Don Siegelman's friend: ‘Legal Schnauzer’ blogger arrested for contempt of court, resisting arrest

[Octafish]

Published 12:12pm Tuesday, October 29, 2013
By CASSANDRA MICKENS / Associate Editor

COLUMBIANA — A blogger who aired an alleged extramarital affair involving the son of former Gov. Bob Riley is being held in the Shelby County Jail after an Oct. 23 arrest.

Roger Alan Shuler, chief writer of the blog Legal Schnauzer, is charged with two counts of contempt of court and one count of resisting arrest. Bond is set at $1,000.

Shuler’s blog features several posts about Republican Rob Riley’s alleged extramarital affair with a lobbyist named Liberty Duke. The Shelby County Circuit Court issued a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction ordering Shuler to stop making defamatory statements about Riley, yet Shuler continued to publish posts.

On his blog, Shuler claims a Shelby County sheriff’s deputy “trampled the U.S. Constitution” when the deputy conducted a traffic stop outside the North Shelby Library Sept. 29 to serve Shuler and his wife, Carol, court papers in a defamation lawsuit filed against Shuler by Riley. Lt. Mike DeHart, who served the court papers, testified that the Shulers discarded the papers, including the temporary restraining order, by throwing them out of their car window after they were served.

CONTINUED...

http://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2013/10/29/legal-schnauzer-blogger-arrested-for-contempt-of-court-resisting-arrest/

Sure would like to see this story covered by MSNBC, let alone the rest of ABCNNBCBSFakeNoiseNutworks and the print press of Corporate McPravda. It's only a matter of a free press, something that We the People decided on, what, 1788?

[zazen]

1. "Liberty Duke?" You can't make this up n/t

[Octafish]

11. She's a lobbyist.

Catchy name.

[annabanana]

2. Alabama actually seceded and no one noticed.

The rule of law is the stuff of fairytales down there.

[WilliamPitt]

3. Have you been?

My father was assistant Secretary of State, assistant attorney general and the US attorney for the middle district of Alabama. He was also chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party.

It gets personal when your stupid broad brush hits my family.

[Coyotl]

6. Agreed. DU can be very tiring some times.

Sometimes I think everyone should post their real name and address. That would sure change the depth of the uncritical nonsense and BS around here.

[annabanana]

7. Sorry Will.. I'm just still pretty ticked off

over the Siegleman business.

[WilliamPitt]

10. Don is a friend of mine.

I've known him since I was a boy and he was Secretary of State. He introduced me to Barq's root beer, which he kept in a little fridge in his office. Fact not many people know: his wife was in a terrible car accident many years ago and was horribly injured. He left public service entirely to be at her side until she had fully recuperated. My father has been his friend and advocate for 30 years.

So, again: broad brushes always make a mess. Always.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Gets personal for all of us who live here.

Hell, I even CHOSE to live here...3 times!

Interesting that so called Dems are the ones who are so quick to use streotypes against southerners.

[Octafish]

12. Intimidation Of Law Blogger Tied To Alabama GOP Primary

alan.com, via FOX
Oct. 7, 2013

Following a week of intimidation and attempted unlawful of papers on a law blogger whose national profile is rapidly on the rise, more pieces of the story are falling into place.

People who follow Alabama politics might well have put two and two together to figure out what was behind an apparent intimidation campaign targeting Roger Shuler, whose outspoken blog Legal Schnauzer has pulled no punches on matters of corruption in Alabama’s legal and judicial community.

SNIP...

My wife and I received documents in the mail on Saturday indicating Riley is seeking to have us held in contempt of court for reporting last Thursday on the lawsuit he has filed against us in Shelby County Circuit Court. Riley claims we have violated a preliminary injunction, with which we have not been served and for which we were not a party to any hearing. Riley also seeks to have all posts about his extramarital affair with lobbyist Liberty Duke removed from Legal Schnauzer–and Riley wants all of this done in secret, with the case file sealed and no reporting allowed to the public. …

The motion in question states in pertinent part:

… This case involves a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary and Permanent Injunctions based on highly defamatory false information about Petitioner being disseminated by Respondents into the public sphere. Said information subjects Petitioner to immediate and irreparable harm in the form of contempt and ridicule in the city, county, and state in which he lives. Filing court records that can be obtained by reporters or the general public will perpetuate the very harm this action seeks to avoid.

What are we to take from this? Here are a few things that come to my mind:

1. Riley claims he has been defamed, but he has so little confidence in his case that he doesn’t want anyone to know about it.

