Miers & Microsoft
We don’t know much about Harriet Miers; her qualifications list is short. But one item that is invariably included is her representation of Microsoft. So what exactly did she do for the software behemoth? She protected them from class action lawsuits over their faulty products. The Senate Judiciary Committee missed the boat on Roberts, failing to dig into his views on corporate liability. It remains to be seen if they repeat their mistakes with Miers, but her Microsoft work should clearly figure heavily in any examination of her record.
She was in frequent communication both with Microsoft and with Gates personally. Greg Palast reports in the January 21, 2001 Observer: “‘Harriet was always flying to Seattle (home of Microsoft)’, says Lawrence Littwin, the Texas Lottery director Miers fired in 1997. That’s no surprise, as her law firm represented Gates at the time.” Miriam Rozen in the March 24, 2003 Texas Lawyer: “U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade of Dallas, whose appointment to the federal bench became official last month, says Miers’ low-key approach can startle even those, such as himself, who have known her for a long time. He recalls reaching her on the phone a few years back and having her say, ‘Ed, can you give me just a minute? I’ve got Mr. Gates on the line. I’m doing a little work for Microsoft.’”
Microsoft was sued for distributing faulty compression software for MS DOS 6.0, then charging for an update. As laid out in Microsoft Corp. v. Manning, et al., No. 06-95-00058-CV (Texarkana), 11/13/95, Microsoft sold MS-DOS 6.0 to consumers with disk compression software that it had purchased from a third party without adequate testing. The software proved to have serious bugs, and destroyed data on occasion. Microsoft released an update, MS-DOS 6.2, for $ 9.95. They were sued, and lawyers were able to get a lower court judge to certify as a class all people who’d purchased MS DOS 6.0; the argument was that Microsoft sold defective software and should have issued the update without charge. People bought disk compression, but didn’t get it. The class was certified at the trial level and certification was affirmed on appeal.
Harriet Miers got the class decertified. Walt Borges in the October 21, 1996 Texas Lawyer details Miers’ success, which resulted in plaintiffs asking that their case be dismissed as moot after the trial judge withdrew class certification. The appellate court ruled that “if appellees prove that an individual defect exists in all original MS-DOS 6.0 software, it is not necessary for the purchasers to actually suffer a loss of data as a result of a defect for them to suffer damage…They have received less than they bargained for when they acquired the product.” The trial court, though, revisited the issue and withdrew certification based on a Miers brief that argued the earlier decision was flawed because “the lower courts upheld certification without determining whether the novel theory of the case was proper for a class action suit.” Microsoft believed that only people who actually lost data had a right to sue; that those merely with faulty software hadn’t been injured. Rather than lose an appellate court decision on the issue, the plaintiffs withdrew their suit.
Miers Joined by Texans for Lawsuit Reform. The TLR argument: “the published opinion of the Texarkana Court of Appeals threatens to eviscerate the protections provided by [Rule 42] by allowing trial courts to conduct only a superficial, inadequate inquiry into the suitability of a case for class action treatment before certifying a class.”
Does Miers personally favor such stringent limitations on class certification? Does she agree with the argument advanced by TLR? Does she think it’s acceptable for Microsoft to sell software that needed a critical stability update?
41 Responses to “Miers & Microsoft”
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Categories: Civil Justice | Corporate | Corruption
October 4th, 2005 at 11:03 am
So, she was paid legal counsel for Microsoft, and she did her job? Oh, the horror!
October 4th, 2005 at 11:09 am
So are we to fault her for interpreting the rule and stopping a law suit? The fact that she had a job as a lawyer for a major company and made some money on it makes her a bad person?
The fact is that the surpreme court needs this level of skill, to realize where the rule is, note she didn’t kill the suit but she explained her interpretation of that law?
I see very little here that makes her look like a poor choice for supreme court, but I don’t know if I’d say she’d be a great choice yet, we need more information on her personal and professional work.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Great example for that generation. Lawyers and business degrees succeeded over honesty and quality, wiped them out. No wonder honesty and individual job quality have taken such a beating.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:16 am
Sounds like she was paid to do a job and did it well. Good for her.
As for the lawsuit reform, GREAT!!!!! This society has become litigous to a fault and preventing stupid suits like this one is needed
October 4th, 2005 at 11:19 am
This is simply an important line of inquiry. If she’s willing to say that she was working on behalf of a client, and that it doesn’t represent her personal views (I have little doubt that she will say this), then she’s likely get off the hook, just like Roberts did.
There were a lot of arguments she could have made in this case. That she strategically chose to go after class certification tells me something.
Obviously, her work for Microsoft raises important questions about her views of intellectual property rights. Her record is sparse; at this point, I’m just looking for questions, not answers.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:24 am
I have yet to see anything delineating her experience in constitutional law.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:42 am
I don’t see a problem with a lawyer defending their client to the best of their ability within the confines of the law (and using said law to their advantage), having said that I don’t agree with the result either. My main cause for concern is that a record like that should be sought after in a public official, who represents the needs and best interests of the population of the country as a whole, and not just the largest companies in the country. Sadly, this appears to be more and more common in our (the West’s) societies, where it is corporations and not the common good who dictate law-making.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Miers didn’t necessarily agree with everything she argued on behalf of a client. Nevertheless, the Microsoft case is relevant. Lawyers are humans, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, and their views are shaped by their experiences. Someone may be merely a hired gun, representing big businesses that have defrauded consumers. Over time, though, there’s a tendency for a lawyer to come to agree with the positions he or she has been arguing. Miers’s background as a lawyer for corporate interests tells us something about which side is likely to have her sympathy in any case that comes before the Supreme Court.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
She was working for Microsoft.
