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Sex Offender Gets New Hearing After Hearing Officer Rants Against Arial Font

Posted by Soulskill on from the at-least-it-wasn't-comic-sans dept.

ericgoldman writes "People often feel passionately about fonts, but government decisions shouldn't depend on what font people choose for their written submissions. In Massachusetts, a sex offender overturned the decision of a hearing officer after it was determined that (among other possible biases) the hearing officer posted to Facebook that he 'can't trust someone who drafts a letter in arial font!' and 'I might be biased. I think arial is inappropriate for most things.' This is just the latest example of how social media rants by government workers are causing problems for the workers — and the people they deal with."

7 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. stupid coments, but.... by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .... most American legal jurisdictions have Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure, that specify the format legal pleadings are supposed to take. They're usually quite specific on the allowable fonts, font sizes, line spacing, the format they expect for the numbering of paragraphs, and so on. Lawyers and pro-say litigants ignore these rules at their own peril, as doing so is liable to get your case dismissed outright and at the very least will seriously annoy the Judge. Of course, most Judges don't take this annoyance, combine it with a bunch of other rants, then post it on Facebook....

    It does amuse me that so-called higher educated professionals just as liable to open mouth and insert foot on Facebook as the immature uneducated brats (I was, like, at work, and like, you know that patient, like, from the other day? He's, like, a total asshole.) I have the misfortune of calling co-workers.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    1. Re:stupid coments, but.... by hawguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      .... most American legal jurisdictions have Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure, that specify the format legal pleadings are supposed to take. They're usually quite specific on the allowable fonts, font sizes, line spacing, the format they expect for the numbering of paragraphs, and so on. Lawyers and pro-say litigants ignore these rules at their own peril, as doing so is liable to get your case dismissed outright and at the very least will seriously annoy the Judge. Of course, most Judges don't take this annoyance, combine it with a bunch of other rants, then post it on Facebook....

      It does amuse me that so-called higher educated professionals just as liable to open mouth and insert foot on Facebook as the immature uneducated brats (I was, like, at work, and like, you know that patient, like, from the other day? He's, like, a total asshole.) I have the misfortune of calling co-workers.

      It's not clear that the hearing officer was ranting about a formal legal document. He called it a "letter", so it could just be some letter that the defendant was required to write without any specific formatting requirements.

    2. Re:stupid coments, but.... by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, I've seen some of the specifications. IANAL, but I've worked with a few, and they've described some of the rules, and then shown me the spec to explain it to them. :)

      To the best of my knowledge, the courts never had to deal with it. The Clerk of Court office would simply refuse them, and instruct the person filing of why they were refused. Like "Really, you can't use Comic Sans. Use Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman.

      I'm guessing since he did receive filed papers with the Arial font, that it is accepted in that jurisdiction, and the guy bitching about it was just a dick. Admitting bias based on anything is absolutely stupid for an officer of the court.

      This one (IMHO) is worse, âoelikes taking motions under advisement, but gets greater satisfaction denying themâ. Ok, so you just like refusing motions. It doesn't matter if there's justification for them? That's not how the judicial system is suppose to work. I guess it's good that he outed himself. He's just removed himself from the judicial system entirely. So much for those great career plans.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    3. Re:stupid coments, but.... by catfood · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes and no. When I had a case in the Ohio Court of Appeals, I looked all over the rules for information on font sizes and such. Couldn't find any. Called the Clerk's office. The person who answered the phone there said, "Look, most of our filings are from inmates and they're handwritten. We're happy that your brief is typed at all."

    4. Re:stupid coments, but.... by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It does amuse me that so-called higher educated professionals just as liable to open mouth and insert foot on Facebook as the immature uneducated brats

      Some persons are educated beyond the level of their intelligence. In the USA, that seems to be increasingly common in the last decade or so.

      --
      Will
    5. Re:stupid coments, but.... by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This would seem to indicate that it's a personal bias, and not some kind of technical requirement.

      We were defending pro se in a civil suit -- couldn't afford a lawyer -- and got the decision against us overturned because the judge made remarks like "Since you can't be bothered getting a real lawyer..." Even better, the judge was a golfing buddy with the plaintiff's attorney, and they made no attempt to disguise their familiarity and friendship during the pretrial hearing. No surprise he ruled against us on the spot with a summary judgement, never bothered to look at our defense brief.

      Still had to go through it all again with a new judge, but at least the jerkass decision didn't stick.

  2. Re:Priorities much? by odigity · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Firing the guy, ignoring the fact that it's likely impossible, isn't going to solve the problem.

    The problem is human beings shouldn't be allowed to have power over other human beings.