Thursday, December 30, 2010

Horse-trading in court

You gotta love Judge Mahoney over in Rockford. He's the judge who is hearing the Federal case of Seipler v. Cundiff et al., the December 15th transcript of which has finally attracted the attention of the Northwest Herald.

Cal Skinner has been publishing portions of it for almost a week.

If you don't chuckle at the back-and-forth that is going on that courtroom, you'll need to take more "silly" pills.

The need to complete depositions is obvious. For example, in Part 7 today on www.mchenrycountyblog.com/ the incomplete deposition of Dr. Meyer, a psychologist who does many evaluations for McHenry County court cases and who is a friend of and contributor to Sheriff Keith Nygren was taken several months ago, comes to light. The judge had apparently assigned four hours for that deposition, and the associate from the office of the sheriff's lawyer, James Sotos, used up 3 1/2 hours of the four.

Zane's lawyer wanted 1 1/2 hours with Dr. Meyer, and the judge gave him an hour.

That's a recurring theme through the hearing. The lawyers ask for more time; the judge gives less. This is, of course, a lesson that we should all learn. You always ask for more and expect to bargain (i.e., "negotiate" or, as with a judge, accept what you are handed). But ask for more...

You'll see frequent references to the "Monell theory". What's that? For a lot of information, go to http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/128567.html It looks to me like "failure (of government) to train (properly) as a theory for establishing governmental entity liability".

It wasn't long ago that I was told that deputies in rollcall were told to "just mark everybody down as White." Now there's a novel way to avoid racial profiling. And now it looks like that's exactly what was happening. Is it Deputy Bruketta who is said to have written at least 140 tickets to Hispanic drivers who miraculously became White (Caucasian) on their tickets?

And what about all those tickets that were not prosecuted? The Sheriff's Department "found" a second list, after the first one was produced during discovery. Should every ticket written in the last four years be audited and accounted for?

At what point should a sitting Sheriff be removed from office? Nygren is the one who said he investigated racial profiling and it wasn't occurring. The problem with removing him is that then he gets to sit in Florida in the sun and still draw his paycheck while the fight goes on. Maybe a starting punishment is to force him to hang around McHenry County during the dead (oops; Freudian slip?) of winter.

8 comments:

Notawannabee said...

Believe what you want to believe, but NOTHING Milliman says is believable. He never had an iota of credibility and now this tops the cake. You would believe him if he said he killed Cock Robin just because it is anti- Nygren.

Gus said...

OMG, Cock Robin is anti-Nygren?

mustardmedic said...

He is a Magistrate, to refer to him as a "Federal Judge" is incorrect. Perhaps you should read up on the Federal court structure and report accurately

MindlessWizard said...

man, zinged again by Harvard's p.i.t.a

He's zinging you right and left Gus!

Gus said...

Whiz, enlighten me. I don't have a clue what a "p.i.t.a." is.

MindlessWizard said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Phillip said...

The sky is falling. The sky is falling. We have a PITA. Come on Gus, you know what that is. Nomenclature, it’s all in the nomenclature. Whether Magistrate, Judge or maybe Justice of the Peace, I think the major PITA is the useless lawyers that work on contingency to hopefully get a big payday settlement.

DirtyNed said...

Are you being rhetorical? Pain In The Ass? PITA

I surfed in after reading the NWH and this is just too funny. Better than the funnies. Isn't the election over? Bianchi vs Nygren vs Zane vs Mahon VS Gus. . Hard drives and secretaries. Bailiffs with thumb drives and attorneys ratting out the boss. Deputies writing passengers and others not filing out ticket forms right. Yes, better than the funnies.

Notawanbee your quite correct. No credibility. There must be some credibility and from what I've read there is a big lack of any credibility currently standing in Rockford. Nygren is a public person so he is an easy target but where's the proof? Just because someone says something, does not make it true. If the glove don’t fit, we must ….. So there is the issue small issue of evidence. When all is done, is Jose Rivera a just another public target or is he a private citizen? Is he going to be made rich after he sues Millman and Zane for the possible slander? Maybe the other deputies named will have a lawsuit too? Seems they have been drug through the mud. Smarter people than me ask these same questions. I wonder how many people have said things they wish they could now retract. The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry. ( John Steinbeck)

I was reading the NWH comments and Zane's followers seem to think their comments have sway with the federal court. It all sounds trumped up to me. Based upon subtle tells- there were three or four people are using several screen names. Ironically none that I see here however I have yet to read all the entries.

Now I expect Millman to sue Nygren for some dastardly deed and want money to go away.

Lastly is Cock Robin a metaphor for one of the protagonists?

“All the birds of the air
fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
when they heard the bell toll
for poor Cock Robin”

Alas, hatred is a powerful motivator