tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13073631.post7086124086741065406..comments2024-01-04T07:21:18.243-05:00Comments on John In Carolina: Responding to Addison's Motion (Post 1) CommentsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13073631.post-31156221196020854842008-01-27T16:44:00.000-05:002008-01-27T16:44:00.000-05:00Dear Drew,I'm not a lawyer either but lawyers tell...Dear Drew,<BR/><BR/>I'm not a lawyer either but lawyers tell me the same thing you say with regard to dismissal: <EM>in order to get dismissed prior to discovery and trial, they need to assert a plausible defense to ALL the counts in the complaint that affect [Addison]</EM><BR/><BR/>Thanks for a careful and most interesting post.<BR/><BR/>JohnJWMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08275423713054782480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13073631.post-79176907215668296932008-01-25T10:09:00.000-05:002008-01-25T10:09:00.000-05:00I’m not engaged in the legal profession, nor exper...I’m not engaged in the legal profession, nor expertly trained in the law; however, many of the comments about Addison’s motion highlight one of the structural constraints that the defendants in the civil action must contend with – in order to get dismissed prior to discovery and trial, they need to assert a plausible defense to ALL the counts in the complaint that affect their own particular situation. As a result, any single defendant who can reasonably (and, possibly, provably) dispose of all matters except one will still find themselves in the mix when the case comes to trial.<BR/><BR/>Cpl. Addison’s problem in this regard is that he will be (and is) forced to argue some rather bogus explanations for why he would not be found to be culpable in many of the counts of the complaint. This is the reason for some rather tortuous parsing of explanations such as “…it might have been false, but it wasn’t misleading” or “… it happened, but it wasn’t intentional”. Let’s all be serious here, folks – Cpl. Addison was a professional police officer charged (at least in part) with being the Department’s spokespersons to the public, and the media. In addition, his responsibilities to CrimeStoppers had a similar “prudent man” requirement. He’s going to have a hard time arguing that he was caught up in the emotion of the case because all of his colleagues in the Department were similarly afflicted. He’s stuck with suggesting that he is (and was) a professional police officer (particularly in light of his recent promotion) who was swayed by the statements and actions of others, and that his statements to the public and press were inappropriate as a result. The result doesn’t “hang well” with the predicate, and his attorneys must surely realize this.<BR/><BR/>If he can’t get himself dismissed from the case, his defense will be interesting – he’s going to have to throw some other DPD folks under the bus in order to save his own skin, and the perjury laws might not let him get away with that one. My suspicion is that he did indeed truly believe the foundational aspects of the hoax; i.e., that a crime did take place, that the LAX players were the perpetrators of that crime, and that there was a collusive “wall of silence” used to hamper the investigation. He will likely argue that he wasn’t personally involved in the actual investigation, and could therefore not be expected to be personally aware of all of its most minute details. But that “defense” will fall under the weight of the “police professional’s” obligation to determine facts, not just assertions made by other people not directly involved in the case. Part of the job he was supposed to do would reasonably involve separating fact from hearsay, and checking the validity of the “facts” against the source of the statements.<BR/><BR/>I would acknowledge that Cpl. Addison could not be expected to be the first person within the DPD with whom relevant facts would be shared by the investigative team; however, the fact that some of his statements were made well after exculpatory information was available, and that once the statements were made, minimal resources were exerted in correcting or modifying the statements, speaks volumes about the DPD’s commitment to accuracy, or Cpl. Addison’s attention to detail. Both situations will not help him much in the legal gymnastics that will ensue.drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04750606810537926186noreply@blogger.com