intelligent, honorable guy--and he could be funny as heck when the time was right. I was proud to have him as my little brother. Apparently all of those positive characteristics, go out the window when one goes to law school. I know my warm feelings toward him have been long gone for a while now.)

I moved for Rose to recuse herself, and in denying my motion, acted as if she had been accused of being a member of ISIS.

As for me, I would have preferred having a member of ISIS as a judge--I would take that over Kelly Halford Rose any day. She actually makes some of the Alabama judges I've encountered look honorable and regal by comparison.


The eviction was unlawfully scheduled during a 10-day window when no such action can be lawfully taken

This probably is the most important legal point of all. And it might be best explained by quoting directly from the Motion to Quash:

The Notice of Eviction in the instant case indicates eviction is scheduled for 9 a.m. on September 9. That is inside the 10-day period that defendant has to file a notice of appeal that would stay the execution. RSMo. 534.350. The docket shows that judgment was entered in this case on August 31, 2015, and the 10-day period, per Rule 44.01, ends on Sept. 10, 2015. Cowherd is attempting an unlawful eviction, during the 10-day period after judgment when eviction is not allowed. Again, eviction is due to be quashed because it is unlawful.

What do we learn from all of this?

* A court issued an order against Carol and me, without having jurisdiction over either of us. That means the court's order was void.

* We've seen no sign of an eviction order signed by a judge, but it really does not matter because the judge (and the court) had no jurisdiction over us anyway.

* The judge was disqualified because she received a flagrantly prejudicial ex parte communications.

* My brother, David Shuler, was not really in the case to represent my mother--Trent Cowherd had no lawful grounds to sue her, and David either knew that or he's one ignorant lawyer. The truth? David was only in the case to help hurt Carol and me--and his letter to Judge Rose proves it. Got to love that family love and support!

* The eviction was conducted during a 10-day period when it could not lawfully take place.

Have Carol and I suffered because of all these screw-ups and the intentional malfeasance/corruption? Well, she has a broken arm that likely will never be the same. We both were handcuffed for no valid reason, she was arrested and taken to jail for no valid reason, an undetermined amount of our personal belongings were stolen by members of Cowherd's eviction crew (per an eye witness who saw them take items and place them in their personal vehicles and drive away.)

Has anyone in my family expressed the slightest concern about the injuries Carol suffered and the trauma we both experienced--I had an assault rifle pointed right at my face? Nope, they still want to have us declared incompetent, although I've heard no news about that case in a while. Has anyone in my family expressed the slightest concern about all of our property that was stolen, thanks to Trent Cowherd's eviction crew? Heck, no. In fact, my brother David has made it clear, in writing, that he backs Trent Cowherd all the way in these proceedings.

Many Americans see the famous image of lady justice, who is blindfolded as she holds a set of perfectly balanced scales. We see that and maybe feel a sense of pride that such a symbol represents our justice system.

The next time you see that image, I hope it will cause you to think of this post. Because this describes the real world of American "justice." The system is badly broken in Alabama, and I'm seeing signs that it's every bit as bad in Missouri.

It's so broken, in fact, that my own brother--with whom I've always gotten along and had a good relationship--has no qualms about stabbing my wife and me right between the shoulder blades. And he's probably helping to provide cover for the individuals who heaped abuse on us.

At the very least, you might think David Shuler would say something like, "Hey, I know a good attorney who I think could help you, both with the case against the sheriff and landlord in Missouri and against the cops and lawyers who abused you in Alabama. I would be glad to contact him (or her) on your behalf." He has said nothing of the sort--not even anything close to that.

In law schools around the country, there must be a large trash bin where students are instructed on the first day of class to place their consciences. Once any sign of a moral compass has been sent to the trash compactor--you likely are never to see it again--the student heads to class.

Three years later, with good luck on the bar exam, a lawyer emerges from the assembly line. But any sign of humanity probably will be gone. I know that's how it's been in my family.

Cowherd Quash Execution by Roger Shuler

In an effort to protect one of their own, cops can produce lies that qualify as world-class whoppers

Laquan McDonald, on a Chicago street, seconds before
cops shot him 16 times.

When one of their own needs protection against allegations of misconduct, police officers can turn to the kind of fudges and squirms that constitute relatively normal lies--or they can produce monumental whoppers.

We know that from following the Laquan McDonald shooting in Chicago. And we suspect it because of the wrongful eviction that left my wife with a broken arm, courtesy of a Greene County sheriff's deputy in Springfield, Missouri, plus the actions of Alabama deputies that led to my unlawful five-month incarceration in 2013-14.

We will take a closer look at the law-enforcement lies emanating from our Missouri and Alabama experiences in upcoming posts. Those posts specifically will focus on the words and actions of Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott in Missouri and deputies Mike DeHart and Chris Blevins in Alabama.

But first, let's look at the outrageous nature of police dishonesty in the McDonald case. Thanks to video produced because of a free-lance journalist's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, we know cops lied when they claimed McDonald was coming toward them before Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shot the 17-year-old--firing 16 shots, many of them at a downward trajectory, indicating McDonald was on the ground as Van Dyke kept shooting. In fact, the video shows, McDonald was walking away from officers.

