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Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased
maglo writes "The judge who handed down the harsh sentence to the four accused in the The Pirate Bay trial was biased, writes Sveriges Radio (Sweden Public Radio): sr.se (swedish). Google translation. The judge is member of two copyright lobby organizations, something he shares with several of the prosecutor attorneys (Monique Wadsted, Henrik Pontén and Peter Danowsky). The organizations in question are Svenska Föreningen för Upphovsrätt (SFU) and Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (SFIR)."
Additionally, the judge sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (Svenska fÃreningen fÃr industriellt rÃttsskydd), which is lobbying for tougher copyright laws.
However, NorstrÃm insisted to the radio station that his membership of the various copyright protection groups did not constitute a conflict of interestâ.
It is indeed quite obvious that being a leading member of a copyright lobby organization can not in any way be seen as a conflict of interest.
And in other news, Slashdot still fails at UTF8.
If they knew about the judge before hand. If they did perhaps (in typical TPB fashion) they went through the trial knowing damn well they were going to use this to get out of it
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Clearly, they could not, or did not.
The TPB lawyers didn't do their homework, which is a sentiment that rings very loudly in a lot of commentary about this trial.
It will hopefully come up in the appeal. This may have been a strategy all along -- i.e. let the music industry lawyers put all their cards on the table during the trial, and destroy them in the appeal.
Creepy thing is, he might actually believe that. If you are a die-hard copyright maximalist then "strong copyright=justice" will simply seem axiomatic, so your involvement with a copyright lobbying group will just seem like professional experience.
The fact that he is so tone-deaf that he doesn't comprehend how that might create a raging appearance of impropriety is pretty shocking, though.
Occam's Razor says that they probably do have at least a little bit of bias if they are interested enough to join a group that lobbies the government.
There is a war going on for your mind.
The ones with shallower pockets and fewer friends in high places. Obviously.
They may have been unaware of this. More likely, they may have thought that they had compelling arguments and the worst case (i.e. they lost) would have meant that they could get a retrial (and therefore be paid for longer) if they lost. The judge may well not have been very biased. Someone with moderate leanings in one direction can still be persuaded in the other by well-reasoned arguments. If this were the case, they may have won anyway, but knowing that the judge had this bias gave them an additional strategy in case it was not.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In some defense, if he is a member of the organization not in a capacity of financial beneficiary of copyright, then it isn't quite so clear cut. If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials. His judgment should come from interpreting the law. If he has failed terribly at that, then there are issues such as legislating from the bench that need to be discussed, but otherwise, this "conflict of interest" isn't nearly so glaring.
Are you hearing what you saying?
He is a member of a lobbying group.
Lobbying group gets MONEY from their interests - read financial benefit.
What I don't get is why a judge would be allowed to be in *any* lobby organization, excepting perhaps something directly related to the functioning of the judiciary itself. Alternatively, if they are allowed to be members in such groups, why wouldn't they recuse themselves from a relevant case?
The official term for the others are privateers...
I mostly agree with your post, but would like to add the following
Ultimately, in my opinion, it's the voice and opinion of the general public that is incorporated into laws about how heavy penalties for certain actions are. And since everyone is unanimously against murder, this is often quite a clear case.
But since the public opinion is so divided concerning copyright cases, a judge that has very strongly chosen one side can be called biased even regardless of his membership of a lobby group. The membership only proves it in my opinion.
That would be true if that was the only factor.
"Judge Norstrom acknowledged to Swedish Radio that he was a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, as well as a board member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. He also said he has worked alongside Monica Wadsted -- who represented the American movie industry in the trial -- to solve disputes related to Internet domain names. However, he rejected that there was any conflict of interests."
But it isn't.
There is a difference between just being member of an organization and being a board member of an organization who's goals would benefit the Plaintiff and having established a professional cooperative relationship with a Plaintiff's council previously.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased. Dedicating himself to a lobby group is a huge conflict of interest. Either he has to disappoint the group, or he has to disappoint the people he is judging.
