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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."

2 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 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.