Hey stoid. I don’t understand most of the legal stuff here but I hope that you kick some ass. Keep us posted.
There are a good many folks in GD who are smart enough to handle a lawsuit; a lot of what I do isn’t rocket surgery. I sure wouldn’t recommend it, though. The vast majority of people I know who try to handle their own cases fuck them up very, very badly (I do not mean you, if you say you are competently handling your own case I have no reason to doubt you). There’s usually one way to do it right and a thousand ways to irrevocably fuck up a case, and opposing counsel can be very, very good at exploiting the fuckups. By way of example, I have a case where a couple got advice from a non-lawyer staff member at a law firm on how to answer their own case. They botched it and got a default judgment against them for $30,000 plus. The agonizing thing is that they had an affirmative defense to to the case, and had they had found a competent attorney to answer properly for them they would have owed nothing. The traps one can fall in can be devastating.
Sigh. A cautionary tale.
The last “pornographer” I knew to decide to self-rep owned a sex shop that got raided by the police, resulting in charges. He was sure in his water that something was wrong (this self-serving sense of injustice is inevitable in such cases - 50% of litigants have it, because 50% lose. And every one of that 50% who lost blames his lawyer.)
He figured he was a smart guy, he could read, he could run a business, so he tried to educate himself on the law. Started (as the lay person always does) with the laws he has heard most about and went to the local constitution. There he found a provision that said that you can’t vote twice in an election.
This provision is obviously designed to prevent ballot stuffing.
Now we have a system of preferential voting. You vote 1 to whatever down the list of candidates. If no-one wins outright, then the vote counting progresses through preferences until someone does. Effectively, the loser in the first round notionally drops off and the number 2 votes of the people who voted him number 1 are distributed until… We Have a Winner (ding ding ding!)
So pornographer decides this is in fact in breach of the provision of the Constitution I mentioned above. It’s just not, but he can’t be told.
But he takes the logic further. Since we have had preferential voting since the 1920s, he figures all legislative bodies since then have been voted in illegally! (Shock, horror!). And all judges, public servants, etc, appointed since then have been appointed illegally!! (Oh, the humanity!) So there is no-one legitimately appointed to rule on the legitimacy of his arguments.
The entire country was being run as a giant fraud, he concluded.
He figured once anyone saw his arguments, they would be compelled to agree with him, so he sent them to everyone in authority he could think of (written in that pseudo legalistic style so beloved of cranks). When they ignored him, he figured the only reason they were doing so was out of self-interest.
He decided the only way to cut the Gordian knot was to write to the Queen (because she wasn’t voted in by anybody). He set out the “problem”, and finished the letter with the assertion that “if I don’t hear from you within 14 days, I will assume you have appointed me de jure Attorney-General with all the powers necessary to rectify all this”.
The Queen, obviously, ignored him. It must indeed have been an intoxicating moment for him when 14 days passed and the power to run the country coursed through his veins.
Since he was then Attorney-General of a whole country, he started appointing Justices of the Peace and other functionaries, even an archbishop.
He then had these officials swear out warrants before his newly minted Justices of the Peace to arrest every public official he could think of. Because the officials didn’t act on his arguments, they must be guilty of treason, he figured. Obvious, really. No-one actually got arrested, of course. Just amused when they got these warrants in the mail.
He was just a minor letter-writing pest up to this point. The real government officials just ignored him. However, he and his mate the archbishop got into trouble when they started charging gullible people money for driver licences and car registration. “Gullible” obviously does not begin to describe the touching stupidity of people who would pay a pornographer for driver licences.
The trial was a hoot (except for the poor SOB who had to prosecute it). The archbishop sat in the dock in full ecclesiastical robes he had bought for the occasion. The pornographer sat at the Bar table with a mountain of old-fashioned continuous paper printouts full of questions for cross-examination of the police officers. The questions were in the style of “Isn’t it true that you are guilty of high treason?” “Isn’t it true that the Commissioner of Police is guilty of high treason?”. The prosecutor got sick of objecting and the judge just got to the point of saying “Next question!” at the end of each without the witness having to answer it. They were convicted, got fined, kept lodging vexatious appeal after appeal… eventually after some decades, the pornographer died. He was utterly impecunious. He was still furiously thinking up strategms for his magnificent vindication.
I emphasise that these people were not doing this for lulz. They were deadly serious.
