Seems like a prime opportunity for a Christian man of grace and forgiveness to let it go instead of nursing a grudge.

I'm not nursing a grudge at all. Quite the opposite: They admitted they made a mistake and then corrected it. And they apparently are not more careful about allowing dumb stuff to sully their reputation. I hold no grudges against anybody. I say, good for them for admitting a mistake and then correcting it.

I think maybe you missed this question, too.

fixed my post

It’s great fun to watch you stew over this.

Washoe,

As usual, you are failing to see any nuance here. I don't know Donziger, but I know several other players in this drama, either personally or by reputation. The truth is something like the following:

Donziger brought a case against Texaco/Exxon in the United States on behalf of residents of Ecuador who were harmed by environment contamination. It seems almost certain that Exxon was, in fact, engaged in horrific environmental contamination.

Chevron asked a U.S. court to dismiss on the grounds that the Ecuadorian courts were a more convenient forum. After a round trip to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Kaplan granted the motion to dismiss, contingent on Chevron submitting to jurisdiction in Ecuador and Chevron agreeing to contest the judgment only on limited grounds permitted by New York’s Recognition of Foreign Country Money Judgments Act.

The parties litigated forever in Ecuador. Chevron's lawyers were hyper-aggressive. To a considerable degree, Chevron's litigation tactics were directed at Donziger personally. While the case was ongoing, Chevron basically moved all of its assets out of Ecuador. Donziger eventually obtained a huge judgment against Chevron.

Chevron contested all attempts to enforce the judgment outside of Ecuador on the grounds that Donziger had obtained the judgment in Ecuador through various nefarious tactics, including bribery. Numerous adjudicatory bodies in other countries refused to enforce the judgment because of the evidence of impropriety in the Ecuadorian proceeding.

Chevron's lawyers took the highly unusual step of bringing a RICO claim in the U.S. based on Donziger's behavior in obtaining the judgment. That case was assigned to Judge Kaplan, presumably because it was related to the original action that was assigned to Judge Kaplan many years earlier. Judge Kaplan was appointed by Bill Clinton. He isn't some sort of right wing nutjob. He is, however, quite impressed with his own intellect, and like most federal judges, he can be unforgiving and harsh in situations where he believes one side or the other is lying or ignoring court orders. He concluded that Donziger had, in fact, done a bunch of questionable stuff to obtain the judgment in Ecuador. He described Donziger's behavior as criminal. The U.S. Attorney for the SDNY declined to prosecute. Most aspects of Kaplan's ruling on the RICO claim were upheld by the Court of Appeals

In the course of this RICO action and the subsequent appeal, Donziger refused to comply with various discovery rulings that Kaplan made. That infuriated Kaplan (which would come as no surprise to anyone familiar with him.) Kaplan viewed Donziger's actions as criminal contempt of court. The SDNY again declined to prosecute, at which point Kaplan took the highly unusual step of appointing a private law firm as a special prosecutor on the criminal contempt charges. The criminal contempt case was heard before Judge Preska. Donziger was convicted of criminal contempt, which is how Donziger ended up under house arrest.

I think it is almost certain that Donziger engaged in some highly dubious tactics in the litigation in Ecuador. A lot of people who engage in unethical behavior convince themselves that it is OK to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet. Chevron's lawyers were exceptionally aggressive throughout. (Again, this would come as no surprise to anyone who knew the lawyers in question.) I'm sure that Chevron's lawyers were attempting in part to intimidate Donziger and anyone else who might consider following in his footsteps. I also think that this is one of those situations where the trial judge went unnecessarily ballistic in response to what he perceived as Donziger's refusal to recognize the court's authority.

In sum, I don't think there are any real heroes in this story.

But is it as fun as watching you avoid answering such a simple question?

Are you aware of that he cannot not have a private law firm do the prosecution? That was never done in history.

Are u aware that over 200 lawyers filed a complaint over Kaplan for his abusive behaviour in this case?

Im truly hoping this is not true, but it looks like kaplan might have been bought by the oil industry here and he wouldn't be the first one.

