At 08:22 PM 4/4/01 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
In my article that I wrote yesterday evening, I said that the judge was reasonable. He did not live up to that billing today.
Judge Tanner simply said no, and didn't give much reasoning. He thought these were old accusations and had little relevance to the current trial. Bell's attorney said he was not required to show relevance before having subponeas served, but Tanner didn't seem to care.
At this point, Bell may not have *any* defense witnesses. The government has put on about a dozen so far, rapid-fire.
Also the judge sealed the *entire court file* including publicly-available motions, just because someone (ahem) was posting some of the documents on the Net. DOJ's London started complaining at the end of the trial today, and then got even more than he asked for.
Citing that ruling, Tanner's clerk refused to give me a copy of the government's 3/30 pre-trial brief. (I can't get it through the court clerk's office since Tanner has the file.)
This is looking more and more like a Kangaroo court every day. If this were picked up by the mainstream press perhaps many would start to wonder of Bell's idea wasn't so crazy after all. steve