Groklaw has quite a lot of detail about the jury foreman and his bankruptcy.
It's really rather unsavoury, drawing all sorts of implications and making a number of unpleasant semi-accusations.
That's disappointing. A stupid patent case is stupid and there is plenty to discuss there, without dragging someone through the mud for something they did in their past.
Disappointing perhaps, but not uncharacteristic. Which has some irony considering PJ's attempts to keep her identity and the identity of her funders/employers secret, to avoid such personal attacks and claims of financial self-interest.
My opinion of Groklaw has really gone down because of their coverage of Apple v Samsung. They have really focused an inordinate amount of attention on the jury, and when your argument starts to look at the people instead of their decision, you're not starting down a good road.
Groklaw has been pretty much heavily biased right from inception. It's just that you're noticing it now because it's no longer in alignment with your own biases in the Apple case.
It's always been biased, but during SCO / IBM, it seemed like there was more fact-based reporting based on the exhibits from the case. This is the first time that I remember them going after a person, especially one that was part of the court proceedings (jury), and not a plaintiff/defendant.
It seems very hypocritical to go after the jury foreman so voraciously when PJ was so protective of her private life.
I'm sure they published things about McBride, but at least he was part of the suit.
>They have really focused an inordinate amount of attention on the jury, and when your argument starts to look at the people instead of their decision, you're not starting down a good road.
Except the problem here is that the decision was seemingly directly influenced by the people. The whole point of jury selection is to keep this kind of thing from happening. Samsung screwed up badly.
There's an interesting question here, actually. Do people really have the right to screw themselves out of a fair trial? I guess so - if only because it would be very difficult to deprive people of this right. I would point out, however, that most constitutions I know of go to great lengths to try to deprive people of the right to screw themselves out of a fair trial. That's why people are given public defenders if they cannot afford a lawyer, for instance.
More to the point - this case isn't just about Samsung. Everybody is affected by the changing limitations and definitions involved in patent law. So while it's hard to say that Samsung doesn't have a right to screw up their own defense, it's also hard to say that justice isn't infringed when jury selection is botched here.
At the very least, if someone were a champion of Apple's cause here (and I am not saying I am one) then that person would justifiably be very upset to see that what could have been a clear and direct case setting precedent of the future can become a hazy decision which will be ardently appealed and at the very least questioned for years.
You're confusing criminal and civil cases. People are given public defenders when they're part of criminal case, but not when they're part of a civil suit. All of this protection is so people are not railroaded by the government in court. People can be railroaded by other people/corporations and the government doesn't really care (for the most part).
As to your broader point, then the parties in the follow-up cases can argue that it doesn't make any sense since Samsung screwed themselves. It would then be up to a judge look at the established case law and say, "No this is incorrect." It would then be up to an appeals panel to decide which is the correct interpretation. These things takes years and even decades to work their way through the system.
That's a daft statement. It's definitely possible for juries to decide improperly -- whether Samsung succeeds on its appeals depends on stuff like that, so of course groklaw will focus on it.
They didn't discuss any personal affairs of the foreman until it was revealed out that Samsung was claiming those very affairs were grounds for an appeal.
Whether the specific details about the foreman in this article are relevant or not is another matter -- but that's not what you seem to be basing your opinion on.
Groklaw brings up these points because they're relevant to the case, not to "drag him through the mud." The prosecution needs to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, WITHOUT preconceived notions of any kind. This jury foreman had history with patents that he brought to the jury which influenced their decision. That, by definition, is not a fair trial.
Which does place a lot of questions with what Samsung's legal team was doing during the jury selection. One of the questions asked of him was whether or not he had obtained a patent. He answered in the affirmative, and that should have been enough for Samsung's team to consider him a potentially biased witness. I've personally seen potential jurors thrown out for less of a reason when I had jury duty.
Well, under the standard oath, to which people are sworn when offering testimony, not providing the whole truth counts as lying. It's cases like this that justify the wording of the oath ("the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth").