But a recent Chicago Tribune story, about hundreds of pages of documents the city finally released in the McDonald case, shows that cops can lie with reckless impunity when they feel backed into a corner. Consider this from the Tribune article about statements from cops on the scene of the McDonald shooting:

As is the case with all police shootings, supervisors and union officials came to the scene. Just hours later, the reports suggest the direction the investigation was headed when the department made a preliminary finding that Van Dyke was justified in shooting McDonald.

One report states that three officers were "battered" by McDonald. Another lists Van Dyke as having been injured.

"Based upon information available at the time of this report it is the preliminary determination of the undersigned that Officer Van Dyke fired his weapon in compliance with Department policy. Officer Van Dyke fired his weapon in fear of his life when the offender while armed with a knife continued to approach and refused all verbal direction," Deputy Chief David McNaughton wrote in a report.

Does the video show that McDonald battered three officers, that Van Dyke was injured, and that McDonald continued to approach officers with a knife? Not even close. But the lunacy from officer reports does not end there. In December 2014, based on the reports, the department officially classified the McDonald shooting as a "justifiable homicide." From the Tribune article:

"McDonald committed aggravated assault against the three officers, finally forcing Officer Van Dyke, in defense of his life, to shoot and kill McDonald," according to a report of that determination.

Again and again in reports, Van Dyke's account is supported by the other officers at the scene, each one describing the teen as a threat to the veteran cop. Four officers claimed that McDonald advanced toward Van Dyke, even though the video shows him walking away. Two others said he turned or raised an arm toward him.

Aggravated assault? Van Dyke was in defense of his life? The video shows none of that.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's arm, shattered
by a Missouri deputy

Would it be appropriate, borrowing a crude phrase, to call these cops "no good, lying bastards"? We invite you to watch the video below and come to your own conclusion.

The report provides a glimpse at the kind of disdain some cops have for the public they supposedly are protecting. From the Tribune:

How police viewed the shooting, though, was clear. In the report that closed the investigation, filed in March, a detective offered this terse assessment.

"Criminal attacked officer," the report says, "that officer killed criminal."

Never mind that the video shows McDonald did not attack anyone, that he was walking away when Van Dyke shot him 16 times.

Meanwhile, the cops who wrote these bogus reports might wind up paying a high price, according to the Tribune:

With the video of the shooting as a backdrop, the reports — the first detailed accounts from the officers at the scene — offer a way to examine what Van Dyke and his colleagues say happened. Because they diverge so dramatically from the video, they suggest one possible avenue for additional investigation.

Federal officials also are investigating the shooting. A federal grand jury investigation has involved more than 80 witnesses and branched into possible obstruction of justice by the officers at the scene, sources told the Tribune. In particular, the sources said, federal prosecutors are investigating the officers who made statements as well as the officers who prepared the reports of the statements.

Fusion article on fallout from the Ashley Madison hack spotlights Legal Schnauzer coverage of individuals who appear at the lists of apparent extramarital cheaters

Legal Schnauzer is the only journalism site spotlighted in a national feature story about fallout from a hack of the Ashley Madison (AM) extramarital-affair Web site.

Fusion.net published the story, titled "Scared, dead, relieved: How the Ashley Madison hack changed its victims’ lives," on Wednesday (December 9). Fusion is a multi-platform media company that is a joint venture between ABC Television Group, the Walt Disney Company, and Univision Communications. Launched in 2013, it includes standard television distribution, along with Web and mobile platforms.

Reporter Kristen V. Brown, who has been covering the AM hack since the story broke in August, focuses primarily on the personal repercussions for those whose names appear on lists that have been published at various Web sites.

For a perspective about news coverage on the story, Brown turns to our blog. We've published roughly a dozen posts on the Ashley Madison story, focusing mostly on our recent home bases of Alabama and Missouri. We broke the stories that Alabama AM participants include Bradley Arant lawyer (and son-in-law of former governor Bob Riley) Rob Campbell, al.com reporter Charles J. "Chuck" Dean, and former U.S. Congressman Artur Davis.

We plan many more AM posts, based on our research that shows prominent, highly paid professionals and executives are among the most frequent users of the site--at least in Alabama and Missouri.

Brown interviewed me last Friday and asked mainly about my motivations for covering the story. I told her that I have a bachelor's degree in journalism (B.J., 1978, University of Missouri), with more than 30 years of professional experience in the field, and I consider this an important story on multiple levels. It's a technology story, a privacy (or lack of privacy) story, a psychology story, a sociology story, a religion story, and (perhaps of most importance to me) a class story.

Kristen V. Brown

My research has focused on "elites," and I told Brown that I've been amazed at the number of lawyers, doctors, scientists, computer programmers, wealth managers, engineers, CEOs, corporate vice presidents, and other seemingly bright individuals who were stupid enough to sign up for what (in my view) should have been seen as a scam right off the bat. From Brown's article:

Roger Shuler, a Missouri blogger, used his site, Legal Schnauzer, to out a prominent attorney and a local journalist in his former home state of Alabama, as well as the names of local companies who had executives with names on the list.