2. Riley specifically wants to make sure that the press, mainstream and otherwise, never knows about anything involved in the case.

3. Riley seeks to make an end run around the American notion of a free press. He seeks an injunction against reporting on a lawsuit he filed in a public forum, but he wants it all conducted in a private manner.

4. Riley claims that he is subjected to “immediate and irreparable harm.” But I first wrote about his affair with Liberty Duke on January 24, 2013. If the alleged harm is so immediate, why did he wait until now to seek legal redress?

5. If the lawsuit was filed on July 23, 2013, why was Riley just getting around to serving it last week? Was Riley allowed to file the case under seal, and if so, why? If that’s the case, why was it unsealed briefly now, with an immediate attempt to seal it again? Is the stamped date accurate, or did someone in the Shelby County Courthouse stamp a phony date on it to obscure the real motives behind the lawsuit?

CONTINUED...

http://radio.foxnews.com/2013/10/07/intimidation-of-law-blogger-tied-to-alabama-gop-primary/

Ever since Karl Rove, something's not right.

[sabrina 1]

14. The Alabama Republicans are corrupt to the core as the Don

Siegelman case proved beyond a doubt. And that blogger is one of the best and I hope there is a way to help him nationally.

Karl Rove was involved directly in the Siegelman case and I have always wondered if it wasn't because Siegelman was outspoken about the Theft of the 2000 Election.

It's way past time for Democrats to stand up these criminals in a BIG way. Even Republican Governors have attested to the fact that Siegelman's case is a sham.

Thanks for this OP Octafish.

[Coyotl]

4. Can You Help an Alabama Journalist / Political Prisoner / Don Siegelman Defender?

Can You Help an Alabama Journalist / Political Prisoner / Don Siegelman Defender?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023928067

Shuler has been beaten by police and is now in jail. He needs our help!


Shuler, shown in a jail photos with a swollen face from his beating

Can You Help an Alabama Journalist / Political Prisoner / Don Siegelman Defender?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023928067

The story is found here: Alabama Deputies Beat, Arrest Corruption-Fighting Reporter
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023923402

More: OpEdNews Op Eds 10/25/2013 at 18:13:40
Alabama Deputies Beat, Arrest Corruption-Fighting Reporter
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Alabama-Deputies-Beat-Arr-by-Andrew-Kreig-Arrest_Corruption_Justice_Political-131025-476.html

AL Republican Saw Photos From Gay Porn Site: "Holy Cow, That's Bill Pryor" Federal Judge
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023928922

[Octafish]

13. Thank you! Please include as many threads as possible.

Do YOU Think Gov. Don Siegelman got a raw deal?

[sabrina 1]

15. Is there anywhere to donate to him to get him out of that jail?

[Octafish]

19. The great DUer Zorra got an email from Dana Siegelman, Don's daughter...

July 23, 2013

Update about "President Obama: Please restore justice and pardon my dad"

Dear Friends and Family,

Dad is doing well! He spends his time in prison helping others cope with the legal process of seeking clemency, especially minorities who have received disturbingly long sentences, and he is acting as a life coach to many of the young men. He wishes he could write each of you personally to tell you how fortunate he feels to have you in his life.

He would appreciate if you wrote to your member of Congress (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members) about disproportionate sentences for minorities, harsh drug laws for small time drug offenses, and lengthy sentences for non-violent inmates in general.

Dad would love if you took a moment to thank Congressman Steve Cohen for addressing the Siegelman case with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in a House Judiciary Committee meeting recently. Congressman Cohen has been incredibly supportive and is scheduled to be speaking about the case this week on Huffington Post Live. His address is:

The Honorable Steve Cohen
2404 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

If you would like to donate to Dad's commissary or legal defense fund, you can do so here (http://www.free-don.org/action_home.html). My family is honored and blessed by your support and appreciates you everyday. I hope to be celebrating Dad's freedom with you very soon!

With very best wishes,

Dana (https://www.facebook.com/dana.siegelman)

OP: http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3451297

[Coyotl]

23. YES. Follow the link above.

The Legal Schnauzer site just added a PayPal button.

[sabrina 1]

29. Great, thank you I will do that.

[hootinholler]

5. Good to see this resurface

Gotta love the last sentence...

