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Judge Suggests Apple Is "Smoking Crack" With Witness List In Samsung Case
infodragon writes "Today in the ongoing Apple vs Samsung court case Judge Lucy Koh's patience wore thin as Apple presented a 75-page document highlighting 22 witnesses it would like to call in for rebuttal testimony, provided the court had the time. As those following the case closely know quite well, the case has a set number of hours which are already wearing quite thin. As quoted by The Verge as they sat in the courtroom listening in, Koh wondered aloud why Apple would offer the list 'when unless you're smoking crack you know these witnesses aren't going to be called!'"
Maybe she just doesnt have any tolerance for stupidity. I doint think she would tolerate you for missing it.
"His name was James Damore."
in favor of Apple.
Now I think her wild mood swings must mean she's medicating?
No, she has just gotten to know Apple better than she did before.
Anyone else think the legal system would make more sense if they were smoking crack?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A judge isn't supposed to be hassling and berating the lawyers on both sides like this.
When both sides deserve it, a fair judge should hassle and berate both sides. Justice isn't well served by tolerating games.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Calling someone out on their (procedural) bullshit is part of a judge's job. It's not her fault both sides are doing it, and she'd be negligent if she didn't hassle or berate them for intentionally wasting the court's time.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Two points.
One: this is a jury trial. As such, there are twelve jurors, private citizens like yourself, who have their lives on hold (without pay!) listening to two corporate behemoths whine at each other. Dragging this out for an unreasonable amount of time will create real problems for real people.
Two: Judge Koh has more than just this case on her docket, and it isn't fair to everyone else in her district that Apple v. Samsung take up an unreasonable amount of time and prevent other cases to come to trial.
If you can't present your case with 25 hours of face time before the jury, well, you can go fuck off. The lawyers in this case don't get hired by trillion-dollar multinationals by being tame, they're going to bend any rule they can get away with. The judge needs to present a strong barrier to that.
(Oh, and bonus point: All three parties know that this is going to go to appeal anyway, unless a settlement is reached or something.)
in favor of Apple.
Now I think her wild mood swings must mean she's medicating?
No, she has just gotten to know Apple better than she did before.
No, both sides have been enormous cunts for the entire trial, and she's pissed at both of them for that reason. It got bad enough that if Samsung loses, they're basically guaranteed a full appeal at this point. Probably the same with Apple. So we're almost certainly going to get to relive all this AGAIN! WEEE!
Uh, Apple has 4 hours left to give any of their arguments. They gave her a list of 75! witness that she had to read and familiarize herself with overnight. Even apple themselves said they would only get 20 of the witnesses on the stand in 4 hours.
To recap.
4 hours
20 planned witnesses
75 objections to review.
That's straight up bullshit.
They are being unprofessional, she is simply taking them down a peg.
This is infront of a jury. "We had 22 witnesses ready, but were denied time to present their testimony" "They were ready to say all sorts of things to support us"
It is all about getting the jury on your side. Being "unable to present your case" is one such method. And the other side cannot cross examine imagined testimony.
Clueless alert! The sort of evidence wrangling going on here will never been seen by the jury. All this stuff takes place before the jury is seated or while the jury is in the jury room. When the jury is in the courtroom the only things that are ever discussed are testimony and evidence that has been officially admitted. Seriously this is foundational to the way our justice system works. If a lawyer were to bring up evidence that had not been admitted that lawyer would be held in contempt.
