Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011 | 2 a.m.
How do you know when a judge is threatening you?
When he says it isn’t a threat. Just a “wish.” A “gentle wish,” even.
Stick around long enough and you think you might cease to be surprised by the behavior of elected officials. But what Judge Allan Earl did during a hearing on Nov. 7 stuns me — I have just obtained a transcript — and should disgust, terrify and outrage anyone who cares about freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Let me distill: During a hearing on a retaliatory witch hunt disguised as a subpoena for information, Earl actually told a reporter he would be predisposed in her favor if she declined to continue covering a story involving a case before him.
I wrote about the case a couple of weeks ago: The case involves an attempt by lawyers for Jeff Guinn, the late governor’s son who is being sued by investors alleging financial shenanigans, to impugn the integrity of my “Face to Face” producer, Dana Gentry. They are doing so by abusing the so-called “litigation privilege,” which essentially keeps them immune from libel, to request documents to prove she has been plied with favors, a false charge that they insidiously raise without evidence by requesting documents that don’t exist or actually would negate their case.
Their tactics are obscene and should be condemned by all lawyers and journalists. But it gets worse because Earl, while he quashed the subpoena, acted as an enabler for the attorneys by all but threatening Gentry if she continued to cover the story. They wanted her sidelined; Earl tried to push her there.
You think I exaggerate? Let the judge’s words speak for themselves, via the transcript:
Earl asked Gentry to come stand by her lawyer (and mine), Don Campbell. Then, after announcing he would quash the outrageous subpoena, Earl said:
“Now I’m going to tell you because you’re a news person what my wish is. It is not my order, I would never, ever order such a thing. It is my wish — it’s not a threat; you understand that?”
How understated. How … non-threatening. But why, Your Honor, say anything at all?
It gets worse:
Earl: “It is my gentle wish that this case be tried in front of a jury and decided and not tried in television programs. Now, you may do what you wish, but that is my wish. We’re going to have to pick a jury out of this community that knows absolutely nothing about this case and to sit for days and days and days and ferret out all the testimony and give each party the benefit of the doubt until they have decided which way to rule. That is more important to me than anything, even your career.”
So the implication is he would be willing to destroy Gentry’s career to ensure an untainted jury pool? Really, judge?
Earl repeated that it’s “not an order,” but then he added, ominously: “You can go out today and report this any way you want; that’s your right under the Constitution, and it’s your right in your profession. But the less you are involved in this, the better it is for this decision.”
In shock, Gentry said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
Earl: “I said the less you are involved in this in the future, the better it is for this decision concerning the subpoena.”
Now there may be a different way to interpret that than: “If you stop covering this story, maybe I won’t let the lawyers for one side go on a witch hunt.” But if there is, I can’t fathom it.
(I tried to get a response from the judge, but to no avail.)
These chilling words from the judge came after a brief hearing in which Guinn’s lawyers — Brandon Kemble and John Bailey — tried to make the case that Gentry should produce documents to prove something for which they have no evidence (because it is untrue ).
Kemble actually claimed during the hearing, “We have a good idea of what is out there.” No, he doesn’t; he has no idea, or doesn’t care. I know what is out there and it does not back up his McCarthy-like tactics.
But, as I have said before, there is a greater principle here, as Campbell put it during the hearing. “If you do tell them something, then on another occasion don’t tell them something, then you’re clearly taking inconsistent positions with respect to how the news media responds to such subpoenas.”
Indeed. And as Campbell said so eloquently, the issue is “that you don’t drag reporters and news gatherers into a courtroom based upon this very, very scant and slender showing which is punctuated by nothing more than what would otherwise be defamatory material about this very, very well respected reporter and producer.”
Exactly. If they were not cowering behind the putative protection of the “litigation privilege,” these lawyers would be in court as defendants in a case they would have no chance to win because the defamation would be so easily proven.
I thought what these lawyers were doing was outrageous — and it is. But for a judge to hold a Damoclean subpoena over a reporter’s head is an unconscionable judicial overreach.
"I said the less you are involved in this in the future, the better it is for this decision concerning the subpoena."