“It’s of interest to the public,” he told me, assuring me he would never print the name of “just some guy who runs an auto parts store.”

While people use Ashley Madison for all kinds of reasons—in open relationships, for example, or to mentally escape abusive ones—Shuler had a hard time accepting that people might use the site for any reason other than a lack of moral character.

“I’ve been married for 26 years and I treat marriage seriously,” he said. “I’m just amazed that in this country where people seem to trumpet their Christian values we treat christian marriage so shabbily. A lot of people on the Alabama list are people who make judgments about us all the time, so it’s relevant to expose what kind of judgement they use themselves.”

Brown notes that the story has grown particularly firm legs in the supposedly conservative South--and my interest grew because the Alabama list includes numerous immediately recognizable names. My guess is that the most prominent names self-identify as "pro family" Republicans. Writes Brown:

In the U.S., at least, the worst of the fallout seemed to happen in the south, where small community websites and blogs published the names of locals who used the site. Sometimes they were organized by zip code, making cheating neighbors especially easy to find. In Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, conservative Southern politics, religion and the nature of close-knit rural culture turned the internet into a small-town pillory.

In Hartselle, Alabama, Mayor Don Hall was forced to resign despite denying ever having used the site. The names of many public officials (like President Barack Obama, for one) appeared in the leak even though they weren’t users, because Ashley Madison didn’t require that users verify e-mail addresses before creating an account.

Brown provides important perspective on the fallout:

Among the rubble of the Ashley Madison hack, I’ve counted at least three suicides, two toppled family values evangelists, one ousted small-town mayor, a disgraced state prosecutor and countless stories of extortion and divorce. The blast radius of a database dump, it seems, is very large indeed. . . .

Tom*, a 65-year-old user in Nebraska told me that he paid off blackmailers after receiving one of the many e-mails threatening to out users to their spouse.

An East Coast woman who had found her husband in the leak and considered divorcing him said that the hack ultimately helped repair a long-widening chasm in their marriage that neither of them had addressed. He told her he signed up before they got married and never bought the credits necessary to send messages to women, a claim I was able to help her verify in looking at his transaction records.

One person I talked to found their father in the hack, affirming long-held suspicions that he was a cheater. Another user said that after contemplating suicide, he decided to come clean to his wife, and that she forgave him. Yet another, who has lost 13 pounds since the hack due to stress, was now hopeful after his wife agreed to marriage counseling.

Other suspected post-hack outcomes, like the Pentagon cracking down on members of the military who used the site given adultery being a crime, never materialized. But, unlike the leak itself, most of the aftermath unfolded behind closed bedroom doors. Its full effect is difficult to discern.

I agree with Brown on that. One question that has gone unanswered: Why has Ashley Madison, and its tag line "Life is short, have an affair," been so attractive to upper-class, mostly white, professional men?

One might think that such individuals would be too savvy or busy to get involved with a shady outfit like Ashley Madison. (The site's whole purpose is to perpetuate cheating, so why should customers be surprised when the company cheats them by failing to protect their data?) You also might think that, with more assets than the average person to lose in a divorce, the well-to-do would be uber careful about getting involved.

But our research indicates that is not the case. And we think that story needs to be told.

Is it possible that quite a few people who help run major companies and institutions have more money and power than common sense? Is it possible they have too much time on their hands? If they are willing to cheat on their spouses, and possibly heap embarrassment on their children, how are they likely to treat customers?

We will examine all of those questions, and more, in upcoming posts.

Dothan TV reporter perpetuates myths about the Rob Riley and Liberty Duke story, so we are here to set the record straight and help launch a panel discussion

Ken Curtis, of WTVY in Dothan

How could a journalist be blindingly ignorant of First Amendment law, which to a great degree forms the foundation for his profession? If the journalist is not up to speed on the First Amendment, how could he be so lazy as to not even attempt to research the subject before reporting on it?

Those are some of the questions that come to mind in the wake of a piece by Ken Curtis, senior reporter at WTVY in Dothan, Alabama, which trashed Web-based journalism in general--and Legal Schnauzer, in particular.

In taking a swipe at our coverage of the relationship between Republican lawyer/politico Rob Riley (son of former governor Bob Riley) and lobbyist Liberty Duke, Curtis proves that he knows zero about the facts surrounding the case--and maybe even sub-zero about the relevant law.

We sent an e-mail to Curtis, in a good-faith effort to set the record straight and hopefully help educate his viewers on a subject that is pretty darned important under the U.S. Constitution. But Curtis has not responded, so we can only assume that he is not in the business of enlightening the masses.

That leaves us to take matters into our own hands by sharing the e-mail that lays out facts and law with which Curtis obviously is not familiar. Here is the missive we sent to Mr. Curtis, with a copy to his boss, news director Kim Allen, at 2:42 p.m. on December 7:

Mr. Curtis:

I write the blog Legal Schnauzer, which you noted in the above-referenced article. Here is the notation about my blog:


"Some have threatened lawsuits against Carroll for false reporting though, to our knowledge, none have been filed. However, the man behind the Alabama-based website Legal Schnauzer was recently jailed for several months after refusing to remove unproven reports involving the son of former Alabama governor Bob Riley."


