The Men Behind Edwards Here is the ATLA’s Logo …
… these are better:
And from my neck of the woods:
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Posted on 08/03/2004 9:03:21 AM PDT by antonia
bump
big law - big oil - all are big scumbags. No politicans are their own men - that includes our guys.
Learjet Lawyers and Limosine Lib'rals--
Don't sound like the "little guy" to me...
John Edwards says he's running for President in order to represent "regular people." In fact, he represents the agenda of "Learjet Lawyers" super-wealthy personal injury lawyers who want to be able to sue anyone, anytime, for any amount of money.
During the first quarter of 2003, nineteen of the top 20 organizations supporting John Edwards were personal injury law firms. They gave 14 percent of all the money raised by his campaign.
John Edwards has said, "Nobody who makes the law or enforces the law should take money from lobbyists trying to influence the law," said Edwards.
At the same time, the lion's share of Edwards' campaign contributions (43 percent) have come from personal injury lawyers who have one political issue: stopping common-sense civil justice reform.
While Edwards has criticized so-called stealth PACS (News Release, May 14, 2003) that have run advertising critical of his personal injury lawyer-driven agenda, he had his own stealth PAC.
Edwards' New American Optimists accepted, on average $70,000 contributions from Learjet Lawyers, that were in turn funneled to candidates and state party organizations in the key primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. John Edwards says his agenda is about "regular people." In fact, Edwards has a super-liberal voting record during his Senate tenure, receiving a 100 percent score from the AFL-CIO, and an 85 percent score from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
Edwards has said he wants to ban lobbyists and their PACs from contributing to federal elections.
At the same time, Edwards has already received contributions from the former President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) – one of Washington's most powerful special interest organizations, and a vocal opponent of tort reform. Edwards has taken thousands more from ATLA's corporate officers, and the leadership of countless state trial lawyer associations, which all share the same pro-litigation agenda.
While Edwards has said he's campaigning for "regular people," he stayed away from hearings on asbestos litigation reform that sough a consensus solution among a unions, insurers, and large and small businesses. An asbestos litigation solution would benefit sick asbestos victims by compensating them quickly, but it could cost Edwards' financiers millions in attorneys' fees.
John Edwards says he's running for President in order to represent "regular people." In fact, he represents the agenda of "Learjet Lawyers" super-wealthy personal injury lawyers who want to be able to sue anyone, anytime, for any amount of money.
During the first quarter of 2003, nineteen of the top 20 organizations supporting John Edwards were personal injury law firms. They gave 14 percent of all the money raised by his campaign.
John Edwards has said, "Nobody who makes the law or enforces the law should take money from lobbyists trying to influence the law," said Edwards.
At the same time, the lion's share of Edwards' campaign contributions (43 percent) have come from personal injury lawyers who have one political issue: stopping common-sense civil justice reform.
While Edwards has criticized so-called stealth PACS (News Release, May 14, 2003) that have run advertising critical of his personal injury lawyer-driven agenda, he had his own stealth PAC.
Edwards' New American Optimists accepted, on average $70,000 contributions from Learjet Lawyers, that were in turn funneled to candidates and state party organizations in the key primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. John Edwards says his agenda is about "regular people." In fact, Edwards has a super-liberal voting record during his Senate tenure, receiving a 100 percent score from the AFL-CIO, and an 85 percent score from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
Edwards has said he wants to ban lobbyists and their PACs from contributing to federal elections.
At the same time, Edwards has already received contributions from the former President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) – one of Washington's most powerful special interest organizations, and a vocal opponent of tort reform. Edwards has taken thousands more from ATLA's corporate officers, and the leadership of countless state trial lawyer associations, which all share the same pro-litigation agenda.
While Edwards has said he's campaigning for "regular people," he stayed away from hearings on asbestos litigation reform that sough a consensus solution among a unions, insurers, and large and small businesses. An asbestos litigation solution would benefit sick asbestos victims by compensating them quickly, but it could cost Edwards' financiers millions in attorneys' fees.
Welcome to FreeRepublic.com .....
The Men Behind Edwards Here is the ATLA’s Logo …
… these are better:
And from my neck of the woods:
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No pictures of these doofuses pointing please! I'll have some kind of stroke if I see another one.