-- QED
Firstly, IAAL. Secondly, judges are people. There is no "one" appropriate judicial temperament. While, I think she has made one bad decision on exclusion of evidence during discovery, she has not acted any differently than many judges I have encountered during my practice. Some of them were good jurists, others were arbitrary and capricious. She does not seem to be arbitrary or capricious. Discovery is always a thorny process in the Federal system. There are some strict rules, and there is incentive to hide things as well. Now to the issue of the day. Let's pretend you were a judge, and you had just presided over a multi-day proceeding regarding the claims of these two litigants, only to hear that a litigant wants to call 75 witnesses, significantly more than they have called during the trial proper, in rebuttal. It is ludicrous. When one is scheduling a multi-day trial one, generally has to move significant other trials around. It delays proceedings for _Thousands_ of cases. When a party wants to call 75 witnesses, you have to estimate 1-2 hours per witness minimum. With about 6 real good hours of trial a day possible, that is 25 days of trial at the absolute minum. I think "are you smoking crack" is a proper measured response, considering that you have basically ruined your trial calendar for a year minimum to make up for that. If I were the presiding judge, I may have responded by saying, "You can put 75 on there but if even one is cumulative there will be sanctions: including attorney's fees, costs, etc. and a letter to your relevant State and Federal Bars." If I felt that the parties have been wasting the court's time, "Are you smoking crack?" would be the least of what they might hear, while I consider dismissing their claims by sua sponte summary judgment or JNOV.
A judge isn't supposed to be hassling and berating the lawyers on both sides like this.
Good grief man, have you ever seen any real trials?
It is EXACTLY the job of a judge to ride herd over lawyers on both sides, as they will take whatever advantage they can eek out. You cannot have some mild judge that gets rode over by the alpha personality that almost every trial lawyer exhibits.
A judge must make, then strictly enforce, rules - or else the lawyers will just take over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Reminds me of Judge Jackson in United_States vs. Microsoft. He got so pissed at Microsoft's behavior in court that he said some rather unfriendly things about the company in interviews (see http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/02/42071).
Which was probably not so smart and might have contributed to his verdict (breaking up Microsoft) being overturned on appeal.
I always wondered why he did not keep his mouth shut and sanction Microsoft's legal team instead. They did some things that might have counted as perjury, such as presenting a faked video as evidence.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Or maybe she was never biased. But people here on Slashdot automatically assumed she was because she ruled against Samsung on a procedural violation.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Actually, there are quite a few aspects of the Apple operating system that did not come from Xerox:
The Finder and its interface
Drag-and-drop file manipulation, including dropping files onto a trash icon
Drop-down menus
Multiple views of the file system (e.g. icon vs. list)
OS support for drawing into partially obscured windows
Desk accessories
Direct editing of file names
Copying data in multiple formats to the clipboard
Automatic updating of windows when rearranged
However, it is not quite true that Apple did not protect its ideas. At that time, computer software was protected more by copyright than patents, as the court precedents that determined that software features are patentable had not yet been established. Rather, Apple was tricked by Microsoft into licensing the key original features of the Mac operating system to them. In return for developing software for the Mac, Microsoft asked for a license to some features of the Mac GUI, including some of the unique features listed above. Because Microsoft was pursuing a very different approach to a GUI, with data displayed in separate panes of the display rather than in overlapping windows, Jobs apparently felt that their OS was not directly competing with the Mac, and agreed. Microsoft then turned around and released a version of Windows that blatantly copied Apple's approach. Betrayed, Apple sued, arguing "We licensed those features for the original version of Windows, not the one that imitates the Mac." The court reasonably responded, "Well then, you should have specified that int he license," and Apple lost.
But it is probably true that this early experience contributed Apple's modern no-tolerance approach toward companies they perceive as crossing the line that separates competition from copying.
Thank you for pointing that out. People forget or simply don't understand that in a jury trial the judge acts as the finder of law and the jury acts as the finder of fact. Deciding what evidence can be presented to a jury (admissable) is decided by a judge and, as you point out, done so out of sight and sound of the jury to remove the possibility of unadmitted evidence influencing the verdict. Deciding what presented evidence is true and believable and what is not is up to the jury.
Apples makes nothing other than designs and owns very little other than cash. The whole house of cards (their market cap) can can fall based on a marketing failure of their next product. This is the ONLY reason they need Android and Samsung to fail. Apple is a middle man with a design that is currently in style. They must stay in style to keep it moving. There is NO fall back plan other than spreading out the cash on hand. The stock value is based on maintaining future sales, not capital equipment. Samsung OWNS factories, they design and manufacture things from raw material to end user product very big and very small. Large R&D centers that produce products that just about every company that makes something that uses power uses in their products, ships, earth moving equipment, large industrial power control devices, home appliances, LCD screens, power supplies, chips, dips, chains, and whips.