This illustrates (albeit in an extreme way) how a person not trained in the law can go off the rails. There is a certain bizarre “logic” to his position. He has taken a simple idea and thought of it as having the unassailable correctness of a proposition from Euclid. He could not see that it could be wrong. He has then taken it to a conclusion that in the real world was so silly as to give any ordinary person pause for thought. But that Euclid mindset has prevented him from seeing it.
And therein is the tragedy. He and his mates just did not grok legal thinking.
I hope I am wrong, and I genuinely wish you the best, but you are showing some of the early signs of this. “Laser-like focus” is what some people call obsessionality. Seeing the case as so hugely complex that it would make a lesser person’s head spin is another sign. (Laser like focus actually means being able to master the complexity but cut through it to the one or two critical issues.) Being proud of producing a vast mass of documents is yet another. Paranoia about the legal system as a scam in which all judges and lawyers live in a bubble and won’t let you play is another sign. As is the unshakeable sense that you are “right”, that it is all so shatteringly obvious, that villainy besets you on all sides but that ultimately you will be vindicated (in the face of abject failure to this point).
Now no doubt you don’t think about your own thought processes in these terms - you would cast them in language that sounds eminently reasonable to you. As did the bloke I spoke about above.
One encouraging sign so far is the absence of referrence to the Magna Carta or the US Constitution.
Once again - you are best served by getting a lawyer.
I read the OP. I scratched my head in confusion. I’m only a litigator.
Some nutjob just starts making shit up and actively creating issues for himself in a totally insane way…and because his business was sex-related, why, his tale and mine are remarkably similar!
(backing slowly away…) Okee dokee, Noel, I sure can’t argue with that steller logic, no sir… well, gotta go now! Bye!
I know. I’ve been and am very concerned that there will be some dumb little detail, some stupid technical bullshit that I had absolutely no idea about, and whoops!
Even though I’m relatively fast on my feet most of the time and very comfortable speaking extemporaneously, this is pretty large. I’m not really sure that there will be any oral argument, but if so, I just hope they batter me with questions, I’d be fine with that.
What is that long list at the end of your OP?
In his own words:
Thank you! I surely shall…
I have a va jay jay.
Ooh, cool find for the lawyers from this office supply freak. Jalema Clips!. Not a very cost-effective solution for long-term storage, but for active files? FAAAbulous! (I hate that top-bind…what a pain.)
Actually, the point Noel Prosequi was making with his anecdote was the same point that many posters made in the thread: that when one represents oneself in a lawsuit, one often becomes blind to what’s important, how one should present things, and most fundamentally, whether one’s theories hold water. Noel’s story is an extreme example of a litigant who was so invested in his own theory and research that he failed to evaluate said theory and research objectively, and thus took things to a ridiculous extreme. A lawyer, who is not emotionally invested, may be better able to evaluate arguments and theory, and assist a litigant in presenting a more persuasive argument. Thus, the oft-repeated advice here to get a lawyer.
At first I thought your post was a brilliantly satirical riposte. But I’m beginning to think differently.
Again, Stoid, I wish you nothing but the best in your endeavor. And I understand why you are not retaining a lawyer. It’s unfortunate, but I know that good representation can be expensive, and choices have to be made. So I’ll simply say: good luck.
The pornographer coincidence (while true) was a hook to tell the story. I am not trying to say that fact alone is central to some parallel between his case and yours.
You are obviously engaging and smart (insofar as articulacy is a heuristic measure of smart). I get that you can’t afford a lawyer. I get that you feel you have to do this because your back is against the wall. I am concerned, however, that you are at risk of seriously losing perspective in a way that an outside voice might prevent.
I have been reading this with interest and learning a thing or two.
I noticed that stoid say she has a girlfriend who is a lawyer, and other lawyer friends who occasionally advise.
Are you sure they think you are doing the right thing and not telling you what you want to hear while minimizing conflict in your personal relationship while keeping distance in a professional one?
Your first trial lawyer was a family friend too, right?
Is it that all lawyers are scum, so to speak, or of the ones you come across, you are not sure how to evaluate their skills with respect your particular case?
You haven’t said yet what the actual amount of money involved in the case is, but you have said that you can’t afford representation.
If there is money to be had in winning, and it seems like that is why you are pursuing this at all, then, is it possible that either there is not enough in a possible contingency for a skilled attorney to justify financing the case on your behalf, or that said attorney considers the likely payback with the ideas of what it would be like to work with/for you and decides to pass?
I am not a lawyer, but my experience gives me some level in comfort in discerning people when I choose to.
You already heard some lawyers give you the standard reasons why not to represent yourself, and some gave you extended examples why.
My concern would be different.