------------------------
"So to speak" your Honor?
Jon,
This is NOT an isolated incident. The judges here are out of control with their own power.
Judge Doug Smith has threatened a defendnat that he would put the person who delivered the motion to recuse the judge in her case in jail and report that person to the NV Bar for practicing law without a licence. Anyone can deliver forms and filings to the court.
Please don't let up. It's time these judges were exposed for what they are - petty tyrants who have forgotten what their job is.
Sounds to me like the judge is asking her to not try the case in the press so as to not possibly taint a jury pool. I fully understand that. I truthfully have experienced two incidents where the press got it wrong. It happens. People tend to trust the press, but unfortunately, when they occasionally play loose with the facts, it is hard to undo the opinions they create.
Jon.
You where warned about the Judges in this town back in 2004 and all you wanted to do was Quiet the messenger with negitive comments on your show about the messenger.
'Justice' in Nevader...
Should scare the crap out of everyone.
If you have a 'legal issue', you are swimming with sharks.
I know Judge Earl by reputation and brief encounters through the legal system. He is a dedicated and hard working judge. It is readily apparent to me that he was just trying to preserve the integrity of the judicial system by ensuring a fair jury pool.
It is really apparent that the third estate is not concerned with fairness. Rather they're so accustom to slanting the facts to tell the story they want heard no matter how untruthful or damaging their skewed opinion is. I would say welcome to the real world Dana but you don't know what the real world is. It is not every litigant who can run to their powerful boss and get him to write a bias article skewed in their favor in hopes swaying the jury. Doesn't John see a conflict of interest in commenting on your "innocence" under the guise of exposing judicial corruption?
John and Dana want a fair system as long as it is fairer fo them.
I think it's funny when journalists announce their own personal horrors as if everyone else will share them. The horror spoken of here is a horror only to a journalist who thinks the freedom of the press (or freedom of the reporter, in this case) is the only constitutional right worthy of protection, or is at least superior to other ones. The right to a fair proceeding untainted by media influence is also a constitutional right. Judges balance those competing rights, which is their job, and this one does it perfectly and admirably in this case. If journalists were the judges of competing constitutional interests, we of course know there would be no realistic competition at all. It's always the story to be told or sold, for these folks.
John, ask any judge or lawyer who is not committed to you personally, or whose practice is not limited to represent journalists. You will find no outrage nor horror among them. They will say, "John, this is how the law works and is supposed to work. This judge has done well. If you doubt, go to law school and learn that the law is governed by principles and precedents that long precede you and will long outlast you." Good advice, I'd say.
Just another typical arrogant judge here in Clark County. Why is anyone surprised. We are subject to them, we cannot question their high and mighty hinie-nesses in the court room but we can vote! They can be voted out! I for one, do vote and I do remember these stories.
Jon, I'm concerned for you. I like you personally, and I definitely enjoy your show. However, you have taken your influential powers as a journalist and reporter and used this to sway the opinions of your viewers and readers concerning the situation your co-anchor, Dana Gentry is presently faced with. I'm not saying you are wrong. But, it is certainly a high stakes move against powerful lawyers, and a judge that was elected by the people. All of this in defense of Dana Gentry. Even if you win this fight in the lions den, you will probably, on a personal level, lose.
Allow me to give you a pertinent example. As a once young peace officer, I had a bright future ahead of me in the state agency that employed me. Then, the first Afro-American warden was appointed. He immediately began hiring a large percentage of minorities to comply with quotas set forth by the federal government. The predominately "good ole boys" of the officer and union ranks were outraged. This quite powerful clique at the time filed a reverse discrimination suit against the warden. As a person of standards and morals, I took offense to this action and went up against the officers and the union in defending these newly hired minorities. I resorted to some mighty extreme and brutal tactics in bringing the union to their knees on this issue. The union dropped their lawsuit. My tactics were legal, but questioned by some as to the ethics of my methods. In my eyes, because of the severity of the situation, I could have cared less what others thought. However, I knew there would be career consequences for me. And, there certainly was. In well over twenty years as a peace officer, I never made it past the basic rank at which I was hired.