I think you should know the following:

* I have a bachelor's degree in journalism (B.J., 1978, University of Missouri), with more than 35 years of professional experience in the field. The defamation lawsuit that Rob Riley and Liberty Duke filed against me in fall 2013 was the first such case in my career.

* First Amendment law in the U.S. requires that defamation cases must be heard at trial, by a jury, to ensure that a single judge does not, in essence, act as a one-man censor. The Riley/Duke case against me never went to trial, never was heard by a jury. A judge (Claud Neilson), in fact, acted as one-man censor, contrary to law--and he did it in a case where there was no discovery. Riley and Duke never sat for depositions, never answered interrogatories, never turned over documents--they did nothing to prove their case in an adversarial setting.

* Your piece implies that it's common practice for reporters to be jailed in defamation cases. In fact, there is no provision of law for incarceration under such circumstances. It appears that I am the only journalist in U.S. history to be imprisoned because of a preliminary injunction that is expressly forbidden by Near v. Minnesota (U.S. Supreme Court, 1931), which is considered the "foundational" case of the 20th century on the subject.

* My reporting never has been found false and defamatory at trial. In other words, Riley and Duke did not come close to meeting their burden of proof. I gave up five months of my freedom for practicing journalism and writing a story that has not been proven to be anything other than true.

* Rob Riley has made no statement under oath that my reporting was false. As a lawyer, he could face serious repercussions for making a false statement under oath.

Please accept this as a formal request for an interview, so that you and I can shine light on the actual facts and law surrounding the Riley/Duke case. I think it would be a great idea for you to also interview Rob Riley and Liberty Duke and their respective attorneys (Jay Merrill, of Birmingham, and Christina Crow, of Union Springs). In fact, I would love to take part in a televised panel discussion, if your station is willing to host such an event.

As it stands now, you have given the public a wildly skewed and inaccurate portrayal of what took place in the Riley/Duke case. I submit that it's important to set the record straight, and I would welcome the opportunity to do so.


Best regards,


Roger Shuler

Three key takeaway points from all of this?

(1) The Riley/Duke lawsuit, contrary to law, never went to trial and never went before a jury. Judge Claud Neilson violated federal law by acting as one-man censor.

(2) My reporting was not proven false or defamatory at trial; there was no trial. Riley/Duke never came close to meeting their burden of proving my posts were false.

(3) There are no provisions under state or federal law for a preliminary injunction in a defamation case, which could lead to incarceration of a journalist for writing a story that has not been proven to be anything other than true.

Liberty Duke

(4) Even Rob Riley has not made a sworn statement claiming my reporting was false--no affidavit, no answer to an interrogatory, no answer to adversarial questions in a deposition or open court. Nothing, nada, zilch. Riley's own actions indicate the story is true.

Finally, I am absolutely serious about the highlighted section above. I dearly would love to be involved in a panel discussion about the Riley/Duke case. My incarceration drew international news coverage, and while many of the stories were solid and well reported, I'm not sure any of them has fully explained that my treatment was so grossly unlawful that . . . well, it should make any constitutional scholar want to vomit. Heck, it should make any sentient citizen want to puke.

So I hereby challenge Rob Riley and Liberty Duke, and their attorneys Jay Murrill and Christina Crow, to a panel discussion--hosted and televised live by WTVY, of Dothan. Heck, Ken Curtis can even serve as moderator, and I would be glad to help him get boned up on the relevant facts and law in advance.

What are the chances that any of the individuals above will take up this challenge? I will keep you posted.

Alabama TV reporter reveals ignorance of the First Amendment in attack on Web press and our coverage of the Rob Riley and Liberty Duke relationship

Ken Curtis, of WTVY

An Alabama television reporter recently took several swipes at the Web-based press, including our little operation here at Legal Schnauzer. We have no problem with thoughtful, constructive, fact-based criticism, but the piece from Ken Curtis, a senior reporter with WTVY in Dothan, was none of those things. In fact, those who read or viewed his piece likely were less informed about the issues afterward than they were going in.

We contacted Curtis via e-mail in an effort to set the record straight and maybe even help educate his viewers on important First-Amendment issues. But we haven't heard back from Curtis, or news director Kim Allen, so we can only assume they aren't interested in helping viewers understand a subject that forms the foundation for our democracy.

Curtis' article is titled "Is Freedom of the Press Too Free These Days?"--an odd title, to be sure, from someone purporting to be a journalist. It's kind of like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, writing an article titled, "Do Banks Have Too Darned Much Money?"

Curtis' primary target is the Henry County Report, a blog published by Jon Carroll from his base in southeast Alabama, and its recent investigative series about Dothan police officers and their alleged tendency over the years to plant drugs and weapons on young black males, leading to a series of bogus convictions over roughly a 10-year period. The explosive report garnered considerable attention in both the Web and mainstream press before a number of outlets started questioning Carroll's reporting and largely backed off the story.

What to make of the report from Carroll's blog? It's too early to say where the story is headed, but we are not going to join the race to distance ourselves from the reporting. Given our experience with corrupt police officers in multiple states (Alabama and Missouri), we would not put much of anything past law-enforcement officers--especially as we learn more about efforts to cover up the Laquan McDonald shooting in Chicago.