“We received an order from the bench to arrest him and, in the course of doing that, he resisted arrest,” Burchfield said of Shuler. - See more at: http://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2013/10/29/legal-schnauzer-blogger-arrested-for-contempt-of-court-resisting-arrest/#sthash.4A1gjyHq.dpuf

Of course he did, KKKomrade

[Octafish]

17. Justice demands it...

... in Amerikkka, the Konservative, where you're lucky you don't get shot and killed in police custody.

To hasten the day when the rule of law returns:

Know your BFEE: Siegelman Judge is a big-time War Profiteer

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. This is not helping the powers that be, not at all.

If you have read the blog for any length of time, you will know Shuler is very outspoken, at times even ranting, IMHO.
This will not end quietly.
The State will overplay its hand, eventually.
I expect a lawsuit is in the works already over the arrest.

[sabrina 1]

16. I wish more people would 'rant' about this egregious miscarriage

of justice regarding Don Siegelman. I am very familiar with his site and he has been a hero, sadly there are not too many of them around anymore, in trying to obtain justice against Karl Rove and his minions.

All heroes have been accused of ranting in their times, but history has presented their 'rantings' as some of the greatest orations on the side of justice.

I hope this totally backfires on those corrupt morons and now the entire country will find out what they are trying so hard to hide.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Sooner or later, the pendulum will swing.

May not be on the timeline I prefer, but it eventually will get there.

[Octafish]

20. Karl Rove and the Alabama BFEE have done all they could to destroy Shuler...

...guy lost his job without cause as an editor at University of Alabama Birmingham:

Shuler says that the decision to fire him was based on the political content of his blog posts, which were critical of Alabama Governor Bob Riley and one of his key allies, U.S. Attorney Alice Martin. According to Shuler, the firing occurred only a few months after one of Riley’s political cronies threatened him with the loss of his job because of his blogging. Indeed, to the university’s chagrin, his final review session was taped, and portions which have now been published suggest that the primary concern of his reviewers was that he was publicly critical of the state’s political powers.

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/12/orwellian-world-of-uab.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. It's a small club

and we are not in it.
Southern politics have, as a rule, always been very clique-ish.

[sabrina 1]

30. We have our own club, or we thought we did. It just isn't willing to fight the

way theirs is.

[madfloridian]

21. Thanks for this, Octafish.

Recommended. That's a great blog, and this whole situation is a crying shame.

[Octafish]

22. Hiya, madfloridian! Beyond weird. The late pedo US Attorney John Atchison hails from Alabama...

...John David R. Atchison, the GOP father and husband who was arrested after soliciting sex online with a minor? The family man promised what he thought was the 5-year old girl's mother he wouldn' t hurt the child -- stating he'd done it before. In reality, he was corresponding with an undercover deputy in Michigan. He showed up at the airport with toys. Originally from Alabama, the guy was a riser in the Dixie GOP. Like so many of the evil ilk, after his arrest he tried suicide in jail, the second time successfully.

I wondered if he was friends with Bob Riley, Mark Fuller and the rest of the Alabama Old GOP Boys. What Metacrawler turned up:

The Strange Tale of a Pedophile in the U.S. Justice Department

Legal Schnauzer, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

The U.S. Department of Justice generated plenty of strange stories during the George W. Bush years. But one of the strangest involved John David "Roy" Atchison, an assistant U.S. attorney in Pensacola, Florida, who committed suicide after being caught in a pedophilia sting in Detroit.

Atchison's sad story has many connections to Birmingham and Alabama. And it raises this question: How did a guy with a shaky work record and a history of run-ins with the law get hired by the world's supposedly foremost crime-fighting organization? Did Atchison attain his lofty position because he had connections to powerful figures in the Alabama legal world?

Investigative journalist Margie Burns examines these questions, and much more, in a series of posts about the Atchison case at her blog, margieburns.com.

Burns begins with the actions that turned Atchison into a national figure in fall 2007:

This is not the story of a man who engaged in pedophilia for years or decades before being caught. It is the story of a man whipsawed by the strain of living up to a high-achieving family rooted in Birmingham, Ala., whose high-functioning connections assisted him for years in developing a career for which he turned out not to be suited. On Sept. 16, 2007, Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Florida, was arrested on credible charges of basically pedophilia. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison Oct. 5.

A dead pedophile might not sound like a tragedy. But Atchison was thought to be participating in a pedophile ring, and his death removed a useful informant from law enforcement resources. The question of how he was enabled to kill himself rather than being preserved for justice is one of the loose ends left hanging in his case.

CONTINUED 'though I wish it didn't...

