Jammie Thomas May Face RIAA Trial Alone 143
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "With her trial coming up on June 15th, Jammie Thomas has received a motion by her lawyer to withdraw from the highly publicized case, Capitol Records v. Thomas. Ms. Thomas said in a written declaration (PDF) obtained from her by her lawyer that she was not opposed to the lawyer's withdrawal, and waived any hearing on the matter. The court papers submitted by the lawyer (PDF) also indicated that the RIAA was not opposed to the withdrawal — i.e. it graciously consented to Ms. Thomas having no legal representation — but was opposed to any continuance (i.e. the RIAA wants to make sure that Ms. Thomas does not have sufficient time to find other legal representation, or to prepare to handle the trial herself, or to enable new counsel to prepare to handle the trial). Nice of them."
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Bought off or warned off?
Re:Bad case (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not terribly convinced Jammie Thomas is a great case to fight the RIAA with;
Have I misunderstood the paperwork? reading between the lines it appears her lawyer is withdrawing and he is concerned that he has information contradictory to the line of argument his client wants put forward, and as an officer of the court, money matters aside, he feels he cannot go on.
I read it differently. The motion is filed for in camera review, because it contains information that would be of use to the plaintiff, so he wants to keep it limited to just the judge. It's quite common for a lawyer to have information that contradicts his "official" stance in the case, so such information by itself probably wouldn't constitute a reason to withdraw.
It appears that money *is* the primary factor here. Jammie Thomas owes him a lot of money, and even though she's promised to make payments, he doesn't want to allow her to dig herself in deeper. He tried once before to withdraw from the case, but the court refused him permission to do so. This may have had something to do with his rather lackluster performance during the previous trial...
But... she's got a case, doesn't she? (Score:1, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammie_Thomas
"A hard drive containing the copyrighted songs was never presented at the trial."
"The judge in Thomas' trial ordered a retrial because recent case law has cast doubt on the theory of "making available" as sufficient for infringement."
Re:When your lawyer withdraws, you're probably gui (Score:5, Interesting)
When your lawyer won't even stick around to see you get torn apart in the courtroom, perhaps it's time to cut a deal.
I'm sure she tried hard to do that. But what the RIAA has no doubt done is to raise the settlement bar to a number she can't afford. Partly out of retribution. Partly out of a desire not to see the case settle at this juncture, because, in its present posture, the case is an embarrassment to the RIAA and a stern rebuke to their moronic legal theory. Partly because they know she's defenseless, having either no lawyer or having a lawyer who's there only involuntarily.
I know these guys. This is how they work. They smell blood.
Re:When your lawyer withdraws, you're probably gui (Score:5, Interesting)
Ray, I'm curious why you haven't said much at all as to why her lawyer might be withdrawing from the case. Aside from your customary, thinly-veiled swipes at the plaintiffs, I don't see anything addressing this. If her case is as strong as you have been implying consistently in your comments over the past months (and I think I've read every single one of them), it certainly seems odd that an attorney would bail on a slam-dunk case like this one. Surely there has to be another (more objective) explanation or two?
Thanks, /HJ
p.s. I'm not trying to be a troll, and I happen to dislike (and disagree with) the RIAA and their tactics as much as anyone else here. But it's equally hard for me to stomach an ostensibly neutral (in the sense of not being involved with this case), eminently qualified observer such as yourself constantly cheerleading for the defense, while giving no quarter whatsoever to the possibility that the opposing side's arguments might have at least some merit.
Re:When your lawyer withdraws, you're probably gui (Score:5, Interesting)
Ray, I'm curious why you haven't said much at all as to why her lawyer might be withdrawing from the case. Aside from your customary, thinly-veiled swipes at the plaintiffs, I don't see anything addressing this. If her case is as strong as you have been implying consistently in your comments over the past months (and I think I've read every single one of them), it certainly seems odd that an attorney would bail on a slam-dunk case like this one. Surely there has to be another (more objective) explanation or two?
Not NYCL (and IANAL to boot), but I don't think this case is a "slam-dunk". Yes, the judge messed up big time with that jury instruction, and with a binding precedent that the plaintiff must show actual distribution (as opposed to "making available"), the RIAA's case doesn't look all the rosy. But there's still one issue that I don't believe has been resolved - do the downloads made by MediaSentry (under whatever name they're using this week) constitute unlawful distribution? Because that is the *only* distribution that the RIAA's goon squad can actually prove, and there's some case law that seems to say that the distribution has to be to the public, and distribution to agents of the copyright holder don't count.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to admit I'm sort of puzzled about this whole thing. I'm not a Lawyer, but I would happily offer to assist if I was; I've done loads of non-profit volunteer work. A lawyer friend in Nashville recently told me he would volunteer 80 hours to any RIAA case, if it was local.
They are HATED, and some of the people who hate them are Lawyers; there should be volunteers coming out of the woodwork.
Re:When your lawyer withdraws, you're probably gui (Score:5, Interesting)
the case is an embarrassment to the RIAA and a stern rebuke to their moronic legal theory
I have never expressed any opinion about the underlying case; I am not familiar with the facts of this particular case.
So which is it?
Fair question. Let me clarify.
I have never expressed any opinion about the underlying facts. I.e., I don't know what Ms. Thomas did or didn't do, or what was going on with her computer, etc.
I do know that (a) Jacobson's testimony, upon which plaintiffs' entire case rested, was bogus and inadmissible; (b) the plaintiffs' legal theory, which has now been rejected by the Court, was bogus; (c) plaintiffs have no evidence that defendant was a "distributor'; and (d) their statutory damages theory is unlikely to pass constitutional muster.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
They are HATED, and some of the people who hate them are Lawyers; there should be volunteers coming out of the woodwork.
I think the problem here may be that Jammie Thomas' case looks like a lost cause. As I recall the RIAA has said publicly that they'll have no problem proving actual infringement (they had Media Sentry actually download some files from Thomas' alleged share on Kazaa), there was a serious possibility that Thomas may have deliberately handed over a hard drive that wasn't the original one as well. And don't forget that the jury very obviously thought she was lying, they could have awarded only $750 a song damages, but they chose $9,250 a song.
While the RIAA is evil, Thomas isn't doing those who oppose the RIAA a favor by going to trial again. She's very likely to loose, and that'll set a precedent in the RIAA's favor.
It is pretty scummy of the RIAA to oppose a continuance though, but then again, we knew they were evil already so it's not surprising.