Rob Riley

From a journalistic standpoint, Carroll published an article two days ago ("Victims Come Forward and Describe Dothan’s Narcotics Team Terrorizing the Black Community for Years") that appears to provide solid support for his original report.

As for Legal Schnauzer, WTVY's Mr. Curtis could not resist taking a bone-headed shot at us. It's based on our coverage of the relationship between Birmingham lawyer Rob Riley (son of former governor Bob Riley) and lobbyist Liberty Duke, which led to my five-month incarceration in the Shelby County Jail after Riley and Duke filed a defamation lawsuit. Here are Curtis' words on the subject, with a reference to heat that the Henry County Report and Jon Carroll have generated:

Some have threatened lawsuits against Carroll for false reporting though, to our knowledge, none have been filed. However, the man behind the Alabama-based website Legal Schnauzer was recently jailed for several months after refusing to remove unproven reports involving the son of former Alabama governor Bob Riley.

A reasonable person could read that paragraph and come to the following conclusions:

* Journalists are incarcerated all the time because of defamation lawsuits; it's a regular thing, an "occupational hazard" for reporters, you might say;

* My incarceration was proper, based solidly on provisions of law that provide such a remedy for those who claim they have been the victims of false and defamatory reporting.;

Both of  those conclusions, of course, are wildly off target. The imprisonment of journalists in defamation cases almost never happens--and our research shows I probably am the only journalist in U.S. history to be jailed under circumstances present in the Riley/Duke case--because of a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that are contrary to 230 years of First Amendment law.

Liberty Duke

More importantly, no U.S. law exists to support my incarceration. In fact, Near v. Minnesota (U.S. Supreme Court, 1931), considered the "foundational" 20th century case on the subject, specifically prohibits such preliminary injunctions as "prior restraints."

Did Ken Curtis bother to clue in his readers on any of this? Not in the original article. Does he intend to correct the record, based on accurate information I sent him? Doesn't look like it.

That leaves me to take matters into my own hands, which I will do by sharing the e-mail that WTVY apparently does not want you to see.


(To be continued)

Noble Communications, Carol Jones Realtors, Jack Henry, and Palmer Oliver law firm are among SW Missouri firms housing Ashley Madison customers

Some of the best-known health-care facilities and law firms in the Ozarks region of southwest Missouri have high-level employees who appear as paying customers at the Ashley Madison (IM) extramarital-affair Web site.

Also represented on the list . . . an advertising agency with a national footprint and a base in Chicago (Noble Communications), a finance/technology company with locations in roughly 20 states (Jack Henry and Associates), one of the largest mortgage companies in the Midwest (Gershman Mortgage), and two of the area's most vibrant real-estate firms (Murney and Associates and Carol Jones Realtors).

Health-care facilities represented include Cox Health Center, Mercy Medical Center, Smith Glynn Callaway Clinic, Missouri Eye Institute, and Ferrell Duncan Clinic.

The legal community is well represented, including Palmer Oliver law firm, Chaney and McCurry law firm, Turner Reid Duncan law firm, Norrid and Robertson law firm, Appleby Healy law firm, Crites law firm, and more.

Springfield is the third largest city in Missouri, with a population of about 164,000. It's closest comparator in Alabama probably is Huntsville (186,000), with Springfield's economy evolving around health care and education (the city is home to Missouri State University, Drury University, and Evangel University, plus a highly regarded public-schools system), and Huntsville's featuring space-related research, technology, engineering, and the military.

The business centers of Missouri are Kansas City (467,000) and St. Louis (318,000). The metro St. Louis area of 2.8 million is the state's largest, followed by Kansas City metro at 2.1 million.

Our research, so far, has focused only on the Ozarks region around Springfield. We will get to St. Louis and Kansas City later, but we already can see a trend that is apparent in Alabama. High-end professionals and executives--lawyers, doctors, bankers, engineers, educators--are big-time users of Ashley Madison services, even though the Web site apparently offers little in the way of actual services.

Focusing on the Springfield area, here is what our Missouri research shows so far. You might say this is the tip of the Show-Me State's AM iceberg.


Missouri companies or institutions with one or more Ashley Madison customers

* Smith Glynn Callaway Clinic

* Jack Henry and Associates

* Missouri State University

* Murney and Associates

* Noble Counseling

* Incredible Pizza

* Norrid and Robertson law firm

* Cox Health Center

* Carol Jones Realtors

* Missouri Eye Institute

Noble Communications, home to at least one Ashley
Madison customer in Springfield, MO
(From iamchrisbrewer.com)

* Drury University

* Crites law firm

* Executive Coach Builders

* Springfield First Community Bank

* Palmer Oliver law firm

* Chaney and McCurry law firm

* Ferrell Duncan Clinic

* Turner Reid Duncan law firm

* Noble Communications

* Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home

* Appleby Healy law firm

* Gershman Mortgage

* Mercy Medical Center

New documents in Laquan McDonald shooting suggest cops lied about what they saw, adding to questions about police dishonesty in Alabama and Missouri

Laquan McDonald, on a Chicago street, seconds before
cops shot him 16 times.

