No, I'm not completely cynical. It's important to have hope, and my hope is that I will eventually come across an honorable person or two in the legal profession and achieve some measure of justice. I think Obama and Eric Holder and John Conyers have the power to get politics out of the justice system (or at least greatly reduce it), and I hope they will do it. I think the key problem with our justice system is that the law is a self-regulating profession. Bad lawyers and judges are policed by people in their own profession. Regular citizens need to be heavily involved in the disciplinary process.
What haven't we covered yet that you'd like to talk about?
Legal Schnauzer has played a major role in exposing wrongdoing in the Paul Minor prosecution, a case in Mississippi that is frighteningly similar to the Siegelman case. Three men--attorney Paul Minor and former state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield--are political prisoners as we speak. A Bush-appointed prosecutor brought the bogus charges and a Reagan-appointed judge gave blatantly unlawful jury instructions that resulted in convictions.
As far as I know, I was the first reporter to write in an in-depth way about that case, and it now is fairly well known, thanks to excellent reporting by folks like Scott Horton, Larisa Alexandrovna, and Adam Lynch at the Jackson Free Press.
One of my goals from the start was to make Legal Schnauzer about more than my little case--to connect my experiences to larger problems with our overall justice system. The reporting on the Minor case probably is where I've been able to do that the most.
If some measure of justice is achieved in that case, then my time as a blogger/citizen journalist will have been worth it.
Thanks for talking with me, Roger. Best of luck on your legal action against UAB. And keep up the good work with Legal Schnauzer.
***
Part one of Interview with Roger Shuler
Hollywood Director John McTiernan’s documentary The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove
What haven't we covered yet that you'd like to talk about?
Legal Schnauzer has played a major role in exposing wrongdoing in the Paul Minor prosecution, a case in Mississippi that is frighteningly similar to the Siegelman case. Three men--attorney Paul Minor and former state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield--are political prisoners as we speak. A Bush-appointed prosecutor brought the bogus charges and a Reagan-appointed judge gave blatantly unlawful jury instructions that resulted in convictions.
As far as I know, I was the first reporter to write in an in-depth way about that case, and it now is fairly well known, thanks to excellent reporting by folks like Scott Horton, Larisa Alexandrovna, and Adam Lynch at the Jackson Free Press.
One of my goals from the start was to make Legal Schnauzer about more than my little case--to connect my experiences to larger problems with our overall justice system. The reporting on the Minor case probably is where I've been able to do that the most.
Thanks for talking with me, Roger. Best of luck on your legal action against UAB. And keep up the good work with Legal Schnauzer.
***
Part one of Interview with Roger Shuler
Hollywood Director John McTiernan’s documentary The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove
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