Anyways, you say that donziger had to break a few eggs to make an ommelett. Do you know that chevron paid (bribed) the main witness of the trial with 2M dollars to discredit donziger in Ecuador?


https://iadllaw.org/2020/09/more-tha...even-donziger/


I think if there is one hero it's this guy and it's definetly never ever texaco/Chevron.

People were dying of pollution and contamination. There is no excuse for this however you look at it. It can't be twisted. That's a fact. Donziger helped those victims and chevron did anything they could, ethical or not to buy their way out of this. They are the perpetrators, they are the greety bad guys who put profit over human lifes. And now they need to reimburse the victims. I don't care what donziger had to do to fight these angle-shooting, scamming murderers. Whatever he had to do im fine with it. If these guys are playing dirty and we know that they are, what is he supposed to do? You can't bring a knife to a gunfight. He is the robin hood, the hero of the story who helped the indigenous people there who got cancer btw bc of this. I don't get what's there to defend of chevron.

I would estimate that there is less than a 0.01% chance that Chevron bribed Kaplan. As far as I know, Donziger has been unable to enforce this judgment in any jurisdiction, mostly for the same reasons that Kaplan cited.

That said, I'm not a fan of what Judge Kaplan did either. His actions against Donziger feel very much like an unnecessary crusade.

$2 million is not a number that Donziger's lawyers have ever thrown around. It seems that Guerra's immigration attorneys were paid, and he received $12k per month for quite some time for housing and living expenses. I'm not sure how Chevron's lawyers got comfortable paying a fact witness. It isn't illegal to pay expenses for a fact witness, but it is very unusual and lawyers almost always try to avoid it. In any case, it wasn't a bribe. The compensation was out in the open and I'm sure it was a big point on cross-examination.

No one is defending Chevron. And to be sure, no one is claiming that Chevron is the hero of the story.

But it doesn't follow that Donziger is the hero of the story. I obviously haven't seen all the primary evidence. But if Donziger signed up clients with strong claims and then engaged in ethically dubious tactics that ruined his own lawsuit, he didn't help his clients. To the contrary, he completely ****ed his clients. They had valid claims. They could have recovered a lot of money. And now they will never see a penny. Does the person who destroyed the claims of his clients sound like the hero of the story to you?

He may not deserve the level of persecution that he is enduring, but unless you accept his version of events completely at face value and disregard the factual findings of multiple tribunals (not just Kaplan), he isn't a hero.

i would estimate there is a 100% chance that chevron bribed or attempted to bribe every single person they could at every single level of that court action both internationally and domestically. unless of course you are sticking vigorously to the legal proof of "bribe" as a briefcase full of money and not the colloquial use of the term to mean funneled money/jobs/favors with a wink towards those people. then i would estimate 90%..

Excellent summary thx for filing in lots of holes.

I would only add that it seems Chevron was also engaging in lots of dubious tactics in Ecuador and that was the reason for them seeking jurisdiction there, in the first place and they just got out 'dubiouse'd' by Donzinger so while I agree there are no angels here I can certainly understand him not just accepting the Loss and allowing Chevron to win via them willing to be dubious and him not because his win would be the moral high ground he held himself to in a loss.

I often refer to that as the Ned Stark dilemma.

When faced with an opponent that will do anything to win including the deceit and lies, are you wrong to adapt and do what ever is necessary to counter that and not lose, or do you hold to your principles and moral high ground knowing you almost certainly will lose but take solace that the bad person did not change you as you are given some time to contemplate ...

This should all be transferred to the Rittenhouse thread FWIW although you cannot really derail a 'Other news' thread, I guess.

You are out of your mind if you think there is a 90% chance that Chevron tried to influence a federal judge with money. That's the sort of thing that lands you in jail if you get caught.

I think it depends on what you view as a bribe.

No doubt that thru law there has been a continued push to use legal language to ensure what otherwise would be a clear violation of the law is legal ('its a campaign contribution to get the Senator to vote against XYZ and not a bribe') and can gain those in power a lot of monetary benefit.

I absolutely think average citizens should reject these 'legal' definitions and call things as they are. A bribe is a bribe even if you create a law to protect the elite saying it is not.

There is enough here that I think this judge not only not recusing himself but then seeing the steps he has taken after which steer this case, at every turn to people or groups that should also recuse is dubious at the very best and a purposeful racket to try and steer an out come at worst.

