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RIAA Awarded $675,000 In Tenenbaum Trial
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The jury awarded the record company plaintiffs $675,000 in the Boston trial defended by Prof. Charles Nesson, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. I was not surprised, since exactly none of the central issues ever even came up in this trial. The judge had instructed the jurors that Mr. Tenenbaum was liable, and that their only task was to come up with a verdict that was more than $22,500 and less than $4.5 million. According to the judge, her reason for doing so was that, when on the stand, the defendant was asked if he admitted liability, and he said 'yes.' The lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it."
A good example of the justice system at work for your average citizen... So really, what happens next? The guy files for bankruptcy. The RIAA doesn't get any money (not that they really intend to get significant income from those cases). What are the consequences for Mr. Tenenbaum? Can't get a credit card for a few years? Needs to get a job? I'm really curious as to what the true consequences will be.
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IANAL, but I'm guessing that "liability" is a legal term, so if you ask a non-lawyer a legal question (do you admit liability), then the answer is meaningless. Think of it as hearsay for experts: if you don't know about a topic, you shouldn't be allowed to comment on the record on that topic. Does the guy understand the legal ramifications of what liability means? I don't.
Now, I must say that I'm not impressed with his defense. Anyone can comment on who the defense lawyer was and whether they did a good job? It just doesn't sound great to admit on the stand to being fully, completely guilty. Criminals tend to get away with a lot of stuff, but not this guy.
It's amazing what you can find when you RTFA. From NYCL's site:
[Ed. note. The judge's ruling is erroneous. The question : "are you admitting liability" is a legal question, not a factual question, which Mr. Tenenbaum was not qualified to answer. For the Court to base its decision on that is wrong. -R.B.]
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The judge's role is to decide issues of law, and the jurors' duty is to decide issues of fact.
In this case, both sides agreed that he violated copyright and that he was liable for it. The only issue that then remained was whether he did it "willfully" or not. The jury got to determine this, which determined what his liability was.
He basically walked into court and said, Yes, everything they're saying is true. What sort of result were you expecting?
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Is your credit is, in fact, NOT ruined after a bankruptcy. Why? Because you can't file again for a number of years. Thus lenders don't have to worry about you using bankruptcy to just walk on your debts. That doesn't mean your credit is grand, but it isn't worthless. Companies will lend to you since they know you don't have that as a way out.
That aside, technically (despite what you will hear to the contrary from judges and prosecutors) it is the jury's job to judge the law as well as guilt:
Fully Informed Jury Association
I am not a lawyer either, but given information at the above link, and the clear history of our legal system, I believe it is improper for a judge to instruct a jury to find one way or another. As someone else pointed out above: if that is proper, what is the point of having a jury in the first place?
How many RIAA/Copyright related lawsuits this year have started off with a hopeful - "Yeah! Damnit! We are taking this one all the way and are going to stick it to the MAN! Fuck him! Fuck the MAN Baby!" only to result in a circus and a horrible verdict for the defendant?
Damn that's depressing, and this one was the one I was actually hoping the guy running the show had some sort of fucking clue/hidden plan that he was going to spring out at the end.
I mean, yes, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of willfull copyright infringement, but I thought at least this would come out to forcing the RIAA to cut out some of their crap.
Because the Plaintiffs can pick and choose the cases they bring to court. Why, out of thousands of potential defendants, would you go to court against the one that can destroy your approach?
They don't bring to court someone WE would like to see. In my case, I only download music that I have already purchased a physical copy of, so their case would be a much harder sell.
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No, he admitted "liability", not "guilt". Those are two very different things. As NYCL pointed out, liability is a question of law that the defendant is not qualified to judge.
The lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it.
The linked article doesn't give a complete transcript of the questions and answers, so I can't speak to whether the question was 'totally improper,' but as Ray Beckerman (aka NewYorkCountryLawyer) should know, it was the job of Mr. Nesson, not the judge, to object to improper questions. Furthermore, Mr. Tenenbaum was almost certainly deposed prior to trial, and Mr. Nesson would know what questions were likely to come up.
Finally, the offending question is presumably "Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings?" Under FRE 704(a), an opinion as to an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact is admissible (with the exception given in FRE 704(b), which does not apply here).
Lay opinion evidence is limited by FRE 701, which requires that the opinion "(a) rationally based on the perception of the witness, and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness' testimony or the determination of a fact in issue, and (c) not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702." Crucially, the question was not "Are you liable?" it was "are you admitting liability?" The former might possibly be objectionable, the latter is almost certainly not. In any case, Mr. Nesson did not object and so the point is largely moot.
The only reasons to disregard Mr. Tenenbaum's admission would be if the judge believed he was either lying or mistaken. He had no reason to lie, and since the other evidence makes a strong case that he was in fact liable, his admission fits with that.
In any event, Mr. Nesson's strategy has always been to admit liability but argue that the damages are unconstitutional or otherwise impermissible. He has been very clear about this in his public discussion of this and related cases.
Finally, I'll just add that the right against self-incrimination applies only to criminal cases and has no application here.
Jury trials are a right in most civil and criminal cases (lets not start talking about small claims court or other specialized areas). When you file a suit, you have the option of asking for a jury trial if you pay an extra fee. If either party requests a jury, then you get a jury. Only when _neither_ party requests a jury, do you have a bench trial.
Where you are getting confused is that a judge can eliminate issues for a jury if no reasonable juror could come to anything but one conclusion based on the facts. That has nothing to do with consultation outside the jury or with it. To put this into a car analogy, suppose you rear-end someone who was legally stopped a stop light. During trial you admit that you were texting with one hand, sipping a big gulp with the other, hollering at a friend in the back seat, and not looking at the road at all. No reasonable juror would think that you were NOT negligent, thus a Judge could summarily decide that you were negligent in the accident. This gives the jury fewer questions and helps speed along the process of coming to a verdict, for example, on the issue of damages.
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No, its not. In both a criminal trial and a civil trial there are pleadings, and they are distinct from testimony given at trial. What he did was answer an improper question asked of him as a witness (since the question was one of law not of fact) in a way which was harmful, which is not at all the same as pleading guilty in a criminal case.
Its the RIAA, I'm certain they'd accept the child, they have to feed their lawyers after all you know.