I have no complaints about this. I did what I had to do that was right and accepted the consequences. Although they were, certainly unjust. I believe when all the dust has settled in the Dana Gentry ordeal, you will probably be in the same boat that I was in. You might well lose your television show, and even your present position as a journalist. You'll never know until it is too late who is connected to who that can, and will, make your victory of righteousness a deep personal consequence for you. Good luck Jon.
As any member of state or federal or national judiciary should qualify, they must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence, but not be attempting to influence persons in their rights of whatever those rights may be.
Also, a person of any status or employment has to discern if that judge is commenting on instigating an issue further than it is or simply making a casual remark on something, or just making a comment which has no relation to the case but attempting to bring some form of legal referencing in an aside comment.
Reading the article by Jon Ralston, thoughts revert to the country in which we have a part-time home (our other home is in France, in Montauban) in the Philippines, from now where I compose this comment from. The entire justice system and government culture is a total train-wreck at this time.
The judiciary Supreme Court of the Philippines has eight appointed justices including the Chief Justice, who were appointed by the illegal and massively corrupt Gloria Arroyo as then, self-appointed president who coerced the courts and the PSC to designate her as President.
That said, she controlled everything and now the PSC is being controlled, lobbied, coerced and payola-ed by the Arroyo Mafia, although she is no longer President as the elected President Aquino took over over a year ago, Arroyo still pulls strings.
She is now been charged for the 2007 poll fraud committed nationwide by the Commission on Elections.
But the justices are deciding in her favor, to release from incarceration and allow her to evade justice and go to foreign countries on the lame excuse of being treated for thyroid and bone disorders. She is simply escaping and being allowed by the Supreme Court to escape prosecution. There are much to this story on her first of 50 incidents of corruption and plunder, but seeing the Philippines is into such a political and legal mess right now, the Augean Stable of law in the Philippines has nothing on the small-scale justice system problems back in the USA. Count 'yer blessings!
It is obvious that your mind is made up about this case. It is just as obvious that the judge is trying to keep an open mind. "Freedom" of the press should be limited to reporting AFTER trial and not be allowed to influence the jury pool before trial. Y O U are not the judge and jury.The press in America seems to me to have done its best to take justice out of the courts by substituting opinion for fact.
Next election-Judge Allan Earl is HISTORY.
To my fellow bloggers;
I don't particularly like or trust news reporters and this opinion is only from personal previous encounters with their lies, negative insinuations and falsehoods. But, in this case, in my opinion, I must side with the reporters as to the subtle threat made by the Judge. I am kind of in the same boat, if my boss (suggests) that I do something lawful and proper in the course of my duty, I could pretty much conclude that this is considered and order and failure to abide by that order is pretty much grounds for insubordination. If my boss (suggests) I do something unlawful or improper, which is what I see here, then shame on him/her. When a Judge sits on the bench in a court room, there is nobody between The Judge and God when they (suggest) something, as long as it is lawful and proper. In my humble opinion, this (suggestion) was maybe practical and based on common sense, but not proper and lawful. Of all of the Bill of Rights, this one (Speech) is the most powerful and sacred or our Amendments. Good luck Jon and Dana with your argument. Just an old cop reflecting,
Gordon Martines
p.s. this could be a good start in cleaning up the corruption in this town.
For once that liberal bum gmag has it right. I have said it before, many businesses would like to locate here, and for that matter Arizona. the problem is the crooked legal system. how would you like to move your hard work and millions of dollars here only to have it taken away by crooked judges and lawyers, the good old buy system . Nevada a third world country.
Off topic, but why was Mark Alamode talking into his sleeve on your TV show? couldn't hear him or see him. Is he trying to hide his face? or hide from you? Now this judge? maybe something is wrong with you? Are you using the right mouthwash? Why don't you have a trap door in the floor to drop people like Alamode in a vat full of slime when they don't answer questions.
These comments from the bench are outrageous, as is the attempted use of the judicial system to muzzle the press.