But Yes, if a judge is a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, he or she would be excluded from murder trials under Swedish law, should the defense lawyers so request. There cannot be even the slightest suspicion of bias.b
Would the purpose of the organizations (SFU and SFIR) factor in, or is it the fact that organizations with a vested interest in tough-on-copyright are members?
If I were the one investigating this, I would be more interested in the membership and the activities than in the expressed purposes, since crooks like to disguise what they do and their expressed purposes are always benign. Like I'm sure the RIAA's expressed purposes do not include 'extortion, using illegal investigators, making false statements of fact in legal documents, collusion, price fixing, suing children and dead people, using economic might and unscrupulous lawyers to attempt to rewrite copyright law by confusing judges, etc.'. If, e.g., this organization has ever lobbied on behalf of copyright owners, the judges' membership -- if not disclosed and consented to -- ought to result in his being disqualified.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Generally, the public you refer to doesn't care one bit about copyright cases or law. Only the corporations and people like Paul McCartney or Elton John (who have a vested interest in keeping new artists out) support stronger copyright laws. There is little division in the public's opinion.
Agreed, this judge should never have been on this case.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
There's no way TPB's lawyers were in the dark about this.
But now, they get to turn this into a(n even bigger) circus and it will be thrown out due to the judge being extremely biased and having worked with the plaintiff before.
Meanwhile, they just managed to get the support of the entire country against the corrupt Judge and local version of the RIAA, and the next Judge will be on best behavior -- and since they haven't done anything illegal, that means they'll get off scott free.
Brilliantly played, Pirates. Brilliantly played.
The problem is that the judge is part of several organizations that are clearly against the accused.
So? If the judge was a member of Swedish Citizens Against Drunk Driving, and he was presiding over the trial of a guy that killed somebody while driving drunk, would that make his personal interest in reducing the crime of drunk driving somehow wrong, or prejudicial? I mean, driving drunk is naughty. Being a member of a group that says, "Driving drunk is naughty" doesn't prevent you from being objective about the facts in a trial that's determining if someone was doing the naughty thing. Likewise, being a member of an organization that says, "Ripping off artists is naughty, and setting up web sites specifically to help do that on a massive scale is also naughty," doesn't mean you can't be objective about the finding of facts in a given case about whether or not a particular person/people were actually doing so or not.
Should every judge who supports an organization aimed at reducing heroin use through prevention and the punishment of pushers and traffickers be considered incapable of weighing in on whether or not a given person is a heroin dealer? Should a judge who - among many, many other professional affiliations - considers it important to cut down on fraud in the judicial system and thus supports a bar association sub-group aimed at integrity in the practice of law recuse himself from the trial of a lawyer that's been defrauding his clients? Why? It's rational to support such interests if you're in that profession, but you only want judges that don't support it to judge such cases?
It's likewise rational to support copyrights, and to discourage the wholesale ripping off of artists. Why would you want a judge who doesn't get that to be involved in such a trial?
More importantly, do you consider yourself rational enough to be a member of a jury in such a case? Do you know anyone who supports the EFF? Should they be considered too corrupt and biased to be a juror on such a case? Why?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If he firmly believes in copyright as a matter of law and principle, I don't think it's much different than a judge being a member of an organization lobbying for tougher murder penalties, etc. We wouldn't exclude him from murder trials.
If he demonstrate bias in one case, the only time I'd ever let him in a courtroom again is when he gets his sentence for it. The only time behavior like that I'd consider acceptable is with laws where jury nullification would do the same.
When we let the judges be corrupted with a political agenda, the whole system is really close to falling apart.
By the way, WHO LET A MEMBER OF A COPYRIGHT LOBBY GROUP JUDGE A COPYRIGHT CASE?
