Criminal Trials Aren't Playgrounds (was Re: Sethy needs ...)

[Seth Finkelstein]

>> At 11:18 PM 4/2/01 -0400, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>> And since John Young already threw me into the flaming-pit, I thought
>> I'd give the question a try in public.

"Blank Frank" wrote:
> He warned you, yet you attacked; so he defended himself.

	John Young warned me that I saw, quote: "Remember, do not e-mail,
telephone or visit me or you're subject to subpoena.". Well, I decided
to take that risk. I haven't been subpoena'ed yet. He didn't warn me
"Don't send me any private e-mail, or I'll try to get you publicly
flamed and denounced for that". Again, under the circumstances,
there's no point in taking offense, and it's not big deal.

	However, you have things severely backwards. I didn't attack him.
I in fact spent quite a bit of time assembling some information which I
thought would be helpful to him in his concern that Jim Bell get a fair
trial. I have tremendous respect for John, but that hardly means I agree
with everything he says. In particular, Jim Bell's defense attorney
appears to be someone doing the best he can in a difficult situation. And
concluding that the attorney's, e.g. "bedwetting with the feds" seemed
to me extremely unjustified. At the very, very, least give the guy a
chance to tell his side of the story. I'll repeat some references where
Leen has defended similar cases:

http://www.mndaily.com/daily/gopher-archives/1990/10/29/Man_jailed_for_saying_he_would_punch_Bush.txt

http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/shot283.shtml

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/971229/29mili.htm

	Note it's about the furthest one can get from a police state
that Jim Bell has a top-rated, experienced, lawyer provided to defend him.

	And it's a revealing measure of the thinking, that such statements
made privately, constitute (in your view) an attack that needs defending.

> Next time, RTFM.
>
> Sunlight is good.

	Misinformation is bad.

	And you might also consider that if I'm making a suggestion on
how to improve the prospects of the defense, then maybe, just maybe,
it's not the smartest idea to do it where the prosecution is certain to
read it.

	John, *this* is why I like to make my comments privately. It's
not because I'm trying to set you up. Rather, to me, ironically people
who may be next on the Fed's list are more problematic than the Feds.

__
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at mit.edu  http://sethf.com