Suing the News Media in the Age of Tabloid Journalism:
L. Lin Wood and the Battle for Accountability
http://comm.psu.edu/about/centers/first/200flspub5907.pdf
Interesting article offering LW's take on liberty, free speech etc, his rationale for litigation, and a summary of his Ramsey cases, good reading for those new to the case.
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Thanks, UK, I hadn't seen this before. It's interesting to see Wood talk about his major libel cases.
And it was exactly what I expect from Wood, what I've seen for 10 years now: in typical lawyer fashion, he talks out of both sides of his mouth.
While I agree with him about Richard Jewell and Miss Faber's egregious treatment by the justice system itself, that's basically what led the way for the media reporting unfavorable to both. Wood's barking up the wrong tree, but then, it's the only tree available in the forest of civil litigation.
When Wood sues a law firm like Haddon's, who represented Kobe Bryant in the rape trial, and the Colorado trial judge who repeatedly released SEALED testimony taken in closed court sessions and privileged medical information of the victim subpoenaed during pre-trial discovery on behalf of the defendant Kobe Bryant--whose very HADDEN LAW FIRM lawyers were the ones soliciting the SEALED EVIDENCE that got "accidentally emailed" to THE MEDIA TWO TIMES FROM THE JUDGE'S OWN OFFICE, then I'll be more likely to take Wood's white knight spin more seriously.
And yeah, if you're noticing, that's the same Hadden law firm who represented John and Patsy Ramsey for three years.
Where is Wood complaining about the innocent people whose reputations were dragged through the mud by Team Ramsey? Where are their apologies from the Ramseys? Where do they go to get THEIR reputations back? I must have missed that part.
If there were ever a case that needs the light of media scrutiny shined on it, it's the Ramsey case. The backroom deals and influence brought by the Ramseys and their legal teams will be legal history for decades to come. Without the media, the shocking political events we've witnessed would have never been brought to light.
In a familiar disingenuous whine, Wood complains that the so powerful, Goliath-like media's defense lawyers go after the plaintiffs in court and "they" use fear of further ruin to the reputation of the plaintiff bringing the suit, by dragging out in discovery every smear and historical incident in the plaintiff's life in detail, no matter how irrelevent to the suit or untrue, in an attempt to intimidate the "victim" into dropping the suit.
Ah, that would be EXACTLY what Lin Wood did to Chris Wolf, not only smearing Wolf within the confines of the suit depositions, but by going on TV and talking about Wolf like he was a sexual predator and also releasing those SEALED depositions and information to Internet gossips no less read and spread than jams.
Pot, meet kettle.
And the repeated, completely warped interpretation of Judge Carnes' OPINION and Lacy's OPINION about the CIVIL CASE evidence presented in the WOLF LAW SUIT actually "clearing" the Ramseys is just more spin; neither of these officers of the law actually rendered A JUDGMENT BY TRIAL in either a civil or a criminal case. Lacy was never a JUDGE, either, and she certainly wasn't a jury. Judge Carnes never SAW the CRIMINAL case files, nor were Smit's PowerPoint and ignorant interpretations of it ever going to be considered equal to the original evidence presented by LE, with witnesses, and experts, examined by the prosecution, defense, judge and jury in a CRIMINAL trial in the STATE OF JURISDICTION, COLORADO. The standards of evidence are not as stringent in a civil trial, as well, since no one is going to lose their freedom in a civil case.
The reality Wood skips over is that in the Wolf law suit which Carnes presided over, THERE WAS NO TRIAL. Carnes DISIMSSED that case after discovery, not after trial, because Darnay had not managed to get one handwriting analysis admitted due to the fact that his witnesses never saw the original ransom note. Also, Darnay carelessly never rebutted any of the nutty intruder speculations based on provably false claims of evidence which Smit claimed were evidence of an intruder, leaving the judge with only Smit's unrebutted testimony to accept as the truth--which is Georgia civil law. Carnes had only Team Ramseys speaking, IOW. Poor Wolf got screwed. Darnay was the worst attorney I've ever seen. And Team Ramsey got "more likely an intruder" spin for life.
And Lacy never took ANYONE to trial, proving a year after this interview with Wood when she arrested scammer PERV Karr why: Lacy had little knowledge of the evidence of this case personally. She agreed with Carnes because she was Team Ramsey, as her last act in this case set in stone.
In this interview, something Wood was not asked, by the way, was regarding how his threats of a suit against the BPD had such a CHILLING EFFECT on the investigation, it influenced the scandalous rendering of the case out of the legal agency that was investigating it and gave it into the control OF THE PRIME SUSPECTS, THE RAMSEYS. I'd say that should make any judge looking for actual truth and justice in their courtroom to consider the reality of the "CHILLING EFFECT" of giving that kind of power to private citizens because of the COSTS OF LITIGATION FILED THROUGH A LAWYER AS BLOODTHIRSTY AS LIN WOOD. We've certainly seen first hand how it has not just chilled the media reports on this case now, but frozen them.
As for the Ramsey v Fox suit, wherein the Ramseys (through Wood) attempted to, in the words of the judge, have the playing field all to themselves, the judge was 100% right in dismissing that case. The Ramseys not only appeared COUNTLESS TIMES in every media imaginable, they wrote a book where they freely named "suspects" and gave their opinions. Their shills did this countless times as well. But speak to the facts of the case which are not favorable to the Ramseys, and you should be symbolically garroted into silence. In Ramseyland, only King John and Queen Patsy are allowed the protection of free speech.
Well, Wood is a hoot, I'll give him that. Just another hypocritical Ramsey shill who made a fortune off a dead child: we have the money, we have the power, and we're going to profil while you will be ruined. But we're the victims, not you.
JonBenet who?