Supporters of President Bush (news - web sites) stand across the street from a rally for Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards (news - web sites) in Baton Rogue, La. Tuesday morning Aug. 3, 2004. Edwards started the day with a morning rally in Baton Rouge which started a three-stop trip through Louisiana. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)
Lots of good info. here...thanks for posting!
Did 'Junk Science' Make John Edwards Rich?
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200401%5CPOL20040120a.html
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
January 20, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - The superstar trial lawyer accomplishments of John Edwards, which allowed this former millworker to amass a personal fortune, finance his successful U.S. Senate run in 1998 and catapult himself into the 2004 race for president, may have been partially built on "junk science," according to legal and medical experts who spoke with CNSNews.com .
Edwards, who with a late surge finished second in Monday's Iowa Caucuses, continues to cite one of his most lucrative legal victories as an example of how he would stand up for "the little guy" if elected president.
Edwards became one of America's wealthiest trial lawyers by winning record jury verdicts and settlements in cases alleging that the botched treatment of women in labor and their deliveries caused infants to develop cerebral palsy, a brain disorder that causes motor function impairment and lifelong disability.
Although he was involved in other types of personal injury litigation, Edwards specialized in infant cerebral palsy and brain damage cases during his early days as a trial lawyer and with the Raleigh, N.C., firm of Edwards & Kirby.
Edwards has repeatedly told campaign audiences that he fought on behalf of the common man against the large insurance companies. But a political critic with extensive knowledge of Edwards' legal career in North Carolina told CNSNews.com a different story
"Edwards always helped the little guy as long as he got a million dollars out of it," said the source, who did not want to be identified.
The cause of cerebral palsy has been debated since the 19th century. Some medical studies dating back to at least the 1980s asserted that doctors could do very little to cause cerebral palsy during the birthing process. Two new studies in 2003 further undermined the scientific premise of the high profile court cases that helped Edwards become a multi-millionaire and finance his own successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Dr. Murray Goldstein, a neurologist and the medical director of the United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation, said it is conceivable for a doctor's incompetence to cause cerebral palsy in an infant. "There are some cases where the brain damage did occur at the time of delivery. But it's really unusual. It's really quite unusual," Goldstein said.
"The overwhelming majority of children that are born with developmental brain damage, the ob/gyn could not have done anything about it, could not have, not at this stage of what we know," Goldstein added.
The medical and legal experts with whom CNSNews.com consulted said each case of cerebral palsy had to be evaluated on its own, but that medical science was increasingly exonerating the doctors involved in the labor and delivery where cerebral palsy resulted.
Eldon L. Boisseau of the Kansas-based firm Turner and Boisseau, specializing in defending doctors' insurance companies from medical malpractice lawsuits, agreed that physician-caused cerebral palsy "occurs only rarely."
"At the end of the day, I verily believe we will find [the cause of cerebral palsy is] all genetic," Boisseau said in an interview with CNSNews.com.
Dr. John Freeman, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., also believes there is little obstetricians can do to prevent cerebral palsy during delivery. "Most cases of cerebral palsy are not due to asphyxia," Freeman told CNSNews.com.
"A great many of these cases are due to subtle infections of the child before birth," Freeman said. "That is the cause of the premature labor and the cause of the [brain] damage. There is little or no evidence that if you did a [caesarean] section a short time earlier you would prevent cerebral palsy," he added.
'Heart wrenching plea'
But some of Edwards' critics say that as a trial lawyer, he relied more on his verbal skills than the latest scientific evidence to persuade juries that the doctors' mistakes had been instrumental in causing the cerebral palsy in the infants.
Edwards' trial summaries "routinely went beyond a recitation of his case to a heart-wrenching plea to jurors to listen to the unspoken voices of injured children," according to a comprehensive analysis of Edwards' legal career by The Boston Globe in 2003.
The Globe cited an example of Edwards' oratorical skills from a medical malpractice trial in 1985. Edwards had alleged that a doctor and a hospital had been responsible for the cerebral palsy afflicting then-five-year-old Jennifer Campbell.
