FC: NY cops arrest high schoolers over web site with sex details

[David Honig]

At 06:32 PM 6/5/01 -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
>David Honig wrote:
>
>> I agree with you, but how could
>> the amateur journalists give
>> authoritative proof if the courts
>> don't allow it?  How is this
>> handled in other cases?
>
>I'm not sure what you are saying here.  If your "amateur journalist" has,
>for instance, a videotape of some guy having sex with Tom Cruise (to take a
>case ripped from today's headlines), then why would he need court-ordered
>discovery?  Res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

I think my answer is: you have to do your research before the cops show
up, or do some serious dumpster-diving afterwards, because the courts
won't help you find corroboration.


>Your question assumes you are already in court.  This means you are being
>sued and the clock is running on your lawyers.  Witness can also disappear,
>be disqualified, lie or not be believed.  Lots of luck.

$ure, but this is irrelevent to what the courts will/won't do, or 
accept, as defense for purported harassment/slander/true slander.  

How *would* you (not meaning just you SS) defend such a case?  Or have
the journalists really sinned, in a libertarian ethic?  Is this an
'expectation of privacy' thing, where you can publish the nasal length or
inter-ocular
distances of folks but not the length of their dick, even if true?

And, what are the sexual behaviors of Kirkland police? :-)