You have not given any evidence of channeling your clearly limitless energy and devotion to finding a way to optimize the likely outcome in your favor.
No stories about evaluating lots of appeal attorneys until you found one you like and trust.
No sense that, even though you have attorneys around you socially, they may actually be keeping you at arms length to avoid any responsibility if you fail.
No understanding of the indirect implications several, most recently Noel Prosequi have made.
No sense that you have, it a case that is crying for it, the ability to to rapidly digest voluminous, imprecise and heterogenous material, and drill it down to its essence and paste it to the framework of a supporting argument.
I do understand this case is important to you, but I wonder if you can honestly assess how your emotional attachment is affecting your judgment. You came here looking to engage in a collegial discussion on precise topics with attorneys, yet your posts are often long and don’t address the point at all, even after reading the whole thing.
That you have repeatedly slurred others in the case, questioning their motives (Attorney Beast and Queen Judge?) and want to be seen collegially is troubling to me, not as an attorney because I am not one, but as a professional manager, which I am.
A large part of my career has been involved with managing the quality of words and discourse. Not in the sense of moderating a message board, but in the sense of making sure critical translations are correct and being responsible for the fallout if they are not.
I want to tell you about something I did this fall.
After the California Prop 8 election was appealed, I read, word for word, all of the filings in the case until the Court decided to hear it. I read both sides, every footnote and reference.
I have read a lot of that kind of stuff before, but this was englightening - so many firms and individual’s takes on exactly the same matter. I saw the same arguments repeated over and over, side by side, pro and con and I started to notice which ones were more effective presentations, and which were not.
I thought long and hard about this, and am thinking about a certain artistic project I don’t want to go into that illustrates the variations and complexity and effectiveness.
So your thread is playing right into those thoughts I have been working on since November.
So I think I am being honest when I tell you I think you are going to find that people around you are treating you at arms length, and that the Court will let you do it because they have to for due Process reasons.
But I want you to take a deep breath one night this weekend, in those few seconds between when your head is on the pillow and your mind is clear, and when you fall asleep. At that moment, ask yourself if you are doing this in a way that is going to lead to the best outcome for you, and to review the alternatives - find a lawyer using the criteria I laid out above, let the case go and move on devoting your energy to something better, or assess if your arguments you are preparing are anywhere near as good as you think or are then amateur at best and likely to leave you a loser when you will just have to move on with your life anyway?
Are you so emotionally invested in this case and doing it the way you are, that you have lost sight of the likely outcome, stead of pursuing a strategy to do what is best for what is going to be a long time, the rest of your life? What happens if you lose? Are you really emotionally prepared to accept that and go to Plan B for your life? I, and if I may speak for others here, get the feeling that you are NOT.
PS - there was one clear nutcase filing in the Prop 8 case I mentioned, on the pro side. I don’t feel like finding it now, but it was written by someone who considered herself God of the World or some such. It followed all the same form as the other filings, but the content and reasoning were something to behold. And then for the Court to ignore. Read as many of those filings as you can, and find that one. I think the others are telling you that there is a very good chance that you will compose something in the proper form, but the content will be completely off the point and will be summarily rejected, and then what?
Like I said, I am not a lawyer, and in some cases I might be inclined to do what you are doing myself. But it does concern me that you haven’t taken the alternative steps as far as possible, and that you question the motives of other players rather then accept critiques and act on them, especially at this last date.
Since the court is going to let you be pro per/pro se, it sounds like maybe you are rolling the dice on a lightning strike rather then demonstrating that you are being an effective lawyer in preparation for a case, or even deciding what the likelihood or even definition of success is.
Worse, if I read the thread correctly, even if you do win your appeal, all that means is you will then enter into settlement agreements on footing you feel is more level then currently.
What I am reading here is not giving me a great feeling about your negotiation skills either frankly, especially when the other side is sure to be represented professionally.
Just saying!
Without ever actually connecting that concern with something specific and unique to me personally.
All this concern is incredibly generic, a collective gasp going up: “Representing yourself! Say it isn’t so! Why, you’ll go mad! You’ll be so blindly obsessed you’ll spin out of control entirely and in all likelihood spontaneously combust!”
You’re talking about the law like it’s the fucking Matrix and I need the correct pill to even begin to perceive it’s terrifying mysteries.
Your own evident belief in the special magic of having finished law school could be seen as more disconnected from reality than my belief that I can master the issues that are directly pertinent to my own case, especially with given the assistence and support I’ve received from people who have finished law school, as I’ve clearly explained.
