You sit right on this stool I've set up for special guests like you.
I recall during one of our meetings in court --I think it was the last one-- where you proceeded to use my words against me. I do not remember the utterance in question, though at the time I was quite familiar with it and could quote it from memory. I am, after all, a professional writer and I have an encyclopedic command of my own intellectual property.
The utterance in question contained three clauses, Sentence A, Sentence B, and Sentence C, each following its immediate predecessor with no gaps between them.
In writing, context is everything. Divorced from their proper context, words have no meaning whatsoever, nor would you argue that they do.
In your employment of my words, you excised completely Clause B, the qualifying clause whose removal made the meaning of the remaining two clauses nebulous and quite open to mischaracterization.
Your recitation of my words went precisely like this: "Mister King says on his blog," and then you recited Clause A, which was quite accurate. You then said, "He then continues by saying," and you recited Clause C, quite studiously omitting from your representation of my speech the sentence joining the two, whose inclusion would have changed the meaning of the other two clauses completely. Were you just being efficient, perhaps? No, because the number of breaths required to speak Clause B did not exceed the number of breaths expended on your own joining clause "He then continues..."
Madame Prosecutor, in any speech crime, which is the only kind of crime I would ever be accused of, and where speech is the only available evidence, the willful, knowing removal of exculpatory, joining clauses is precisely equivalent to the fabrication of evidence.
You stood there, Madame Prosecutor, and you willfully delivered what you knew to be an inaccurate representation of my speech, the precise equivalent of fabricating evidence.
You, in your brazen presentation of fabricated evidence, displayed a contempt for that court unrivaled by any save the Public Defenders Office, who are quite content to field attorneys incapable even of calculating a sentencing guideline, attorneys who dismiss out of hand as the ravings of a madman things that are arguably germane to their client's defense.
Standing there in court was a surreal experience. It was a front row seat to amateur hour. It was like watching children play in the special room at the fast food restaurant where the children slide down the slide and giggle their way through the sea of plastic balls.
The United States District Court of Vermont is the McDonaldland Play Place of courts, apparently. I'm surprised there's no foosball table.
You are content to disrespect that court, the Public Defenders Office is content to disrespect that court, and the judge is apparently content to disrespect it by permitting this behavior.
We have witnessed a spectacular decline in standards in this country over the past ten years.
Henceforth, all legal discussions take place here in my theater. And not a single lawyer in my audience, including you and the judge, could argue against this change of venue.
History requires a higher standard, that's all.
You may go.