Five Chicago police officers who witnessed the Laquan McDonald shooting say the 17-year-old lunged threateningly at them before Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shot him, according to documents the city released Friday night. That differs from events in a video released last week, which shows McDonald walking away from officers before being shot 16 times.

Were officers honestly mistaken about what they saw or was this part of an orchestrated campaign to lie and cover up for what now appears to be a gross misuse of deadly force?

If this was an effort to intentionally lie--and we suspect it was--it raises a number of troubling questions for my wife, Carol, and me, here in our current "home" of Springfield, Missouri. Carol is recovering from trauma surgery required to repair her left arm, which was shattered during an unlawful eviction that Greene County deputies conducted on September 9. Sheriff Jim Arnott was standing about five feet away when three of his deputies surrounded Carol as she was trying to retrieve our cat's litter box, slamming her to the ground and yanking on her arms so severely that both were badly bruised and one was broken to the point that the humerus almost came through the skin.

How unlawful was the eviction? The public record shows officers had no grounds to be at our rented property that day, much less to handcuff us both, rough us up, point weapons (including an assault rifle) at us, and break Carol's arm.

Before we were forced to leave Alabama, largely because of a dubious foreclosure on our home of 25 years in Birmingham, I was arrested and spent five months in the Shelby County Jail--all because of a preliminary injunction in a defamation lawsuit that was unlawful under more than 200 years of First Amendment law. Research indicates I'm the only journalist in U.S. history to be incarcerated under such circumstances.

In brutalizing Carol, Missouri cops have made statements--before, during, and after the event--that we know are false. Arnott immediately pointed at Carol and said, "She assaulted a police officer." This was laughably contrary to the facts and the law (more about Missouri law on this subject coming soon), but a Deputy named Scott Harrison drove Carol--with her broken arm handcuffed behind her--to the Greene County Jail and said she was facing a felony charge, with likely a $100,000 bond.

We've also seen evidence that officers concocted a claim that I had placed a 911 call, threatening any officers who attempted to evict us. I never made any such call, but comments on the scene that day indicate officers used their belief in such a "call" to justify acting like a SWAT team, pointing an assault rifle and multiple handguns at us as they burst into our apartment.

X-ray of Carol Shuler's arm, borken by
Missouri deputies.

Is flagrant dishonesty part of police culture? Consider this from a Chicago Tribune report on the McDonald shooting:

Hundreds of pages of newly released Chicago police reports from the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald are most striking for one simple reason: They are dramatically at odds with the dash-cam video that has sparked protests across the city, cost the city's top cop his job and embroiled Mayor Rahm Emanuel in scandal.

The reports, released by the city late Friday, show that Officer Jason Van Dyke and at least five other officers claim that the 17-year-old McDonald moved or turned threateningly toward officers, even though the video of the October 2014 shooting shows McDonald walking away, and the scenario sketched out by Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez in charging Van Dyke with murder contends he was walking away as well.

At least one patrol officer said McDonald was advancing on the officers in a menacing way and swung his knife at them in an "aggressive, exaggerated manner" before he was shot and killed. Officers claimed, too, that even after McDonald had been shot by Van Dyke, the teen tried to lift himself off the ground with the knife pointed toward the officers, and though he had been mortally wounded, still presented a threat.

The reports, a collection of handwritten statements from the night of the shooting, and follow-up reports in the days and months after, often refer to Van Dyke as VD and call him the victim. McDonald is O, for offender. Some are in police shorthand.

"VD believed O was attacking w/knife," said a report of Van Dyke's account. "Trying to kill VD. In defense of his life, VD backpedaled + fired. O fell to ground, continued to move/grasp knife. VD continued firing. O appeared to be attempting to get up, still holding knife. Pointing at VD."

Are these police accounts pure rubbish? We invite you to watch the video at the end of this post and come to your own conclusions.

Our conclusion is this: Chicago cops intentionally lied to provide cover for Officer Van Dyke,and we suspect a similar campaign of dishonesty is under way here in southwest Missouri to protect the officers who brutalized Carol--one cop in particular who appeared to be mostly responsible for breaking her arm.

We also suspect that institutional dishonesty was present in my unlawful arrest and incarceration in Shelby County, Alabama. The signs there are unmistakable, and we will address them in an upcoming post.


(To be continued)

Ashley Madison has customers among top executives at Harbert Management, Hoar Construction, Royal Cup, Southern Co., and many more Alabama firms

An astonishing array of corporate, legal, and institutional entities in Alabama have employees who engaged the services of the Ashley Madison (AM) extramarital-affair Web site.

In fact, one of the biggest names on the Alabama corporate scene--Harbert Management Corporation--has a top executive on the AM list. So does Liberty National. Hoar Construction, Royal Cup, Southern Company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Cadence Bank are among a long list of Alabama companies with employees who have paying AM accounts.

Research shows a similar number of high-level executives in Missouri have been AM customers. We will take a look at those in an upcoming post.

How is any work getting done these days in corporate America?