'I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,' Edwards told the jury according to court records. "[Jennifer's] inside me and she's talking to you ... And this is what she says to you. She says, 'I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'"
Edwards' emotional plea worked. Jennifer Campbell's family won a record jury verdict of $6.5 million against the hospital where the girl was born -- a judgment reduced later to $2.75 million on appeal. Edwards also settled with Jennifer's obstetrician for $1.5 million.
Legal expert Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the book, The Rule of Lawyers, said Edwards' success in court was due in large part to his mastery of one important trait.
"Edwards was clearly very good at managing the emotional tenor of a trial and that turns out to be at least as important as any particular skill in the sense of researching the fine points of law," Olson told CNSNews.com .
"These are the skills that you find in successful trial lawyers. They can tell a story that produces a certain emotional response. It's a gift," Olson added.
However, Olson believes trial lawyers "have been getting away with an awful lot in cerebral palsy litigation," by excluding certain scientific evidence.
"[Trial lawyers] have been cashing in on cases where the doctor's conduct probably did not make any difference at all -- cases where the child was doomed to this condition based on things that happened before they ever got to the delivery room," Olson said.
'Junk science in the courtroom'
Peter Huber, a lawyer and author of the book, Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom, believes juries are typically manipulated with emotional arguments to aid the plaintiff's case.
"The jury sees the undisputed trauma first, the disputed negligence second, the undisputed cerebral palsy third. It is a perfect set-up for misinterpreting sequence as cause," Huber wrote.
According to Boisseau, the growing body of scientific studies showing that obstetricians are generally blameless in cerebral palsy cases has done nothing to alter the trend of multi-million dollar court settlements. Those settlements are reached, Boisseau said, even though "a lot of the plaintiff's expert science is unsupported, essentially junk science."
Many juries never even get to hear about the medical science or the origins of cerebral palsy because "90 percent of suits for obstetrical malpractice are settled" out of court, noted Freeman of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Huber does not expect cerebral palsy cases to fade away, despite the growing body of scientific evidence exonerating doctors.
"Despite the almost complete absence of scientific basis for these [medical malpractice] claims, cerebral palsy cases remain enormously attractive to lawyers," Huber wrote.
The judgments or settlements related to medical malpractice lawsuits that focused on brain-damaged infants with cerebral palsy helped Edwards amass a personal fortune estimated at between $12.8 and $60 million. He and his wife own three homes, each worth more than $1 million, according to Edwards' Senate financial disclosure forms. Edwards' old law firm reportedly kept between 25 and 40 percent of the jury awards/settlements during the time he worked there.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Edwards was able to win "more than $152 million" based on his involvement in 63 lawsuits alone. The legal profession recognized Edwards' achievements by inducting him into the prestigious legal society called the Inner Circle of Advocates, which includes the nation's top 100 lawyers. Lawyers Weekly also cited Edwards as one of America's "Lawyers of the Year" in 1996.
'The kids and families I've fought for'
Edwards has shifted his emotionally charged speeches from the jury box to the presidential campaign trail and is fond of re-telling the story of how his firm sued on behalf of a cerebral palsy-afflicted boy named Ethan Bedrick in 1996.
Ethan, born in North Carolina in 1992, allegedly developed cerebral palsy after a botched delivery. Edwards has explained to audiences at presidential campaign rallies that suing Ethan's insurance carrier, Travelers Insurance Co., to cover the boy's physical therapy was necessary because "Ethan's family had no choice.
"[The family was] forced to go to court to get their son the care he needed," Edwards has said of the case, which his law firm won.
Edwards has repeatedly cited Ethan's case as an example of "the kids and families I've fought for," and in the minds of many political observers positioned himself as the classic David against the insurance industry's Goliath.
However, Edwards has also repeatedly failed to mention that he had represented Ethan Bedrick in a lawsuit against the boy's obstetrician a year earlier in 1995. Edwards had alleged that the doctor was negligent in failing to prevent the boy's oxygen deprivation during labor and therefore had caused the boy's cerebral palsy.
Edwards settled the malpractice case with the doctor's insurance company less than three weeks into the trial, enabling Ethan's family to get a reported $5 million for medical and living expenses. The case was reportedly the largest medical malpractice settlement in North Carolina history.
