{"id":988,"date":"2011-04-29T02:29:24","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T06:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=988"},"modified":"2011-11-13T21:14:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T01:14:21","slug":"im-as-american-as-apple-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=988","title":{"rendered":"I’m as American as apple pie."},"content":{"rendered":"

In the blog post by Jamison Koehler<\/a> that I wrote about here<\/a>, Jamison remarked:<\/p>\n

Six or so months ago I wrote about the malleability of truth at trial.\u00a0 While I have since taken down this blog entry on the advice of Virginia bar counsel, I continue to believe that the objective truth is rarely, if ever, introduced at trial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If Virginia bar counsel advised you to take down a blog entry \u201cabout the malleability of truth at trial,\u201d and you acted on such advice, I\u2019m probably not long for this profession based on many of my own blog entries. Yet, believe it or not, I believe everything I\u2019ve written is protected by the First Amendment, and don\u2019t go out of my way to court trouble, and do give some thought to whatever uncertain and slippery line might be out there in the ether. It seems the real danger area is appearing to call into question the \u201cintegrity\u201d of a specific judge, which I try to steer clear of. The rules of professional conduct, at least in my state, forbid making a \u201cstatement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.\u201d Supposedly, though, we\u2019re still allowed to criticize judicial decisions. But doesn\u2019t any such criticism \u2014 to the degree it asserts the decision is contrary to the law and\/or the facts \u2014 implicitly concern either the qualifications or the integrity of the judge(s) making the decision?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[I mean, what if I were to say, as the Indiana Supreme Court recently said<\/a> about a decision by a local trial judge, that “there is not a single shred of evidence” supporting a judge’s decision? How different, really, would that be from what got this Indiana attorney disciplined<\/a> by the Indiana Supreme Court?]<\/p>\n

Jamison replied<\/a> to my comment:<\/p>\n

I have read your blog, and, yes, depending on the rules in Illinois [I assume he meant Indiana], you do seem to skate much closer to the edge than I.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Indiana Rule of Professional Conduct I quoted in my comment above is Rule 8.2<\/a>. The official “Comment” on this Rule states:<\/p>\n

Assessments by lawyers are relied on in evaluating the professional or personal fitness of persons being considered for election or appointment to judicial office and to public legal offices, such as attorney general, prosecuting attorney and public defender. Expressing honest and candid opinions on such matters contributes to improving the administration of justice. Conversely, false statements by a lawyer can unfairly undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s my dilemma: The very purpose of this blog is to do my small part to “undermine public confidence” in the State — which happens to be a time-honored goal of a whole lot of American political speech, dating all the way back to Thomas Paine’s undermining of the colonial public’s confidence in the British Empire. And I’ve got news for you: The judicial branch is very much a part of the State.<\/p>\n

I’ve recently said here<\/a> that the President of the United States is a “contemptible hypocrite.” I’ve also recently said here<\/a> of certain members of the Indiana legislature that they “make me sick” and are either “ignorant . . . rubes . . . or something far worse.” But I don’t believe I’ve said on this blog anything similar about any specific, identifiable judges. I haven’t, for example, said here anything as defamatory as what Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (a member of the Indiana Bar) said<\/a> when he publicly called a decision by the Indiana Court of Appeals “transparently partisan.” (The Indiana Disciplinary Commission, so far as I know, has declined to discipline the Governor for those statements.) I haven’t on this blog said about any specific, identifiable judges what Justice Scalia said<\/a> about his fellow judges on the U.S. Supreme Court when he wrote in a dissenting opinion that “[s]eldom has an opinion of this Court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members.”<\/p>\n

What I have<\/em> done here is to try to “undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.”
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Fairly.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the blog post by Jamison Koehler that I wrote about here, Jamison remarked: Six or so months ago I wrote about the malleability of truth at trial.\u00a0 While I have since taken down this blog entry on the advice of Virginia bar counsel, I continue to believe that the objective truth is rarely, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,89,168,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admission-discipline-of-attorneys","category-freedom-of-speech","category-jamison-koehler","category-judges"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1594,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions\/1594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}