Alabama and Missouri are where I've lived over the past two years, so we have focused on those two states. In fact, we've focused primarily on the Birmingham metro area in Alabama and the Ozarks region surrounding Springfield in southwest Missouri.

Even with fairly limited research parameters, due to the massive size of the Ashley Madison files, it becomes quickly apparent that huge numbers of wealthy, powerful, connected, and seemingly smart individuals were stupid enough to fall for what easily should have been seen as a Web-based scam.

The Alabama AM customers we've found by name are overwhelmingly male. In fact, one researcher estimated that AM had 1,500 active female users, compared to about 20 million men. In other words, huge numbers of men were in hot pursuit of affairs with women who, by and large, did not exist. And many of the men who were stupid enough to fall for this con have high-paying jobs (in some cases, extremely high-paying jobs) at prominent companies and institutions.

Who are some of those big-time employers? Let's look first at a sampling from Alabama, and we will publish a similar list from Missouri soon.

It's important for readers to know that this is based on a very small sample size in both states. We know, for example, that Alabama has roughly 8,000 paid AM users--and that is the list we have searched so far. But the state has roughly 220,000 total AM users, so there is much, much more data to be explored.

Alabama companies or institutions that are home to Ashley Madison customers

* Harbert Management

* Sterne Agee

* Royal Cup

* BBVA Compass

* Hoar Construction

* Capstone Collegiate Communities

* ACIPCO

* Royal Automotive

Harbert Management Corporation is one of the many
Alabama companies with at least one high-level
executive on the Ashley Madison list.

* UAB

* Nowlin and Associates

* HealthSouth

* Southern Company

* Cadence Bank

* Blue Cross/Blue Shield

* Pangea Two

* Protective Life

* Raytheon

* Wells Fargo

* Daimler

* Regions Bank

* Western Steel

* Birmingham-Southern College

* Bhate Engineering

* Liberty National

* BioHorizons

* Bradley Arant law firm

* Wiggins Childs law firm

* Cabaniss Johnston Gardner law firm

* Lightfoot Franklin White law firm

* Ogletree Deakins law firm

* SEC Network

* LAH Commercial Real Estate

* Gentle Sexton Turner law firm

* ReMax

* U.S. Steel

* Bromberg's

* Cochran law firm

As concerns about police dishonesty grow, new footage in Laquan McDonald shooting raises questions about possible police tampering with Burger King video

Image from the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

Just two days ago, we asked: Does police dishonesty pose almost as big a threat to society as police brutality? We pointed to signs that law enforcement officials had lied in statements about the Laquan McDonald shooting in Chicago and in the eviction-related assault that left my wife with a shattered arm in Missouri.

New reports last night in the McDonald case suggest the answer to our question might be yes. Meanwhile, the free-lance journalist who brought video of the McDonald shooting to light says he is far from finished seeking details about the case via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Raw Story was among news sites reporting yesterday that still images taken inside a nearby Burger King on the night of the McDonald shooting show officers checking video from surveillance camera. Those are the same cameras from which the restaurant's manager said more than 80 minutes of video were missing.

Manager Jay Darshane said officers spent more than three hours at the restaurant that night, and the new images appear to support his story. Were the officers gathering evidence or tampering with evidence? The answer to that question is not clear, but we do know this:

* A police official originally had said McDonald lunged at officers with a knife, but video shows that did not happen.

* According to Raw Story, before McDonald’s family could even file a lawsuit, the city gave them a $5 million settlement on the condition that the family agreed not to publicly release the dashcam footage of the teen’s death. After suppressing the video for 13 months, the city received a court order to release the footage.

Does that sound like a police department that believes in transparency? Not exactly. But journalists are pushing for information anyway, led by Brandon Smith, who publishes the blog muckrakery! In an article yesterday at The Daily Beast, Smith said his efforts to shine light on the McDonald case are ongoing:

I’m the journalist who sued Chicago and won the release of the video that showed Laquan being shot to death 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014. But I’m not stopping there. With the help of attorneys, I’m continuing my Freedom of Information Act request of the city to release officer statements made to investigators, emails from city officials, and more. The public needs to know what as many as eight officers did immediately after the shooting, as well as how the department handled what should’ve been plainly seen as murder by one of its own officers that night.

Raw Story provided information about the minutes leading to the fatal encounter with police in Chicago:

Surrounded by officers and suspected of breaking into cars on October 20, 2014, Laquan McDonald, 17, was attempting to walk away from a group of Chicago cops when Officer Jason Van Dyke exited his patrol car. According to initial reports, McDonald was armed with a knife and lunged at Officer Van Dyke. Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers, Van Dyke shot the teen in the chest out of self-defense.

But according to witness statements and police dashcam video, McDonald was walking away when Van Dyke opened fire. After McDonald had collapsed to the ground in a near-fetal position, Van Dyke continued firing his weapon until emptying his clip. As Van Dyke began reloading his gun, a fellow officer had to order him to cease firing at the dying teen.

McDonald’s autopsy revealed that Van Dyke shot him 16 times, including two bullets in the back, seven in his arms, two in his right leg, once on each side of his chest, and single bullets wounds to his right hand, scalp, and neck. Nine of the 16 entrance wounds had a downward trajectory. None of the five other officers at the scene fired their weapons.