'I'm proud of that'
Edwards is not shy about defending his legal career and says he would gladly put his record up against that of President Bush in this year's general election.
"The time I spent in courtrooms representing kids and families against, you know, big insurance companies and big drug companies and big corporate America -- I'm proud of that," Edwards told the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes in December 2003.
But Edwards' critics have a different view of the man; they say he has repeatedly acted to enrich himself.
"John Edwards' spin is always -- I am helping the little guy. But he screened his cases to the point that he only helped people that were going to make him richer," said the CNSNews.com source with extensive knowledge of Edwards' legal career.
Dr. Lorne Hall, one of the physicians with whom Edwards reached a confidential settlement in a malpractice case involving cerebral palsy, agreed, telling The Charlotte Observer in 2003 that "[Edwards] knows how to pick cases, and he knows the ones he can win."
Hall said Edwards was "very polished, very polite, dressed to the T's, smiling at the ladies." But the anonymous source for this story said Edwards displayed a "belligerent attitude" toward the medical profession.
"He sued nurses, doctors, hospitals. The reputation he had was -- he never wanted to hear that nobody did anything wrong. If you even walked by the door of an alleged malpractice incident, you were gong to cough up money too," the source said.
But John Hood, president of the free-market, Raleigh, N.C.-based John Locke Foundation said Edwards tailored the evidence in his court cases for maximum impact.
"In pursuing his client's cases he did what many other trial lawyers do. He bent the available evidence to fit what he wanted to say," Hood told CNSNews.com . "That is the nature of an advocacy system," Hood added
Hood does not fault Edwards for the strategies he used as a trial lawyer.
"He was an advocate for his clients. It was his job to make the best possible case for them," Hood said.
Many legal observers agree that Edwards was simply doing his job and doing it very well.
A North Carolina newspaper, The News and Observer, said Edwards "forged a reputation as one of the most skilled plaintiff's attorneys in the business."
Retired North Carolina Superior Court Judge Robert Farmer, who heard many of Edwards' arguments in court, had nothing but praise for the abilities of the former trial lawyer, turned senator.
"He was probably the best I ever had in the 21 years I had on the bench. Lawyers would come in to watch him, to see what he does," Farmer told the Chicago Tribune in December 2003.
'Scientifically unfounded'
Olson said lawsuits blaming obstetricians for cerebral palsy and other infant brain damage "may constitute the single biggest branch of medical malpractice litigation." Cerebral palsy is diagnosed in about 8,000 infants annually in the U.S.
But the recent scientific studies may make those lawsuits "scientifically unfounded," Olson explained. He contends that the medical malpractice suits that enabled Edwards and other trial lawyers to become rich and famous are crippling medical specialties like obstetrics, emergency room medicine and neurosurgery.
"A few years ago every neurosurgeon in Washington D.C., had been sued, and it can't be because the nation's capital gets only bad neurosurgeons. It's because it's too tempting to file against the competent ones because so many terrible things go wrong with their patients," Olson added.
Edwards, who opposes legislation that would cap damages in liability lawsuits, would not respond to repeated requests through his campaign offices for comment.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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May 6, 2002 8:45 a.m. http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york050602.asp
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alk to Republicans in politics, and you'll get a lurid picture of top trial lawyers riding around in private planes and giving lots of money to Democratic politicians, in order to insure that there won't be any legislative limits placed on their sky-high damage awards," writes Nicholas Lemann in a New Yorker profile of the Democratic senator and presidential hopeful John Edwards. "It would therefore be natural for Republicans to assume that the way to beat John Edwards is simply to point out that he is a trial lawyer. Edwards appears to view that prospect in the way that Br'er Rabbit viewed the prospect of being thrown into the briar patch....Edwards wants to run as a trial lawyer."
It's an audacious tactic for a presidential candidate, given the public's generally low opinion of that branch of the legal profession. But, as Lemann writes, Edwards casts himself as a good-guy trial lawyer, a man who won awards from negligent doctors and hard-hearted corporations on behalf of children who suffered terribly from medical malpractice. That record, he believes, will give him political protection against lurid pictures of him and his friends riding around in private planes and giving lots of money to Democratic politicians in order to protect his sky-high damage awards. Perhaps it will, although so far, Edwards's record has not been subjected to the kind of scrutiny that will come should he emerge as a factor in the 2004 presidential race (indeed, his work merits almost no
examination at all in Lemann's piece).
