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Conflicted Judges Are Classier With English Accents
An anonymous reader writes "Remember The Right Honourable Professor Sir Robin Jacob, Retired Lord Justice, who staged a temporary comeback on the bench of the England and Wales Court of Appeals last fall? He's the one who required Apple to publicly retract its claims that Samsung copied the iPad and imposed sanctions on Cupertino when he concluded Tim Cook's lawyers hadn't fully complied. He has now made worldwide headline news again because he signed up as a Samsung expert witness at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Samsung says he was hired by its law firm, not the company, but the ITC filing says 'Sir Robin Jacob working on behalf of Samsung.' His clerk issued a statement according to which Sir Robin had no idea of Samsung's desire to hire him before January — two months after he gave Apple a blast. Leading legal blogs agree that there is no evidence any law was violated, but they suspect that 'the general issue of what engagements retired judges are permitted to accept will be very much up for discussion' and that this was 'a less than savvy public relations move by Samsung' because it casts doubt on the widely-noticed ruling in its favor. As one of them puts it, in the U.K. you 'never know if the judge might be looking for a new job,' so you better 'make sure [you] have fat rolls of cash spilling out of [your] pockets' in front of a U.K. judge."
n/t
looks bad but in reality a judge like this will probably preside over cases with most companies in a given countries and lots of other large organizations. even if you institute a 2-3 year rule of not taking a job with a party to a lawsuit you preside over that is a lot of potential work and probably infringes on non-compete laws
This rises a smidge above the appearance of impropiety.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Oh, Brave Sir Robin!
however I am absolutely surprised at the timespans involved here. When you get into cases where there are billions at stake, it is very difficult for judges not to want to reach out and grab a piece of that for themselves, but to make it seem so obvious and apparent is strange. He must have been desperate to leave the bench.
Perhaps the judge's expertise is due to the fact that he spent months listening to both sides of the matter, sifting through conflicting evidence and judging the validity of the positions to come up with an unbiased conclusion. There would be no better expert on the case than the judge that heard it. He would be the best person to explain why he made the decision that he did and be the best one to convince others of his logic. It is not necessarily a judge giving a decision so he can get a future job. This is another instance of appearance of conflict being more important that actual conflict.
Casting doubt is not an issue. If another judge reviewed the ruling and found fault then there would be an issue. Every ruling should be able to be reviewed at any time without the review causing issues. The whole "There is a review there must be something wrong" is stupid. Wait for the review to be over and then make a judgement. Many reviews are done to remove appearances of conflict and prove that no conflict existed.
You mad bro?
When the UK has judges sending kids to PMITA in return for kickbacks from for-profit prison operators you can bash us limeys and our legal systems all you like.
Till then just shut the fuck up already, you fat bastard.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Apparently when US corporations hire Washington DC power-brokers to represent their interests, this is an important part of the democratic process. The theory is that the corporations and those that represent them have a special insight into certain issues, making them qualified to advise the US government on policy. Sometimes generous (legal) campaign contributions are made as part of this process.
So it's fine for US corporations to funnel money towards currently elected officials. But oh no! In the UK, a retired judge formerly involved in a high-profile case has been employed by one of the conflicting parties!
Well, this can't be "lobbying", because Judge Jacob no longer has any formal judicial powers. It seems that he is being paid to give legal advice to a multi-national corporation.
If only Apple/Samsung could have found a way to pay him money while he was still a member of the judiciary. Oh wait. This story is about the UK. It turns out that "lobbying" is regarded as a form of corruption in that country.
Apple already has the patent on buying judges.
I predict lawsuits.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you're in a conflict of interest situation, make sure to add that English accent so at least you look classier than you already are.
-- Slashdot career advice
none
"...when you drink it from the tap!"
Yes, that's right, like the retired judge, I too am marketing my effluent to the highest bidder. But on the English side of the "pond", they serve it room temperature.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Other the the word 'judge', what the fuck does the headline have to do with the summary? Is slashdot trying to get some sort of record for worst 'journalism' ever?
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He might have had no idea of Samsung wanting to hire him - but his verdict might have been a fine resume....
bickerdyke
Ah well, there goes any belief in this being genuinely bad. Florian just rakes up shit and pretends it's a tragedy.
The press has stopped listening to Mr Mueller, but there are still some lazy bloggers out their which take the bait. Mr Mueller when you point a finger at someone else the rest of the four fingers point at you and looking at your monotonous track-record (which is getting painfully boring). Mr Mueller should add a disclaimer to all of your posts that he gets paid by Microsoft and Oracle so people know "For someone so concerned with "integrity" it is utterly unusual to write extremely biased blogs against a particular party (Android in this case) only to be hired as a consultant by the opposition parties (Microsoft and Oracle in this case)."
Apple already has the patent on buying judges.
No, Apple doesn't have any "real" patents. They do, however, have a design patent on "strategies to gain judicial advantage implemented via general purpose currency devices."
There should be an investigation, at the very least, started by the judicial departments to clarify this matter. There's a huge potential for corruption here.
By the way, I'm not sure why Samsung is given so much support here. If you replaced the judge above with the one who ruled in Apple's favour, and replaced Samsung with Apple, people here will be screaming "CORRUPTION", guaranteed.
Worse still, the top voted comments include ones mocking Apple (clearly off-topic, isn't it?).
Learn to look past your bias: this isn't right. Just think for a moment if such practices were condoned: as a judge looking to retire, he'd be more likely to rule for the big corps against the little guy, as there might just be a chance he'd get a nice job with a fat paycheck at the end of it.
Aside from the title's nonchalance regarding accuracy, DO you think that certain English dialects impart an aura of class or import to the speaker?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
re DO you think that certain English dialects impart an aura of class or import to the speaker? Yes, I do think that there are people who tend to ascribe more credibility or authority to people who speak in certain ways (dialect, use of slang, use of profanity). I am not one of those persons, but there are people around me at school who hang on the words of those with particular accents or discount others with the wrong types of speech mannerisms. For a musical take on this, see the musical performance "My Fair Lady". It shows at the least that people have believed this sort of thing for close to a century.
In the UK the judiciary is generally highly respected for integrity and independence. Conservative, yes, but that is the way it should be for a healthy society. Change should not be easy or simply popular. The US on the other hand has institutionalized a partisan and corrupt juidiciary through the election of judges and through blatant political appointments. You would be an idiot to credit US justices on the whole with integrity and independence. All to say that I see no reasonable appearance of conflict of interest or improper judicial behaviour arising from the Apple-Samsung case, and have no concern over Jacob's acceptance to work on the Samsung brief to the WTO. Apple lost its case over a point of law not from some arbitrary and corrupt judge's opinion.