Another crim def law blogger gets gone after
WTF? I guess the First Amendment ends somewhere in the panhandle of Florida, just like the ability to punch chads.
Conway, a former Broward assistant public defender now in private practice, said Wednesday he feels justified in his comments.
“She was giving people one week to prepare for trial and as soon as the blog exposed it through powerful words she stopped it,” he said. “And that’s why I stand by what I did. Sometimes the language the bar approves of doesn’t get the job done.”…”She is clearly unfit for her position and knows not what it means to be a neutral arbiter,” Conway wrote in his commentary.That posting on Jaablog, a courthouse weblog created a year ago to examine Broward County judges’ performances and legal issues, is protected speech, says Conway’s attorney, Fred Haddad.”There’s absolutely no reason that politicians, and that’s all judges are here in Broward County, aren’t open to criticism,” Haddad said. “We’ve got a [Florida Bar] grievance committee that can’t even conceptualize the First Amendment. You’re dealing with a group of people that are entrenched in protecting each other.”
FL BAR FINDS PC THAT SEAN CONWAY’S COMMENTS ABOUT ALEMAN MAY HAVE VIOLATED RULES. Outrage on this one is apparently spreading: Stuck on the Palmetto, The Florida Masochist, How Appealing, the Justice Building, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, & The Daily Pulp. I should note that if I have offended any judges on this blog….
December 14th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Please expose this. No one, and I mean no one, should have their license taken away because they had the temerity to criticize a judge, unless the attorney would be liable for defamation. So what if the language is cruel. This is America, we get to criticize elected officials.
Karl, we probably have an issue we can agree upon.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
The reality is as lawyers, no matter what issue or side, we have more in common than we are different, no matter how we “pose.” I think we all fear “speaking our minds” and that someone with a little more pull or popularity will recommend us to the bar disciplinary counsel even when we are sure we are in the right.
From the facts as I know them to be, Conway seems to be in the right, highlighting the disturbing practice that is all to common in large counties, listing more cases than can possibly go on any given monday.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:28 am
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Another crim def law blogger gets gone after, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.