But one need not delve into Edwards's pre-Senate career to see a skilled trial lawyer at work. A look at Edwards's record on the Senate Judiciary Committee reveals the degree to which John Edwards the senator uses the extraordinary courtroom skills he developed as John Edwards the trial lawyer. In one of Edwards's most important recent votes, for example — his
decision to oppose the nomination of Charles Pickering to a place on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — Edwards's performance was almost a parody of the bad-guy trial lawyer. In an aggressive cross-examination, Edwards relied on misleading questions, misrepresented premises, and unfounded conclusions as he tried to force Pickering to admit wrongdoing. Although Edwards's style was extraordinarily smooth and polished, it was precisely the kind of exhibition that reinforces the worst images of trial lawyers — whether they are running for president or not.
CROSS TO BEAR
Edwards's questions to Pickering concerned a 1994 case in which three men were accused of burning a cross in the front yard of a mixed-race couple in rural Jones County, Mississippi. Two of the defendants made plea-bargain deals with the Clinton Justice Department's Civil Rights Division; prosecutors agreed to let each man off without jail time (even though one of them had shot into the couple's home on an earlier occasion). The third defendant, a man named Daniel Swan, chose to go to trial, saying he was drunk at the time of the crime and was not motivated by racial hatred. Tried in Pickering's courtroom in United States District Court, Swan was found guilty of all counts, and Justice Department prosecutors wanted him to go to prison for seven and a half years.
But evidence that emerged during the sentencing phase of the trial suggested that one of the defendants who got off with no jail was not only the ringleader in the crime but also had a significant history of racial hatred, which is required for long sentences under the federal hate crime statute. There was far less evidence of racial animus on Swan's part; in fact, seven witnesses, both black and white, testified that they were not aware of any racial animus he might have held against black people. While Pickering did not object to sending Swan to prison — he was clearly guilty of taking part in the cross burning — the judge believed that the seven and a half year sentence was too severe, given that a more culpable co-defendant was given no jail time at all.
Pickering asked Justice Department lawyers whether the seven-and-a-half year sentence recommendation was consistent with department practice in other areas of the country. When weeks went by without an answer, Pickering phoned Frank Hunger, a friend from Mississippi who was also a top official in the Justice Department, to express his frustration. Nothing came of the conversation — Hunger told Pickering it wasn't his area of responsibility — but the call caught Edwards's attention.
"You made a telephone call to a high ranking Justice Department official, according to the information that we have," Edwards said, "And you are familiar, are you not, judge, with the Code of Judicial Ethics that applies to you? You are familiar with that, are you not?"
"I am," Pickering said.
"And are you familiar with Canon 3(a)(4) of that Code which says, 'except as authorized by law, a judge should neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications on the merits of a pending or impending proceeding' [The ex parte rule is intended to insure that judges do not make separate deals or in any way favor one side or the other]. Did you make a phone call to a high ranking Justice Department official on your own initiative?"
"We had had — "Pickering began to answer.
"Not 'we,'" Edwards interrupted. "You. Did you make this phone call?"
"I've indicated I called Mr. Hunger and discussed the fact that I was frustrated I could not got a response back from the Justice Department, and I thought there was a tremendous amount of disparity in this sentence."
"Were the government prosecutors on the phone when you made that call?"
"No, they were not."
"So that would be what we lawyers and judges would call an ex parte communication, would it not?"
"Well, whether the government attorneys had been on the phone or not, it would have been a question of whether the defense counsel had been on the phone," Pickering said.
"Was the defense counselor on the phone?" Edwards asked.
"No, we had discussed that with them, and this was a follow-up conversation as to what we had discussed with defense counsel present," Pickering said.
"Were any of the lawyers in the case on the phone when you called Mr. Hunger?" Edwards asked.
"No, they were not."
"So that was an ex parte communication, was it not?"
"It was."
"In violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct."
"I did not consider it to be in violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct."
"Well, could you explain that to me?" Edwards pressed. "The Code says you should 'neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications in a pending or impending proceeding.'"
