What legal reason is there to publicize Michael Cohen&#39;s client list? As a lay person I'm a little shocked at the proceedings with the Michael Cohen raid, as it clearly has some issues with attorney client privilege. While it may have bearing on the court case, and I'm not positive it does, I'm curious why a client list or more specifically Sean Hannity's name would be made public when the details could be handled in private. This feels like a political hit job carried out by the courts rather than the wheels of justice doing their thing. Maybe we will find out more details that will make it more relevant. So far it seems like none little of the evidence has actually been reviewed. Help me understand the public/private nature of courtroom findings, requests as it pertains to this case.
This feels like a political hit job carried out by the courts rather than the wheels of justice doing their thing. The wheels of justice are doing their thing; the answer and legal reasoning is in the court transcript, as quoted and commented on by a news source: see Michael Cohen raid and first day in court. Transcript: 04/16/2018. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC. The overall argument made by the press lawyer - which convinced the judge and the court - is that if the third client's name is given to the court as sealed information, it should be public, according to the 1st Amendment and in the public interest. (Transcript edited and condensed by me) Mr. Balin: Your Honor, I apologize for interrupting. I`m a lawyer representing the press. ABC, “The New York Times”, “Associated Press”, CNN, and “Newsday”. The judge says, quote: I think you'd better come to the podium. Mr. Balin says, quote: I think I'd better too, your honor. I've sat and listened until we got to the point where I realized there's a public access issue here. Your honor, I'm Robert Balin from Davis Wright Tremaine. Thank you very much. ...There is no credible claim that this client`s mere identity is attorney-client privileged information. Michael Cohen makes the argument that it would be embarrassing to be associated with what he terms a raid at a house, in a home. Your Honor, I hardly need to remind the court of the intense public interest in the issues that are currently before this court. I look around and I see that every other seat is occupied by a member of the press. ...That's the very nature of the First Amendment access right, so that we the people and the press can monitor our institutions and have a rational basis for agreeing or disagreeing... ...It was Justice Burger who I think put it well. People in our open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing. That was in Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia many years ago. ...Your honor, I see no basis for denying public access. If your honor is going to order disclosure of this name, I see no basis for denying public access to that name. Maddow's comments: This is the lawyer for news organizations coming in and pressing this point. The judge at this point has basically agreed that she's going to take the name in a sealed envelope. The lawyer for the press comes in and says, if you're going to take that name, there's no good argument, there's no good legal precedent for keeping that name from the public. The secret name of Michael Cohen`s secret third client in his legal business, if that's going to be disclosed to the court, it should be disclosed to the people. And here is an interview with Balin where he explains the how and why of his arguments: Q&amp;A: Lawyer behind Hannity revelation at Cohen hearing speaks - Columbia Journalism Review. Other points: Help me understand the public/private nature of courtroom findings, requests as it pertains to this case. Court proceedings are public; nearly everything that happens in a court is public information (aside from issues of national security as decided by panels of judges and/or grand juries; or issues of safety for individuals and/or witnesses who are party to the proceedings). So far it seems like none little of the evidence has actually been reviewed. The nature and content of the evidence or its review has nothing to do with the identity of the clients. The issue is the secrecy of the client list, not the content of the relationship between the client and Cohen.
There is no such law mandating this layout, nor is there any law permitting the defendant to demand a change to it. The arrangement seems most likely to have been driven by security concerns when courts began removing "the dock" and letting the defendant past the bar to sit with his attorneys. One court has also concluded that it was meant to assist the government "because it bears the burden of proof." It's of course impossible to prove a negative like this, but I'll note that Kenneth Lay's attorneys raised the issue in the Enron case, and they were unable to cite a single case saying that the defendant has the option to sit closer to the jury. If they couldn't find it, it probably doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the government was able to find several cases saying that the defendant does not have the right to demand a change, though it did not have any cases saying that the layout is mandatory. Instead, it described itself as "traditionally" having a right to the table. In that case, the judge ended up splitting the baby. Saying that there was "no law" to inform his decision, he sat the government next to the jury during its case, and it sat the defense next to the jury during its case. That was quite a bit more generous than the Seventh Circuit, which has rejected the jury-proximity argument as frivolous. So there are some cases addressing the issue, but I don't know of any case where a court has actually looked at the issue and given any real consideration to the due-process implications of the substantial empirical evidence suggesting that the party closest to the jury enjoys an advantage.
