XPost: alt.politics.british, can.legal, misc.legal   
   From: forget@it.com   
      
      [Abridged version; my seriatim response is huge, and few will care to   
   follow it in such gruesome detail.  Still, I am sure the good people at   
   the LA County DA's office will find your claims regarding the case to be   
   quite helpful, so I've sent a copy to their PIO -- the second half of it   
   pertains directly to the Key case.   
      All they will need to do is run a search using   
   kaldis@worldnet.att.net and Cam Brown.]   
      
   Theodore A. Kaldis wrote:   
   > Ken Smith wrote:   
   >>Theodore A. Kaldis wrote:   
      
      [liberal snips throughout]   
      
   >>For a statute to be unconstitutionally vague in a First Amendment context,   
   >>all it has to do is BE ABLE TO reach protected speech.   
      
   > So the members of the Examiners' Board inquiry panel had some questions about   
   > your psychological fitness to practise law that were potentially raised by   
   > some of the material that you had published on your website, and this is all   
   > of a sudden a "free speech" issue?  Sorry, this doesn't wash.   
      
      Maybe not in the hypothetical state of Kaldis, where Ted gets to make   
   up the law on the fly, and Ted is the exclusive and final arbiter of the   
   facts.  But at least in America, Supreme Court cases are supposed to be   
   the definitive exposition of the law under which we are working.  In the   
   hypothetical state (and/or highly inebriated condition) of Kaldis, Carey   
   v. Piphus, Howlett v. Rose, and Conley v. Gibson are not the law BECAUSE   
   TED SAYS SO!  If we're going to play by your rules, we're not playing by   
   the rule of law.  (I freely admit that in your kangaroo court, I have no   
   hope of prevailing.)   
      
      
   >>Read MLK's infamous letter from the Birmingham jail.  King's fellow pastors   
   >>asked *him* the same thing.   
   >   
   > The problem here is that you're no Martin Luther King.   
   >   
   >>Was Dr. King crazy?   
   >   
   > No, he was just willing to put up with a lot of sh*t in response to a glaring   
   > injustice. Your problem is that no one sees any injustice of such magnitude   
   > in your case.   
      
      [Read, TED KALDIS doesn't see any injustice, because he has a   
   personal vendetta against Ken.]   
      
      Remember, King was being criticized by his fellow pastors -- not Joe   
   Bob, Billy Bob, or the First Baptist Church of Plains, GA.  Even THEY   
   though he went too far.  In effect, they asked him, "Why don't you let   
   go?"   
      Why didn't the *Founding Fathers* let go?  Things couldn't have been   
   that bad, right?  There's a reason why we are so zealous in protecting   
   the right not to let go.  It's the only way social change is achieved.   
      
      
   >>One of the prerogatives of American citizenship is to criticize public men   
   >>and measures -- even more fervently than you or I might think would be   
   >>prudent.   
   >   
   > Perhaps -- but to do so without being discreet about it invites disaster --   
   > as you should be learning from the School of Hard Knocks.   
      
      Persecution by the government is not a permissible consequence of our   
   protected speech -- if the First Amendment is to mean anything.   
      
   >>This is and certainly must be, or the government becomes the ultimate   
   >>arbiter of speech and thought.   
   >   
   > In some matters, it already is -- and in those matters you applaud this.   
      
      That you cannot obtain an exclusive franchise to shove your spiritual   
   cyanide down throats of impressionable and defenseless young children is   
   not letting the government be "the arbiter of speech and thought."  Your   
   Romper-Room comprehension of First Amendment law is even more daft than   
   your "kindergarten understanding" of the Second Law of Thermodynamics   
   (as the late Isaac Asimov put it).   
      
      
   >>Indeed, it seems "bizarre and totally unreasonable" that Craig Hum and the   
   >>L.A. County Sheriff would "fabricate" evidence,   
   >   
   > And yet, this is EXACTLY what they have done.   
      
      Bullshit!  They hired an expert to *analyze* the evidence, and   
   there's no reason to believe that the individuals involved did not   
   believe that they were analyzing it accurately.  That you think it is   
   wrong *because* it affects your sister, whom you are protecting, carries   
   no weight.   
      
      
   >>Hell, Craig Hum wasn't even *running* for D.A., so you don't even have the   
   >>flimsy excuse that he was "playing politics" with Cam's life. :)   
   >   
   > Hum was hoping to get a lot more press mileage out of this story than he   
   > ultimately did, I am told.  He was all ready and waiting for the press after   
   > the second hearing,   
      
      Second hearing?  SECOND hearing?  What's up with that?!?  How many   
   hearings has the guy had?   
      
   > to feed them (presumably) more lies about Cam.  But they   
   > never showed up, because it seems that, the day before the hearing, they were   
   > sent an anonymous letter that detailed fairly accurately the true background   
   > of the case -- an account which was widely at variance with the earlier   
   > distorted version which had been provided to them by Hum.   
      
      As Hum should have no way of knowing that you sent that letter to the   
   press (and you would have no way of knowing that he knew it otherwise),   
   it does not logically follow that it had any effect on him.  [You can't   
   know what you claim to know without your being the sender; Cam's lawyer   
   would have had to have breached attorney-client confidentiality.  Seems   
   to me that Craig Hum should know about this.... :)]   
      
   > I have been told by members of the Los Angeles press that they haven't been   
   > able to get anything more than a terse "no comment" from the prosecution in   
   > response to questions based on material from the anonymous letter.   
      
      Nothing sinister here at all.  As a general rule, they aren't   
   supposed to comment on pending cases.  Rules on that, you know.   
      
      So then   
   > if Hum were planning to run on the basis of this case -- and I don't even   
   > know for certain that he was, I only "heard it through the grapevine" of the   
   > Los Angeles legal community -- this certainly would havve put the kibosh on   
   > such plans.  Because now he would have been faced with questions from the   
   > press about this case which he did not want to answer.   
      
      But if the anonymous letter only made it to the press -- and there is   
   NO way a competent reporter would disclose it beforehand to a target of   
   his inquiries! -- it could not have affected his decision by definition.   
      Again, your desperate conspiracy theory is cruelly dashed on the   
   jagged rocks of reality.   
      
      
   > As, for example, that there are legitimate questions about Ken Smith's   
   > psychological fitness to practise law.   
      
      Define "psychological fitness to practise law."  If you can't, it is   
   presumptively too vague to be constitutional.   
      
      
   >>Conversely, if 'the Fourth Estate' manages to scrutinize this judicial   
   >>travesty, there's a very real likelihood that justice will be done.  There   
   >>really aren't any grey areas in this case.   
   >   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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