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/09/strange-tale-of-pedophile-in-us-justice.html

[/div class="excerpt"]

Margie Burns detailed how the guy rose up through the GOP ranks, warts and all. When this is the kind of person putting people behind bars on behalf of Uncle Sam, these are worse than NAZI times.

For some reason, the First Amendment means less and less with each passing day. Only raising awareness of Legal Schnauzer's plight -- the guy who wrote about Mark Fuller the ENRON Judge -- can protect him from these satanic warmongers and traitors. It's up to us as, obviously, Alabama and the United States of America 2013 can't or won't.

[madfloridian]

24. Karl Rove set his sights on Alabama and judges. From 2007....

Your post reminded me of something I wrote back in 2007, a compilation about Siegelman's woes. It's just crazy.

"A Stain on Lady Justice"..Siegelman in jail, Rove writing for Newsweek.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A longtime Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys.

The allegation was made by Dana Jill Simpson, a lifelong Republican and lawyer who practices in Alabama.

Talk about a mess:

Now we learn from the Associated Press notes that Governor Siegelman’s appeal to the Eleventh Circuit is being held up because there is no transcript.

The bulky transcript from the two-month-long trial has not been completed and must be available before attorneys for Siegelman and Scrushy can appeal the convictions to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The delay was caused partly by the death earlier this year of Jimmy Dickens, the court reporter who recorded the trial, which included dozens of witnesses and mounds of physical evidence.

I need to ask where are the Democrats on this issue!

[Octafish]

27. One's on the Supreme Court.

Not that she was a willing accomplice in the Siegelman prosecution or anything, but she did help the nation "move on" afterward as Solicitor General for the good of the, uh, the good of...wait a second. From the great DUer autorank:

Elena Kagan - Willing Accomplice

By Michael Collins

Then, when Siegelman appealed his case to the Supreme Court in 2009, President Obama's Attorney General dispatched Solicitor General Elena Kagan to argue against the appeal in November.

Before accepting the case, Elena Kagan knew or should have known: that the U.S. Attorney who began the Siegelman investigation was closely tied to Karl Rove; that Siegelman never benefited personally from the contribution to an education funding initiative; that the case was so outrageous, forty-four attorneys general petitioned Congress; and, that the presiding judge in the case owned a major interest in a defense firm that received a $178 million federal contract between Siegelman's indictment and trial, a massive conflict of interest.

Most revealing, before her argument against the former governor's appeal, Kagan knew or should have known the following. After two charges had been dropped in a 2009 appeal, Justice Department attorneys recommended a twenty year sentence instead of the seven years already rendered. Fewer offenses for sentencing meant thirteen additional years by the strange logic of federal justice.
Kagan knew or should have known all this and more. That didn't stop her from arguing that Don Siegelman should be kept in jail. ...

That judgment is that Elena Kagan was a willing accomplice in one of the most outrageous political prosecutions of our time. Why should anyone ever trust her?

[madfloridian]

28. What keeps our party from speaking out and taking this on?

Is it fear of the right wing and its noise machine? It is something else?

The whole thing makes no sense at all.

[Octafish]

36. Fear

Who owns Booze Hamilton?

Know your BFEE: The Carlyle Group

The spies-for-hire might enjoy knowing who likes to go along and get along. Which brings up:

Why was Erik Prince hired to run the drones?

Blackwater managed CIA Predator drone assassination program

Not that what the secret government does overseas would ever be done at home, like the time the CIA failed to inform the Warren Commission about the ZR/Rifle program. They also forgot to tell Attorney General Robert Kennedy or even President Kennedy about it. What a coincidence!

[sabrina 1]

35. How could anyone, who had any knowledge of this case, argue to keep Don Siegelman

in jail? Even Republicans were shocked at this gross miscarriage of justice. Shame on her, I did not know this when she was nominated. No respect for anyone who could participate in this terrible violation of ethics and justice.

[Octafish]

37. More than 100 state attorneys general signed a statement to that effect.

A PDF of the names of the 113 who filed a brief in federal court in support of Gov. Siegelman:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/89760651/Former-Attorneys-General-Cert-Amicus.pdf

There may be more who've since signed on.

[sabrina 1]

46. Shame on any Dem especially, who is not clamoring for a thorough investigation

of this horrible mis-carriage of justice, including the SC justice who sunk to such a level that she sided with Karl Rove. Tell me again why I should be happy about that appointment??