Honestly, even without the overt rudeness of some, the overall reaction is, in light of what I have shared, rather disrespectful and more than a little blindly obsessive itself. Freakishly so.
Particularly given the fact that I made it a point at the outset to clearly state that i was not looking to be beaten down by precisely the kind of arrogant and horrified scolding that I continue to receive about my choice to do this (vs. what exactly, no one has yet explained, apart from the mantra “get a lawyer…get a lawyer…” with all the money I’ve again, clearly explained I do not have.)
I just wanted to engage in a discussion about legal ideas.
And I’m the one whose perception is being relentlessly questioned? Really?
Astonishing.
I don’t think you’re going to win anyone over to your side until you’ve actually won something in court once.
But overall, the thread does seem mostly to have been started to show off the size of your dick and most of your responses to people who said anything negative about your choice have been rather petulant and smartassed. None of these things is going to win people over to your side, and in fact are more likely to convince that you are indeed simply going on ego and throwing logic to the wind.
Whether that is true or not, who can say. But it can probably be safely deduced that you’re a bit stressed out and doing some dick-wagging is probably a means of blowing off some of that steam. But it’s not going to win you friends, and is probably more likely to actually push you into acting based on ego instead of logic. That does neither you nor us any good.
So I’d personally recommend that, firstly, if you’re needing to blow off steam that you do it in the form of driving up into the Sierra Nevadas and spending a weekend hiking, or some other activity that is cheap and diverting. And secondly, I’d recommend to only post when you have specific legal questions that you hope someone could help you with. And then of course, win a case and then come back and brag about your abilities all you want.
Anyways, good luck with your case.
I did, after a fashion. Though I had to fight like hell. The receiver’s insistence on the unlawful detainer. it was a huge deal in many ways. Ended up being filed twice. Once a commissioner blew me off, second time a judge. I had the law 100% on my side. One Hundred Percent. But I got blown off, and the judge who did it pretty much looked me in the eye and said: You’re right. But I’m not in a superior position over your judge. You have to get her to make him back off.
And I did.
I also “won” in the sense that in both of the biggest issues, the ones I outlined already, the judge was forced to say I was right, because I was. What she did then was, in both cases, quite literally, invent a reason to say no anyway. In the first case, she made it up, I refuted it unequivocally, and she simply ignored the fact that I had proven she was wrong, and in the second, she made something up, I proved conclusively that what she made up had to be wrong, and again, she ignored it again.
And as I’ve explained, there are issues around which judges to not have discretion. Also, for the non-lawyers in our audience, when the written laws in the forms of statutes are not clear, or allow for discretion, then the case law, made by the higher courts, dictates what the law is. Trial courts do not have the “discretion” to ignore higher court decisions and make things up in direct opposition to them, as she has done over and over. Seriously. Not acceptable. When the higher court takes the time to write out, in plain English: “No time limits”, the trial court doesn’t get to say
oops, you’re too late."
Interestingly, while I had not intended to get into so much detail as I have done at all, no one has actually addressed any of it and held it up as an example of how I just don’t get it. I think I’ve given plenty enough detail that if all these “concerns” were actually well-founded, it would have been pointed out by now.
NO.
IT.
WASN’T. GOD FUCKING DAMN IT.
It was started to get lawyers to talk about certain legal concepts without being all weird about it. I wanted to bounce things off other legal minds. AND I KNEW, going in, EXACTLY what the knee jerk reaction was going to be to my status, so I put what I have done out there to say: I am not a clueless idiot floundering in the woods. I have been actually functioning int he role of attorney, see? So please dont’ feel the need to do what a whole bunch of people have gone ahead and done anyway!!! It’s fucking infuriating!!!
SO…anyone out there have anything to say about the nature of findings and ultimate facts, by any chance?
Jesus.
Muffin backs away slowly.
Let’s suppose that you visit a lawyer and ask “What’s the time limit for suing the creep who stole my money?” No competent lawyer will answer that question without asking a lot of questions first about the circumstances. And it may even be that the person is asking the wrong question.
Similarly, if the OP wants help, I think that he or she should submit to gentle questioning about the facts of the case. I realize it’s not exactly analagous, since this is an internet message board and there wouldn’t be any attorney/client relationship.
But still, there’s no way to tell right now if the OP has a legitimate grievance to bring to the appeals court or if the OP is a typical bewildered, self-deceived litigant who cannot understand and refuses to understand why he or she is in the wrong.
This is not a “win.”
When ten people tell you you’re drunk, don’t drive.