Charles Nesson Ruled Jointly Liable To Pay RIAA

eldavojohn writes "The highly anticipated Joel Tenenbaum trial ended in a disaster for Tenenbaum. But worse for his highly publicized lawyer, Charles Nesson, they are both liable for payment of the court's decision to the RIAA. Nesson's pro bono agreement with Tenenbaum may turn out to be a seriously expensive experiment for the Harvard Law Professor." As the Ars story points out, though, it's "some fees incurred by the RIAA during the trial" for which he'd be liable, not the whole judgment amount.

Comments

Only one explanation I can think of

[Locke2005]

Nesson must have been paid handsomely by the RIAA to throw the case and set a precedent favorable to the RIAA. One thing is for sure... nobody is going to retain him as a lawyer for a case like this again, even if it is pro bono!

Re:Nesson's a Mystery to Me

[eldavojohn]

I can't see how his behavior helps Mr. Tennenbaum.

I pondered this as well. Perhaps by hosting audio of the court case and distributing it, he was hoping the RIAA would complain and consider it copyrighted material--which they did. He then would hope the judge would rule in favor of Nesson and deny the RIAA the "motion to compel" or whatever they used to try to make him take it down--the judge did not, of course. But had the judge ruled in favor of Nesson regarding that motion, Nesson might have the judge in a very unusual position where the judge must now find Tenenbaum free of all charges on the exact same principle as the court audio that the RIAA said was copyrighted. It would be similar enough to get your foot in the door.

This tactic, as we now see, unfortunately failed. That's about as much as I could see in that move but I'm not a lawyer.

He's just dancing around on the stage like a really old Ziggy Stardust.

Well, great, now you've put this in my head: Charles Nesson + Ziggy Stardust = Donald Pleasence in The Puma Man

Re:Good and bad.

[hairyfeet]

And that juries are filled with 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. True story-

My mom has always tried to lead by example, and has always been very civic minded, so when called for jury duty she took her vacation time and went. At the end of the trial she came in white faced and said "NEVER have a jury trial! Always demand a judge!" and when I asked her what had her spooked here is what she said. It was an arson case, the fire inspector couldn't even tell if the building had been set on fire or if it was a short, the guy didn't even have enough insurance to cover his losses and had to file for bankruptcy, so there wasn't even a motive. She hung the jury 11-1 in favor of conviction. Why were they gonna give this guy 10 years? "Because he is Italian and all of those people are in the mob and do things like that. Haven't you ever seen Goddfellas?"

That's right, that man's freedom was about to be taken away, not by the evidence, but by a Joe Pesci scene in a mob movie. There wasn't any arguing the evidence, they saw Goodfellas and Italians burn buildings, the end. So I would say we have a lot bigger problems than jury nullification, like juries that make idiocracy look like a fucking documentary.

Re:Good and bad.

[Galactic Dominator]

There's a large, large difference between free counsel, and court appointed counsel. If you're charged with a crime you're entitled to a court appointed lawyer, and at the end of the case you get to make payments on the bill regardless the outcome or validity of the charges most of the time. If you fail to repay the debt, you get spend time in jail. Some jurisdictions credit you as little as $20 day for time served(maybe less in some areas for all I know), so that $2000 bill your court appointed attorney turned in can easily turn into quite a sit in lockup. So the lesson is don't do crime, especially if you're poor cause then they are really going to stick it you.

Re:Good and bad.

[LordLucless]

I took something else away from it too: the jury has the ultimate control over deciding whether a crime was committed. It can be illegal for you to chew gum, but it'll take a full jury to be willing to convict you. For example, in Michigan, it's a felony to commit adultery (750.30). I suppose adultery is about as common here as anywhere else, but guess how many people are tried for it... Juries are the reason draconian laws aren't enforced.

Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. US judges now instruct juries that nullification is illegal (i.e. that they can only judge the facts, not the law), and remove jurists who indicate that they are aware of their rights to nullify, or intend to exercise them.

The last barrier to abusive government is being dismantled. Which is why we now have an explosion in laws that many (most?) consider to be unjust - marijuana possession, non-commercial copyright infringement, etc.