It was something of a Perry Mason moment, at least as far as normally sedate confirmation hearings are concerned. But there was a problem. Edwards, perhaps following his trial lawyer's instinct as he moved in for the kill, misstated the Code he had read to Pickering just moments before. The Code says this: "A judge should...neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications on the merits, or procedures affecting the merits, of a pending or impending proceeding." [Italics added] Pickering clearly stated that he discussed his intentions with both sides in the case and that the call to Hunger was a "follow-up" to see if the Justice Department was going to respond to his questions. None of that touched on the merits of the case (a conclusion a number of legal experts came to when they examined Pickering's behavior in the case). In addition, Frank Hunger, a lifelong Democrat who also happens to be Al Gore's brother-in-law, told the Judiciary Committee there was nothing improper about that call, adding, "I have known Judge Pickering for nearly thirty years and have the utmost respect for him as a fair-minded judge who would never knowingly do anything improper or unethical." But it didn't matter; Edwards had made Pickering look guilty.
NEW TRIAL? WHAT NEW TRIAL?
Another troubling aspect of Edwards's performance involved his questioning of Pickering on the issue of whether Pickering, in his frustration with the Justice Department, had ever threatened to hold a new trial for Daniel Swan. After their sometimes-heated discussions with Pickering, some Justice Department lawyers wrote internal memos discussing the judge's objections to their sentence recommendation for Swan. Edwards had one of these memos in his hand when he started his questioning.
"You told the government lawyers that you would on your own motion order a new trial, and when the government lawyer asked you, and I'm quoting now, 'What would be the basis for such a motion?' your answer was, 'Any basis you choose.' First of all, judge...did you say that you would order a new trial, even though no motion for a new trial had been made?"
"I did not," Pickering answered.
"So you deny that?"
"I've reviewed the transcript — "
"So you deny having said that?" Edwards pressed.
"I did not say that," Pickering said.
"So if the lawyers who were involved in that case have said that that's a statement you made to them, that would be a lie?"
"Senator, on the record, I mentioned — "
"Excuse me, judge," Edwards interrupted. "According to documents that we've been provided, this took place in a private meeting you had with the lawyers, when you told the lawyers you would order a new trial on your own motion, and when they asked you, and I'm quoting now, 'What would be the basis for such a motion for a new trial?' you said, 'Any basis you choose.' Do you deny having said that?"
Pickering seemed confused. "I have no recollection of having said that," he said, "and I do not believe that I said that. Now, I have not seen the document that you are referring to. The Justice Department did not show me the files that they had."
The document which Edwards was using — and which Pickering had not seen — was one of the internal memos written by prosecutors in the case. In that memo, the prosecutor said that in in-chambers discussions, Pickering was concerned that there were conflicting precedents over the use of the hate crime law (known in the memo as the "844 charge" because it is part of Section 844 of the Federal Code). Pickering wanted to send Swan to jail, but had strong doubts about the applicability of the hate-crime charge. This is the portion of the memo on which Edwards based his questions:
Pickering then asked whether the department would agree not to oppose a motion for a new trial on the 844 charge (which trial presumably would never take place), if Swan received the maximum on the other two charges. Pickering expressed a willingness to sentence Swan to 36 months on the other two charges if he could find a way to do it. He said that if the department does not agree to do this, he might well write a nasty opinion from our perspective, emphasizing the sentencing disparities and the injustice of applying section 844 in this case. He said that given his strong feelings against applying 844 in this case, he might well leave this task to the Fifth Circuit. After further discussion, I asked Pickering what would be the basis for the motion for a new trial. Pickering responded: 'Any basis you choose.'"
In a letter written after the hearing, Pickering said "I never indicated I would grant a motion for a new trial, sua sponte [on his own motion]." And indeed, the memo does not say that he did. In a normal proceeding, the defense would normally make a motion for a new trial, almost as a matter of routine, and Pickering seemed to be suggesting that he would look favorably on one, at least as far as the 844 charge was concerned. Or he might let the case make its way to the appeals court and be settled there. But Edwards apparently wanted to suggest that Pickering was willing to violate judicial ethics to protect a convicted cross-burner. Using a classic bad-guy trial lawyer technique, Edwards misrepresented a document that Pickering had never seen in an attempt to suggest that Pickering was lying to the committee. It didn't matter that Pickering was telling the truth; the damage was done.
