At 12:03 PM 8/19/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:

On Sun, 18 Aug 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

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At 3:29 AM 8/19/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:

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I suspect they are trying to get a judgement against "John Doe", in the hopes of tracking him down later.

Actually, if I had a sizeable judgement against such a John Doe, I could probably find a private detective who would find the dude for a contingent fee. Wow, a whole new class of factoring (commerce definition) opens up. Get me a lawyer....

Sure, there are collection people who do this regularly; it's also possible to sell judgements for a fraction of their face value.

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Lawyers out there can and should correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe either the criminal or civil justice system has the concept of a "John Doe" trial! The ability to have the advice of an attorney, to confront one's accusers, cross-examine witnesses, and mount a defense, and all that constitutional stuff. Rather hard to do if the trial is in the past tense.

Can you cite an example of such a "John Doe" trial in the U.S.?

Not exactly, but judgements against John Doe's or even "$956,334.34" are common. Typically they are default judgements where a property seizure is involved.

"The United States of America v. $534,444.00" and "The United States of AMerica v. One Red Porsche" is a common theme.

It is possible to name unknown defendants in a suit - the tradition is to name them as, literally, "John Doe" or "John Does 1-6, unknown Washington County Sheriff's Deputies". The idea is that at some point prior to trial you'll learn the names of the defendants and then ask the court for permission to amend your complaint to add the newly found names. (e.g., Oregon Rule of Civil Procedure 20(H): "Fictitious Parties. When a party is ignorant of the name of an opposing party and so alleges in a pleading, the opposing party may be designated by any name, and when such party's true name is discovered, the process and all pleadings and proceedings in the action may be amended by substituting the true name.") But naming someone in a suit is not sufficient to give them notice that they've been sued, so that they know to file an answer and otherwise defend themselves. At least in Oregon (state & Fed courts, since Fed courts borrow the state's rules for service of process, Fed Rul Civ Pro 4(e)(1)), service by publication (as mentioned in another message) is only allowed where the plaintiff files an affidavit that they have tried every other appropriate means of service and they have been unsuccessful, or that they have reason to know it will be unsuccessful. ORCP 7(D)(7). Service by publication is relatively rare. So Tim's correct (at least as far as I know, and I sure don't know everything) when he says that John Doe *trials* are essentially unknown - because if defendant(s) don't appear for trial but have been served, the plaintiff can get a default judgement against them - which makes a trial unnecessary, at least for those defendants. It's also possible (sometimes) for a defendant to overturn a default judgement and ask for a real trial, if they can show that there was a good reason why they didn't respond initially. Bad (or unattempted) service of process is usually a good reason. The John Doe lawsuits are more likely to falter at the service-of-process stage; before you get to ask for a default judgment, you've got to prove that the defendant was served. And if you don't even know their name, it's tough to serve them with the summons & complaint. No service, no judgement. The connection between the service-of-process problem and the in rem cases Black Unicorn mentioned (e.g., "United States v. $405,089.23") is that the owner of the property is supposedly put on notice by the seizure or attachment of the property itself. A court can exercise jurisdiction over *stuff* (e.g., property) and enter a judgement against the stuff even if it hasn't gained jurisdiction (via service of process) over the person who owns the stuff. In the most common seizures, the stuff is seized from one or more people; those people are also given notice of the seizure and their right to contest it. (which is not to say that I'm a fan of forfeiture - I'm not - but the cases I've seen/worked on haven't suggested that lack of notice is a problem. Claimants/owners/possessors don't always understand the notice they're given at seizure, and they don't always bother to act within the awfully short deadlines (10-15 days, in some cases) required to file a claim. But people do get (arguably inadequate) notice.) To some extent, in rem jurisdiction is practically necessary - otherwise it'd be possible to have property in a wrong place, or creating unwanted/harmful effects, which could not be legally moved or changed without service of process on the owner - who may be dead or travelling or uninterested or just hard to find. If cryptoanarchy becomes more prevalent, and it becomes more difficult to trace ownership and control of interesting stuff (e.g., physical or intellectual property, and/or "bots" of one flavor or another), look for more in rem actions, not fewer. (I can't think of an example of a John Doe criminal proceeding, except that I believe grand juries can hear testimony and investigate crimes where a target has not yet been identified. But that's a very early stage of criminal proceedings where the defendant doesn't have many rights even if they are identified; so the lack of notice isn't much of an injury.) -- Greg Broiles |"Post-rotational nystagmus was the subject of gbroiles@netbox.com |an in-court demonstration by the People http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |wherein Sgt Page was spun around by Sgt |Studdard." People v. Quinn 580 NYS2d 818,825.