What about the case here in Springfield, Missouri, where deputies brutalized my wife, Carol, and left her with a shattered left arm--as Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott watched from a few feet away? We've shown that Arnott's first instincts were to lie and cover up--falsely claiming that Carol had assaulted a police officer and ordering her arrested and taken to the county jail. Carol was told that she faced felony charges and a likely $100,000 bond, and that only changed when X-rays showed her arm had been severely broken just above the elbow, suggesting she was the victim, not the perpetrator, of an assault.

We've also shown that officers had no lawful grounds to be on the property that day because the eviction was unlawfully scheduled and was stayed by our Notice of Appeal filed the day before.

My guess is that the police dishonesty is just beginning in Carol's case. For example, we've seen evidence that officers concocted a claim that I had placed a 911 call, threatening any officers who attempted to evict us. I never made any such call, but comments on the scene that day indicate officers used their belief in such a "call" to justify acting like a SWAT team, pointing an assault rifle and multiple handguns at us as they burst into our apartment.

Scott Harrison, the deputy who drove Carol to jail, said he had heard the 911 call, and it had been traced to our phone and our apartment. That is impossible, but we will see what an investigation turns up.

Would cops lie to cover up their own misconduct--in Illinois, Missouri, or anywhere else? Here is video about the Laquan McDonald story that suggests a disturbing answer to that question:

How many executive types in Alabama and Missouri were stupid enough to sign up with Ashley Madison, the Web site that says, "Life is short, have an affair"?

(From techworld.com)

Are some people too stupid to use an extramarital-affair Web site like Ashley Madison? By "some people," I mean Charles J. "Chuck" Dean, a reporter with al.com, and Rob Campbell, an attorney with Birmingham-based Bradley Arant.

Here perhaps is a better question: How stupid do you have to be to fall for a scam like Ashley Madison? More on that question in a moment--and in a series of upcoming posts.

But first, more about Chuck Dean and Rob Campbell. We outed Dean as an Ashley Madison (AM) user in early September and even showed how he quoted Mark Twain in an effort to pick up women other than his wife. Campbell, the husband of Birmingham lawyer/politico Minda Riley Campbell and the son-in-law of former governor Bob Riley, got outed in late August--and we learned that Rob Campbell likes to provide oral sex, but apparently not to his wife.

What makes Dean and Campbell's extracurricular activities so stupid? Well, both of them claim in their Ashley Madison profiles that they are single. (See the profiles at the end of this post.) Now, the whole purpose of Ashley Madison is to perpetuate affairs--among people who are married or otherwise attached. If you are single and looking for someone to date, the Web is filled with sites for folks like you. (Here's an article about the 15 most popular dating sites, as of this month.)

Charles J. Dean
(From al.com)

But Ashley Madison? It's for people who are married and want to cheat on their spouses--that's the site's reason for being. It's the desire to cheat, not necessarily the desire to have sex, that seems to have driven AM's membership numbers into the stratosphere. So why are Dean and Campbell claiming on the site that they aren't married? Are they ashamed to admit that they are attempting to cheat? Do they each think that will somehow preserve what's left of his conscience? Can it only be attributed to clinical stupidity?

Heck, even Artur Davis, who has seen his political career go from "promising" to something that approximates "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," was not that stupid. Artur had the sense in his Ashley Madison profile to admit that he is "attached." Another word for attached is married. (Artur also describes himself as "shapely toned." Has another man in human history used those two words to describe his appearance?)

Here is the good news for Dean, Campbell, and Davis: They hardly are the only clodheads who were dense enough to use Ashley Madison--they have plenty of high-level, executive types as company.

Our Legal Schnauzer Computer Forensics and Accuracy Research Team (C-FART) has been pouring over Ashley Madison data from the infamous Team Impact hack, and the results are astounding. In fact, our research is nowhere near complete--and it's already astounding.

Our focus so far has been on Alabama and Missouri--the two states where I've lived in recent years--and the number of corporate, legal, political, executive types who fell for the AM scam is . . . well, if you think people who make lots of money by running businesses are smart, this might cause you to think twice about that.

According to one knowledgeable researcher, AM appears to have about 1,500 active female users, compared to 20 million men. In other words, millions of mostly married men were out there scrambling for affairs with women who, for the most part, did not exist. And these guys didn't see this coming?

Rob Campbell
(From babc.com)

You might think that men from big-time, established companies and institutions would be too smart (and maybe too busy) to get involved in such a charade. But our research indicates you would be wrong. And our upcoming posts will provide plenty of specifics on just how wrong you would be.

What are some of the Alabama entities we've seen with Ashley Madison users, and this is mostly from checking only the Birmingham metro area? What about similar entities in Missouri?

We will address both questions in upcoming posts, and then we will get down to shining light on the prominent individuals involved. But first, here are summaries of Ashley Madison data for Chuck Dean, Rob Campbell, and Artur Davis.


(To be continued)

Charles J. Dean Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer

Robert Campbell Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer

Artur Davis Ashley Madison Profile by Forensic Schnauzer