OBSESSIVE PREPARER
"In a field where most people are either obsessive preparers of cases or theatrical stars in the courtroom, he was both" writes Nicholas Lemann of Edwards in The New Yorker. Whatever one may think about Edwards's fairness in the Pickering case, there is no doubt that his performance seemed both theatrical and quite well prepared. In fact, it was so well prepared that it left some observers curious — perhaps a bit suspicious — about how Edwards did it.
In the days before the Pickering hearing, the Justice Department and committee Democrats were haggling over the release of the internal memo which Edwards used against Pickering. The documents were the Justice Department's property, and the Bush administration has been famously
tight-fisted in its approach to making internal information like that public. Faced with a request for documents from the Judiciary Committee, the Department dragged its feet, not deciding to release them until the morning of the hearing. Then they had to be redacted, which took place in the hours before Pickering was scheduled to testify at 2:00 p.m. The upshot of all the indecision was that the department did not give the memos to the Senate until 1:45, just 15 minutes before the hearing began.
Edwards's questioning would have been an impressive performance if he had days to prepare. It would have been extraordinarily impressive had he gotten the memo at 1:45 and worked on his questioning until he actually confronted Pickering a little before 5:00 p.m. But Edwards did not even have that long to prepare in what was quite a busy day. He presided over the Senate from roughly 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. He was back on the floor of the Senate for a vote about 3:15 p.m., and also spent time there chatting with fellow senators. He attended a closed Senate Intelligence Committee business meeting that lasted until about 4:00 p.m. Finally, at some point after that, he left for the Pickering hearing and began questioning the judge about 4:55 p.m. (Pickering had not seen the memos because he had been in the witness chair the whole time.)
The sheer polish of Edwards's performance led some skeptics to wonder whether he had somehow gotten an early look at the Justice Department documents, perhaps from some opponent of Pickering who happened to have access to them. That would have been highly improper, given the department's strict control over records of its internal deliberations. But Edwards says he did not get the memo until late in the day of the hearing, well after it was released, forcing him to go through the material quickly. "Very quickly," he said a few weeks after the Pickering hearing. "Very quickly. I sort of looked at them as we were going into the hearing. I had seen before that, in some of the other cases, things that concerned me, and then we got those documents that laid out in more detail some of the things that he had actually done in this particular case."
Perhaps that is what happened. There is no evidence — other than the circumstances of timing and the fact that an "obsessive preparer" like Edwards would attempt such a detailed interrogation with virtually no preparation — to conclude that anything improper happened. But Edwards's performance, whether spontaneous or not, suggests that Republicans might do well to look closely into his record, both as a trial lawyer and as a senator. A man willing to do what he did to Pickering might not be quite the good guy he says he is.
That's great! But no Kerry/Edwards pointing pictures please. As you can see, they cause me much stress, anxiety, sleeplessness, concern and mental anguish.
I also think the Kerry/Edwards pointing is responsible for "lack of consortium" regarding my lovely wife. At least for the recent problems. I'm not sure about all the years before.
So, all should consider this a warning from me. I will sue if I see pics of Kerry/Edwards stupidly pointing at things. I've consulted the leading "scientists" and they have told me that all my various problems, and there are many many, can be directly traced to Kerry/Edwards stupidly pointing at things they see.
The photos of Kerry/Edwards pointing with their thumbs are especially damaging and may have something to do with global warming. This is indicated in a recent Harvard study of Kerry/Edwards pointing. The researchers that conducted the Harvard study reviewed thousands of pics of Kerry/Edwards pointing at various things. Ans sometimes nothing at all! Several of the Harvard researchers are now sterile. Two killed themselves in a large chopping machine used to make ketchup. Their bodies have never been found. Police think that they may be in a Heinz bottle on some table at Denny's.
We must stop Kerry/Edwards or the world as we know it will cease to exists!
please take me off your list
Thanks for the ping!
“Everybody in my family follows the medical profession,” said John. “They’re all lawyers.”
LOL!
That one gets me everytime.
Very funny.
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