Yes it is. This is similar to a judge in the USA that is a member of the RIAA and then goes in the courtroom to judge Virgin v. Thomas. It doesn't matter how high your involvement is. Apparently one of the lawyers IS his co-worker for certain things. That would be the same as you being a judge and in your off-time you work at a small company (which isn't illegal) and then you have to judge on a private matter between that company and somebody that has a beef with your company (for whatever reason) and the (hot) gal you go drinking coffee with once in a while is the lawyer representing the company you work at. IANAL but it seems that this would be grounds for a mistrial in the US.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
True, but it is the judges JOB to be unbiased.
That is absolutely correct. To be a judge is to be impartial and avoid appearance of conflict of interest and impropriety in both public and even private life. That is what it means to be a judge; with special powers, including possibly the power of life and death, comes special responsibility above and beyond what would be expected from the average citizen. If that is a problem then do not become a judge.
What I don't get is why ANY lobbyists are allowed. Ever. Anywhere.
Loudmouth twat saying something is wrong != it being wrong.
The majority of people here (and in the real world) have enough intelligence to differentiate between file sharing and material stealing.
By the way, I am not being a 'selfish leech' - I am simply alarmed by the intrusion of freedom that is being demanded in the name of profits for a highly exploitative industry. Economic ambitions have warped into authoritarian political ambitions, and its an issue for everyone. You are too stupid to grasp the issues around piracy, and that means you are also too stupid to read my intentions. So shut the fuck up about them.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I can't believe I'm defending him, but judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses.
And they are also human. If they feel strongly enough about something that they spend their spare time lobbing to get laws passed supporting it there is almost certainly going to be bias in judgments they make involving those issues. It may not be conscious but it's only human that it'll be there. It's a judge's job to impartially interpret the law.
If Swedish copyright is anything like US copyright, he probably didn't need to twist the law to come down hard on TPB. Most of their activities are technically illegal, and technically illegal is what a judge should rule on. They usually have the ability to grant a little mercy, but there is no reason they must.
You need to point out what US law they were violating cause everything done by Pirate Bay is being done by Google and any other search engine out there. Plus in the US they'd have the DMCA safe harbor laws. They RIAA/MPAA haven't payed off quite enough people yet to make search engines illegal although the way the Obama administration is going it looks like they are getting close.
Who is John Galt?
There is nothing wrong with judges being members of legal organizations.
However, Justice must not only be done, but it must also be _seen_ to be done.
So even if a judge is impartial, he must also appear to most that he is impartial.
Thus a judge should recuse himself from a case if he has "interests" in it, even if he would actually be objective and impartial.
For example, if a judge's relative was being charged for murder, a good judge would not handle the case even if he knew he would be able to be objective and impartial. Because any verdict would be tainted.
What I don't get is why ANY lobbyists are allowed. Ever. Anywhere.
Because sometimes groups of citizens have things that they would like their legislature do. You see when you write your legislator asking him to vote for (or against) a bill, you are lobbying him/her. Generally, we reserve the word lobbyist for someone who represents some group, for example the EFF. Let me guess, you didn't know that the EFF employs lobbyists?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I can't believe I'm defending him, but judges are also citizens. He should have the right to be a member of most any organization he chooses.
Freedom of association doesn't mean freedom from consequences of that association. Judges are not prohibited from being a part of any group as citizens--but they certainly cannot sit as judges or preside over certain trials at the same time.
I'm sure the judge in this case worked properly within current law, though his interpretation of that law is likely done to the strictest limits. However legal it may be though, it seems to me that presiding over a copyright trial when also being an active member of a "copyright maximalist" lobby group that influences the legislative process compromises both impartiality (as a member of such a lobby group he would personally dismiss any notion of leniency) AND judicial independence (as a judge he is to interpret law, and as a member of a poilitical lobby group he is playing a role in CREATING the law he is supposed to interpret and is thus not truly capable of acting as an independent interpreter of law in this case).
When I write legislators, I don't include hookers, blow, and cold hard cash in my statement.
Well maybe you should. -Signed, your congressman.
I'm not not licking toads.