I’m sorry you took my story the wrong way. You didn’t see my story yesterday…when I pointed out that the man Mr. Walton killed had a criminal record involving theft. Rebecca Aguilar Fox 4 News.
This sort of self-serving faux-apologetic spin probably was a lot easier to pull off before the internet made it possible to spread the video of the actual event over most of the civilized globe.
An interesting update to the whole thing: Apparently the tv station that employs Aguilar has been trying to get the video suppressed throughout the blogosphere. I’ll keep that in mind the next time that wretched station finds its own freedom of expression under assault.
A further note: While IANAL, and Glenn Reynolds most definitely is, I find it hard to imagine that a single screengrab from a video for the purposes of comment on a news report would not be protected under the Doctrine of Fair Use. On the other hand, Glenn did take his video grab down.
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Sigh. Bill, I’ve been involved in the filk music community for a lot of years. Filkers write lots of parodies based on other people’s tunes. Even though that’s definitely Fair Use, and even has a Supreme Court case in its’ favor, the normal response of media companies (Disney being a most egregious offender) is, “OK, let’s take a little trip through the court system and make sure your particular use is Fair. We have legions of lawyers on retainer, and we’ll file the case in our home jurisdiction, which might be half a country away. We have the time and money to fight this. Do you? and how will your employer feel about being associated with an IP infringer?”
Until we get a loser pays legal system, it will usually be too expensive to fight this kind of thing.
I think in California something like this might qualify under the SLAPP laws - in which case the loser would pay.
Regarding loser pays: if we ever are granted the boon of such legislation, it should require the loser’s lawyers to pony up one third.
Civil damages would be nice, but I’m not sure how to put them in place - in theory the lawyer is merely the representative of his client. *
What would really put a damper on frivolous and malicious lawsuits would be professional sanctions against lawyers. Being unable to practice law for a year because of unprofessional conduct would probably slow down the abuse of the system and of their targets. But of course the bar is made up of lawyers and in practice a lawyer has to have a lot of high-profile scumminess to get disbarred even temporarily.**
In the end, I hope it’ll come down to some well-publicized lynchings of abusive lawyers, leading to reform. (Maybe tarring and feathering for first offenders.) Because the legal profession is clearly unwilling to police itself, and I think that if the public completely loses faith in the legal system, police, and the rule of law in general, society will collapse. (It would be nice if only the system of government were to collapse and society remained whole, but I don’t think that will happen.)
* Not sure how that theory works with class actions in which the lawyer goes trolling for clients, so I’ll tapdance away from that issue.
** There’s also the practical matter of discouraging malicious use of lawsuits while encouraging the use of the legal system to redress actual wrongs. I’m not sure how to address that, either, so I’ll tapdance away from that one, too.
SteveF is Gregory Hines?
It’s a metaphor. You see, tapdancing as an artistic dance style involves agility and quick movement, combined with a distracting noise as the dancer moves about. Metaphorically, a person having trouble with an argument may attempt several verbal ploys while avoiding the main point.
– This condescending explanation brought to you by Steve’s Condescending Explanations
At least I compared you to the best living tap dancer.
Gregory Hines died of liver cancer in 2002. Sorry.
Even five years dead he can probably tapdance better than I can.
So SteveF is Savion Glover, then?
Maybe. Savion teaches dance. I like his attitude.
Imagine, a teacher that wants students to learn.