To: Robert Berring
Too little too late. Too little because you still have not explained
what "may" be flawed about your letter. Too late because West continued
it misrepresentations after I first alerted you to the problem.
On October 27, 1994 , you responded to my posting concerning your letter
to the House Subcommittee in 1992, which letter has in recent weeks been
broadcast by West Publishing Company, not only on the Internet, but at a
Press Conference at the National Press Club, to the United States
Department of Justice, all over the Hill, and to who knows where else --
for example, the Forbes reporter who called me last week.
Your letter was misrepresented as a report from a distinguished law
professor to a House Committee and as "the truth". However, what it
actually is in an informal and, in your words, flawed letter by a
professor who a House Subcommittee refused to let testify because West
paid for the transportation expenses of the professor (as you expressly
acknowledge).
You also said that the context of the letter needs to be understand. Any
law librarian on this list who finds this of interest may read the
testimony appearing at pages 161. The context was that Representative
Barney Frank challenged your statement that "there are only three States,
one district court, and one Federal circuit that do require and take
seriously as specific form of citation", which statment was made after
you interrupted Vance Opperman's discourse about sources of United States
Supreme Court opinions. Your letter then found not two federal courts,
but fifteen (and I count twenty-five on the exhibit that has not been
posted on the Internet). Your letter found not three, but seven states,
However your letter ignores thirty-one states, including New York and the
rules of individual judges. West no doubt was happy to have your
testimony for its "spin" game on the Hill which killed the bill before
you letter arrived a month later just as it has enjoyed the recent weeks of
free play off your letter.
You stated that you "intend for this to be my last word on my soul".
Unfortunately, you have stood by condoning the West misrepresentation of
your letter. Indeed, the West posting on this list came two days after
your first response to my private message last week. Now, West is not just
another person on the street making misrepresentations about your letter
-- West is the company that paid for your travel to Washington, and
pressured the Subcommittee to let you sit with Vance Opperman, and,
without which your letter would not have been written. So, if I may have
permission to mix metaphors "goin' fishin' don't hunt".
This is not an issue about view and opinions --- the content of court
rules concerning citation is primarily a factual question. There may be
some ambiguities, but you did, I note, suggest that your letter was
"adopting the broadest possible interpretation of the rules".
Your letter would have remained in obscurity had West not chosen to
intentionally distribute a flawed and informal study. I have known about
the letter since I read the transcript when it became available from the
GPO last year and chose to let it lie, although my first thought was to
write Chairman Hughes and point out what was not said in the letter. So,
now, the letter has become a part of the West public relations program.
I will now go send my letter to Hughes. It will be
substantially the same as the draft I sent to you over a week ago, and
which you have not challenged in any way.
Alan Sugarman
HyperLaw, Inc.
sugarman@panix.com
212-873-1371
Notes:
Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial
Administration of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of
Representatives, 102nd Congress, Second Session, H.R. 4426 "Exclusion of
Copyright Protection for Certain Legal Compilations", Serial No. 105,
ISBN 0-16-040799-0.
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