[sabrina 1]

31. Too bad there are not more like Shuler, if there were, they wouldn't

have the nerve to go after him like this. This needs to be everywhere. On Twitter, on FB on every Progressive blog, and it would help if the DOJ would do something about the Siegelman case the way they did for Stevens. But so far, apparently they are not interested in exposing the corruption that has destroyed a good Democrat.

[madfloridian]

34. It seems as though the Democrats are fearful of standing up for him.

Makes me wonder why.

[gopiscrap]

26. It's a fucking police state down there.

[Octafish]

38. How Karl Rove Took Over the Alabama Supreme Court and Created a ‘No Win Zone’ for Citizens

How the Corporate Republican Courts Turned From ‘Tort Reform’ to ‘Sovereign Immunity’ for Hospitals and Destroyed Americans’ Sixth Amendment Jury Rights

by Glynn Wilson
The Locust Fork News-Journal, October 23, 2012

How did Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove, the adopted son of a gay man with pierced balls and a drunk, drug addict mother, become such a powerful and destructive force in American politics?

In the South we have a long history of asking people where they’re from, about their family. We have a need to know something about their mama. Yet as an American demographic, white Southern males over 50 have been listening to the politicians handled by Karl Rove and his ilk for three decades now. How did this happen?

SNIP...

(Mark) Kennedy, the son-in-law of George Wallace himself, was the first state Supreme Court Justice targeted by Karl Rove, who came to work for a University of Alabama Law School professor named Harold See at the behest of the Business Council of Alabama. It was and is still run by Bill Canary who had worked as a political operative for George H.W. Bush. We haven’t seen much of Canary since he was named prominently in all the stories about the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Kennedy actually beat Rove and his candidate in that first race, barely, but he was so shaken by the dirty campaign tactics that he decided not to seek another term and face Rove again in 1998. He retired, but finally agreed in 2010 to get back into politics as head of the Alabama Democratic Party.

I caught up with him at an AFL-CIO convention in Prattville last fall and got him to tell me the story of what Karl Rove did to him. You can see the interview in the video above.

Before being elected to the state Supreme Court, Kennedy served as a juvenile judge and family-court judge, where he saw the negative plight of abused children who ended up in the justice system. In light of his experiences, he helped start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama and later the Corporate Foundation for Children and served as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. Kennedy’s campaign commercials showed his volunteer work, and included pictures of him holding hands with children he had helped.

Rove took those innocent pictures and, in the early days of the Internet, got Republican operatives at the University of Alabama Law School and the secretive, conservative Federalist Society to e-mail around an attack ad claiming Kennedy was a gay pedophile. It was not unlike the “whispering campaign” he used in Texas to get Bush elected over Ann Richards, who he accused of being a lesbian in similar fashion.

CONTINUED...

http://blog.locustfork.net/2012/10/how-karl-rove-took-over-the-alabama-supreme-court-and-created-a-no-win-zone-for-citizens/

Great links and video interviews above, too.

[sabrina 1]

47. Have you noticed how little interest there is now in Karl Rove as compared

to when Bush was in the WH? Did he suddenly become irrelevant to Democrats or was he just being used to emotionally manipulate people into voting for Dem candidates who had no intention from the beginning of doing anything about him or any of the other Criminals who destroyed this country?

I have to say, these last few years have been a rude awakening for many people..

This thread, during the Bush years, would have received hundreds of comments and recs.

I know many progressives have moved on from the party blogs, but I didn't think it was so many that a case like this would receive so little support from Democrats.

[Coyotl]

32. K&R

[Octafish]

40. DU remembers Don Siegelman...

...and the whole story, Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

[Wilms]

33. ^

[Octafish]

42. DeLay gets off. Siegelman still in prison.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10286

Five years of waiting for justice to arrive and I'm starting to think that bus is not going to arrive.

[arthritisR_US]

50. I know the feeling!

[arthritisR_US]

39. Write to Rachael Maddow, good chance she would take it up. nt

[Octafish]

43. Rachel Maddow has covered Don Siegelman story...

Great idea, arthritisR_US! Journalists love to update important stories.

[arthritisR_US]

45. I could be wrong but I thought she was the only one of them, to date, that has

covered anything about Don Siegelman (which is a bloody crime if you ask me) so that is why she came to mind. The injustice that man endures is fecking unbelievable

[Coyotl]

48. Even 60 Minutes covered it.

Do a DU archive search for "Siegelman" and "L. Coyote"

[arthritisR_US]

49. I wil thanks. I wasn't aware...

[Uncle Joe]

41. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[leftstreet]

44. DURec

[historylovr]

51. K & R