Almost everything I read about this judge's decision making stinks to high heaven and him not recusing should raise everyone's concern IMO.

I suspect that Chevron wanted to be in Ecuador for any numbers of reasons. Legal proceedings in places like Ecuador can take forever. Defendants love delay.

In any case, Chevron obviously thought litigating before another court in Ecuador would be less risky than litigating before Judge Kaplan in the SDNY. That tells me that Chevron did not believe that Judge Kaplan was in the tank for Chevron.

Bribery is exceeding low probability, no matter how you define bribery. Federal judges have to make very detailed financial disclosures. You accept a position as a federal judge in New York for the prestige, the intellectual stimulation, and the power trip of being the absolute ruler of your own little fiefdom. You don't accept the position for the money or to run a grift. Kaplan was a partner at Paul Weiss before he became a judge. If he had stayed at Paul Weiss, he would have made 10x the money he ever made as a judge.

Conflict of interest is the typical basis for recusal. I am unaware of any evidence that Kaplan had a conflict. You can be certain that Donziger and his attorneys boiled the ocean looking for any evidence of a conflict.

Kaplan may well have been biased. Once you lose credibility, some judges become very punitive (which is consistent with the last reason I listed for accepting a position as a federal judge in New York).

My ranking for Chevron's choice to move it to Ecuador:

- a belief they could find a system more easy to manipulate and bribe at every level
.
.
.
.
.
- Delays in the proceedings
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
- Perceived risk of Judge Kaplan's court and the SDNY

-

Well you should not assume I would define bribery within any legal confines that you might accept so based on my definitions it could well be.

You might not like my answer or see it as dismissive but for instance if a Coal company can walk up to a Senator and hand them cash to vote against citizen interests and just because the law was changed to call that a campaign contribution I would never not call that a bribe. I don't care if the elite used their power to change the legal meaning of the word as a way to disempower it. I believe citizens should keep calling it bribes and fight to get the law changed to reflect it.

But that is semantic and not meant to be conflicting as much as to explain my approach and I understand you may not agree.

More importantly is why this judge decided to buck convention so blatantly when there are normal apparatus in place deliberately to avoid the appearance of bias or conflict?

Why not let the normal system decide to prosecute or not?

Why not let the normal system decide which court and judge would hear the appeal or not?

At a minimum this looks like he was trying to steer a result instead of letting the system come to one in an unbiased way.

You keep using the example with the coal company and the Senator, but it isn't applicable. You can't lobby judges.

Bias and having a conflict are not the same thing. But if you focus on bias, I don't have any problem with what you are saying. Plenty of people have criticized what they perceive as bias in Kaplan's rulings. And I've said myself that Kaplan seems to have turned this into some sort of unnecessary crusade.

I don't accept 'you can't lobby judges' as an absolute.

I believe the Federal Society has many soft means to lobby the Judges they support all thru the process and eventually help get in to positions of increasing power.

I think the judges know the Federalist society has increasing influence over who gets elevated not just to the Supreme Court but at all levels and that gives them the ability to use many forms of soft influence and lobby for their positions.

Again I don't want to get into strict legal definitions as you and i have clashed over that prior when you are using technically language and I am speaking to the perversion of the concepts, and how I reject such purposeful distortions.

Too lazy to type out detailed response but suffice to say, like the last few times Cuepee decided to argue with actual lawyers about how the law works, I agree with Rococo.

Yeah judges can never be bought

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...teering-scheme

I am not trying to argue with Rococo. I am not saying his position on the law is wrong.

I am saying I do not accept legal applications only for the definition of terms and I say I understand if someone does not agree.


For instance I understand it is not legally bribery for Texaco to give money to a politician telling them they want them to oppose a bill only because the those who create the law carved it so it would not be. I however will still call it bribery.

I have been going out of my way to be less conflicting and aggressive in replies but with posts like this that I see as deliberately provocative i doubt it lasts. Que sera sera.

Federal judges, especially those presiding over high prestige districts and appellate levels, are a whole different group beasts than state judges.

Almost all of them can make a LOT more money in the private sector.