I’m afraid there will be at least one early death from this case. But all the forms have been obeyed.
WRONG! There was no hearing, no judge involved in this. See here, please.
From that article: “The petition for a personal protection order was dismissed by Chris Armstrong because he received assurance that he will no longer be contacted by Andrew Shirvell," Armstrong’s lawyer, U. Ashwin Patel, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.”
Nice try, though 
Right- it was denied without prejudice, which typically means at the request of the filing party.
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Nice try, though 
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Well, the article’s not my doing.
I do wonder if Shirvell’s promise to keep away from Armstrong was in writing or an informal agreement.
I certainly hope the little weasel’s legal fees bankrupt him and leave him in debt up to his itty bitty eyeballs.
Latest chapter in the melodrama:
Armstrong, attorney file complaints seeking possible disbarment for Ass’t AG Shirvell
From that:
I again have a feeling that they’re less out to disbar than to bankrupt the creep.
Now fired
Here’s something I posted in the Pit thread about this situation:
Who wants to make a wager about how long it’ll be?
I love this from his lawyer (Thomas), who has previously called Shirvell “the victim” in this story:
While I’ve no doubt Shirvell’s already got the papers filled out and the arguments written for his reinstatement, I think even most conservatives would agree that- whether he’s within his legal and constitutional rights or not- Shirvell’s a first order nut. If a gay assistant AG was attacking the head of the Baptist Student Union or Young Republicans as vigorously and with as little basis in reality or concern for defamation as this guy has gone after Armstrong I’d say the same thing and Fox News would be calling for a spike, an axe and a chopping block.
The craziest thing is that Shirvell doesn’t seem to address any specifics of Armstrong’s presidency that he has a beef with other than he’s gay (which he is) and that he’s “privileged” and a “racist” as Shirvell defines the terms, though his definition seems to be “according to my whims and the voices in my pointed little head”.
Cox obviously did this more to bow to the public pressure than outrage, but I wonder if “state resources” just means he blogged from work. I also wonder if the ACLU is going to assist him- I can see why they would review the case at least since it’s a gray area.
Actually, it smell political to me too. IMO Cox didn’t fire him before the election for fear of upsetting the conservative Republican base. So he fired him a week later, so the AG’s office wouldn’t continue to have an ongoing scandal under the scrutiny of national media.
Some more has come to light about Shirvell’s prior activities and he had in fact been disciplined before for bullying and harassing others while as a state employee. (Cite- there are others.) At one altercationhe identified himself as a Michigan AG when threatening to have somebody prosecuted for assault for touching him.
I wonder if any of this can be influential in his disbarrment proceedings (which Armstrong and a couple of others have begun the gears for- not sure how one goes about getting a lawyer disbarred in MI) or if it makes the state AG’s office more culpable when his file already included write-ups for the same type of behavior before Armstrong. I also wonder how Shirvell’s paying his rent these days.
Kinda surprised how long ago this first made news.
In any case here is an update.
Oh, god, he moved to Florida.
ETA: But he’s not licensed to practice law here. Phew.
Yet.
Well, three judges disagree with Bricker (and me, too). Can’t say I’m sorry to be wrong about this one, although I’m always troubled by off duty behavior giving rise to employment actions. Still, this guy was probably too loony for state employment of any kind, and that’s saying a lot.
It wasn’t just off-duty behavior. He also used the resources of the AG’s office to investigate his victim and contacted him during work hours at least once.