In the US, it is not illegal to lie in general. This includes lying about someone: it's not illegal per se to lie about them. What is illegal is slander and libel: lying about someone in a way that hurts their reputation. The defamation doctrine in the US is generally a common-law doctrine (i.e. the rules and limits are based on court decisions, rather than on laws passed by legislatures), although it may differ state-by-state. Depending on the state, some defamation may be criminal; there is no federal criminal defamation. US defamation law is largely defined through its interaction with the First Amendment. While libel is not constitutionally protected, punishment for libel is seriously limited by the need to avoid either punishing protected speech, or chilling potential protected speech (i.e. discouraging people from saying something that would in fact be protected, because they aren't sure whether or not it's protected). Libel in the US only applies to a false statement of fact, or an opinion which implies some false fact. If it can't actually be proven incorrect, it can't be libelous in the US. The question of whether it's a statement of fact doesn't just depend on the literal speech; it includes things like the context, and is a question about what a reasonable person would think. If I were to claim that someone was "literally Hitler," for instance, no reasonable person would think I was seriously claiming that the person was the former leader of Nazi Germany. Now, no reasonable person who is familiar with Twitter would ever assume that the tweet meant Obama literally stood up in front of the UN and said "Please accept this nothingburger in place of a respectable climate plan." So, it only counts as libel if a reasonable person would think it implies some fact. But a reasonable person familiar with Twitter would most likely think Miesel is saying "The president's pollution plan is a pointless piece of political puffery planned to placate principalities and potentates." This is basically a matter of opinion. Even to the extent that it's not a matter of opinion, public figures in the US cannot win a defamation suit unless they show "actual malice:" the speaker must actually know or actually strongly suspect that their statement is false in some material way. It's not enough that a reasonable person would think "this might not be true;" the speaker themselves must doubt the truth of it (they must be reckless, not just negligent). Courts are also extremely deferential to defendants in these cases. While it is technically possible for a public figure to prove defamation, it is exceptionally difficult. If the person didn't know they were falsely attributing the quote, and honesty thought it was correct, they're in the clear. If the quote isn't supposed to be a statement of fact, but it implies false facts, but the speaker honestly thinks those facts are true, they're in the clear. Private figures don't have to meet the actual malice standard to prove defamation. They still need to show that the statement is a statement of fact or something implying false facts; if it's obviously a summary of something they really said, possibly with added editorial comment, they can't prove defamation.
You rightly went to http://www.classactionrebates.com/settlements/talentbin/ which is a reliable source. I would say it was a safe site. A quick search found this court document: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_case?case=5778378514805192456&amp;q=Halvorson+v.+TalentBin,+Inc.&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2006&amp;as_vis=1 which proves the existence of the case. I would say everything is legitimate
Florida bar membership is something that can be determined from public records to see if he is an attorney or not. I would be stunned if he was not. It could be that he was an enrolled patent agent prior to being admitted to the practice of law and has never updated the record. Alternatively, it could simply be that there was a data entry error. No large database is 100% accurate. For most purposes, the rights of an enrolled patent agent and an attorney admitted to patent law practice are the same in PTO practice, so correcting this error (assuming that it is one), even if it was discovered, wouldn't be an urgent priority.
Lawyers may break confidentiality with client permission. You can also break your own confidentiality and talk to the prosecutor yourself. The prosecutor's response is up to the prosecutor; however, they tend to not be super excited about giving immunity to a witness for the defense if they might want to prosecute the witness later (and courts often are fine with that), so the more they suspect about your true role the less likely they are to grant it. No. If the feds later find truly independent evidence (they have the burden of showing it's truly independent), they can prosecute. Some states give transactional immunity to witnesses (you can't be prosecuted for crimes you testified about for any reason), but the Fifth Amendment doesn't require it and at least the feds aren't bound by state transactional immunity. It's hard to prosecute, but is possible if prosecutors play their cards right. Yes, it does allow civil liability. There is no right against self-incrimination in civil matters, only criminal liability. If the forced testimony leads to a lawsuit that bankrupts you, too bad.
Does he have some kind of libel or invasion of privacy case? The description of the "art work" is somewhat inconclusive. I will assume that the red lipstick and blue eye shadow in the fictional poster are suggestive of that soldier's "makeup". If the World War Two soldier were still alive and a straight male, he might have a claim of defamation insofar as the poster portrayed him as having a sexual orientation which is inaccurate, detrimental to his reputation, and tending to dissuade others from associating with the soldier. Policies against sexual discrimination aside, no straight male likes being falsely characterized as to sexual orientation (in part because of the undeniably harmful, lasting impact something like this would have in his environment). The defendant's possible allegation that the "art work" was hyperbole would be unavailing. That is because the suggestive poster is likely to impinge on viewers a detrimental concept of the soldier even if it is obvious to those viewers that the poster was not an actual, color photograph taken of him during the World War II. In most jurisdictions in the US, the defamed soldier would need to file suit within a year from the publication of the poster (an exception is Tennessee: six months) because the statute of limitations for claims of defamation is shorter than most others.
Is it acceptable for person A (representing themselves) to refer to person B as &quot;their neighbor&quot; instead of by their name, or would that cause the suit to be dismissed? Omitting the neighbor's name in the pleadings &amp; proceedings cannot singlehandedly cause the dismissal of a defamation suit. The matter would result in dismissal only if the plaintiff repeatedly disobeys court order(s) (if any) to disclose that information. Before the proceedings get to that point, the plaintiff will have had one or more hearings to dispute the defendant's alleged need for identifying a non-party by name. When opposing to that disclosure, the plaintiff's goal is to establish that the false narrative about robbing a neighbor at gunpoint is defamatory regardless of neighbor's name. Keep in mind that the focus in a claim of defamation is the defamed person, whereas the relevance of details such as who the non-parties are pertains to context and evidence. Lastly, the fact that a party to the suit is a pro se litigant is irrelevant from both substantial and procedural standpoints.