From it's coverage, it seems that Groklaw and not Samsung has actually lost the case and every one of its articles on this case has set out to right that "wrong". So now, unless the document specifically directs using the exact words "Copy the iPhone" it actually says the opposite ?
Was the Samsung "Heaven or Hell" inspiration speech document translated from Korean, or was it delivered in English and written in English?
Because to me it doesn't seem to be saying "copy iPhone", unless "build the best phone you can and make the UI better; make it better than iPhone" is the same as "copy the iPhone".
A patent case is a civil case so the plaintiff does not need to convince anyone "beyond a reasonable doubt." Instead, they only need to show that the preponderance of the evidence is in their favor. So all Apple had to do was convince a jury that Samsung was more likely to have violated their patents than to have not violated.
Groklaw doesn't, in this post, mention the patents that the foreman had, nor how they affect his perception of the case.
Groklaw makes a lot of points about a previous bankruptcy, and makes a lot of insinuations about character. But there's no smoking gun there. There's nothing cut and dried. There's just a bunch of unpleasant sniping at the man's character.
I'm firmly on Samsung's side here; I always thought the result was ridiculous. Groklaw managing to alienate me is evidence that they're going to far.
I'm sorry but didn't Samsung have a legal team at this trial as well? I'm not sure why all the hate for Apple in this post . Their legal team did their job. Its Samsung's legal team's job to parse the statements correctly for the Jury (I really don't know, but do they still have access to the guy who wrote these emails?)
If you've been following the case, there were several times when Samsung was unable to file responses due to some sort of time restriction. I have no idea if that's because Samsung fucked up or not -- it was groklaw's interpretation that the judge was being much more strict than is the norm on these matters.
I thought there were going to be some analysis of some documents, then it veered off into discussing how much the jury foreman made and how his wife didn't work and what he spent on what...
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 66.5 ms ] threadIt's really rather unsavoury, drawing all sorts of implications and making a number of unpleasant semi-accusations.
That's disappointing. A stupid patent case is stupid and there is plenty to discuss there, without dragging someone through the mud for something they did in their past.
It seems very hypocritical to go after the jury foreman so voraciously when PJ was so protective of her private life.
I'm sure they published things about McBride, but at least he was part of the suit.
(He didn't disclose during jury selection that he had been involved in a lawsuit against Seagate, which is primarily owned by Samsung.)
Except the problem here is that the decision was seemingly directly influenced by the people. The whole point of jury selection is to keep this kind of thing from happening. Samsung screwed up badly.
More to the point - this case isn't just about Samsung. Everybody is affected by the changing limitations and definitions involved in patent law. So while it's hard to say that Samsung doesn't have a right to screw up their own defense, it's also hard to say that justice isn't infringed when jury selection is botched here.
At the very least, if someone were a champion of Apple's cause here (and I am not saying I am one) then that person would justifiably be very upset to see that what could have been a clear and direct case setting precedent of the future can become a hazy decision which will be ardently appealed and at the very least questioned for years.
As to your broader point, then the parties in the follow-up cases can argue that it doesn't make any sense since Samsung screwed themselves. It would then be up to a judge look at the established case law and say, "No this is incorrect." It would then be up to an appeals panel to decide which is the correct interpretation. These things takes years and even decades to work their way through the system.
They didn't discuss any personal affairs of the foreman until it was revealed out that Samsung was claiming those very affairs were grounds for an appeal.
Whether the specific details about the foreman in this article are relevant or not is another matter -- but that's not what you seem to be basing your opinion on.
Because to me it doesn't seem to be saying "copy iPhone", unless "build the best phone you can and make the UI better; make it better than iPhone" is the same as "copy the iPhone".
Groklaw makes a lot of points about a previous bankruptcy, and makes a lot of insinuations about character. But there's no smoking gun there. There's nothing cut and dried. There's just a bunch of unpleasant sniping at the man's character.
I'm firmly on Samsung's side here; I always thought the result was ridiculous. Groklaw managing to alienate me is evidence that they're going to far.