She was paid to do a particular job and represent her client.
She did it well.
You’re reaching, aren’t you?
October 4th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
If Miers had lost that case the software industry would have been wiped off the face of the earth. It is simply a fact that all software has bugs. Get over it.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
Yes, she was working for Microsoft. Yes, she did her job.
But was it ethical?
This is precisely what I don’t do Windoz.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:52 pm
I’m disturbed by the number of commenters who seem so willing to put “just doing her job well” over her the actual societal effects of her job. I guess there’s nothing wrong with oligarchy and the abuse of power, as long as you abuse it well.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Losing that case would have fixed software for all time. Any software company wiped out by this needed to be.
People reboot every day because Harriet Miers created a flaccid argument that should never have won. The court allowed that owning a defective product was not damage…the person had to actually be injured. This is ridiculous.
It was legalistic and successful of her to make a novelty argument to a weak court, but it was not just.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
Yes, she was paid to do a job, and she did it. The problem is, the job she was paid to do was protecting a corporation for liability for the failure of one of their products and insulating them from having to repay those damaged by that failure. When you start to look at this in terms of appointing this lady to the supreme court, we’re now appointing someone who’s record indicates a strong preference for big business over protecting the people. Big business historically hasn’t needed much help figuring out ways to make money at the people’s expense, they’re not the ones who need the help. The supreme court (and frankly, government as a whole) exists to protect the people, and the concern is if she’s more interested in protecting business then protecting the people (the prevailing winds on roberts say much the same), then she’s really not the right person for the job.
Yes, she was hired to do a job, yes, she did it well. But there’s more qualification than that required to make someone a supreme court justice. Don’t forget, unless you guys fly to work in a leerjet, you’re not going to benefit from these kind of business-favoring rulings, and both Roberts and Miers look pretty far from the grave, so this is no short-term decision we’re making. Roe V. Wade, Brown V. Board, the supreme court makes some pretty big decisions, I think a bit of caution in choosing who we appoint is more than justified.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Microsoft wrote the software. The judge presiding over the case made the judgement. Elected officials crafted the law used to decide the case. The plaintiff’s lawyers withdrew their case.
Miers didn’t write the software, or the law, pass judgement or withdraw. She presented an argument on behalf of Microsoft.
I think a good number of people should go back and actually READ what Roberts said about the role of a judge. The role of judge is to look at the facts of the case and the laws and precedent of the appropriate jurisdiction. So long as the judge has no unethical ties to either party or makes a gross decision with no basis in fact or law or precedent THERE IS NO ETHICAL LAPSE. The judge’s responsibility is to apply the law and precedent to the case. If your congressperson passes a law that allows unethical behaviour, that’s not their fault. It isn’t anybody’s lawyer’s fault, either. Pass better laws. Elect better representatives. Stop using their products (as one person suggested above!).
That said, her role as a corporate lawyer will probably have a big impact on the number of cases in which she will likely have to recuse herself. That’s something worth considering.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Aren’t there cases of torturers whod performed their jobs well. This doesn’t mean that one must accord them any morality.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
I agree, she did a good job for a corporate client. BUT the Senate needs to hear concrete answers on her views of the rights of individual and how she would protect them against big business.
She should be thinking about the common individual, if Bush thinks he is sneaking a corporate apologist into the Supreme Court, that is what should be investigated.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Erik said:
She was working for Microsoft.
She was paid to do a particular job and represent her client.
She did it well.
You’re reaching, aren’t you?
Now, let’s use the same arguments…
Ben Laden is working for Al Qaida.
He is paid to do a particular job and represent his organization.
He did it, hum, very well.
Are you reaching your point isn’t very relevant?
Or do you want me to start over again with any nazi under WW2?
Having a job is one thing. Acting immorally for your job is another.
Now, let’s switch aover to another point: Jon Cohen Said:
If Miers had lost that case the software industry would have been wiped off the face of the earth. It is simply a fact that all software has bugs. Get over it.
We’re not argueing that Microsoft may not have bigs in it’s software, but that when you buy a buggy software, the company who sould it out should give away the correcting patch for free.
Imagine buying an Ipod (up-to-date examples are always the best) with a defect battery. Would you accept to pay for a replacement battery? Or would you expect to have yours replaced for free?
October 4th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
The class-action sharks that were suing Microsoft were trying to claim that everyone who bought MS-DOS 6.2 were entitled to relief because of occasional data corruption in one part of MS-DOS that a minority of users even used. That’s ridiculous. This isn’t about brakes failing, this is about having to get data from your backup. (You do backup don’t you?) No one said the people who couldn’t use the compression code that they paid for aren’t entitled to relief. The sharks didn’t even claim all those who used data compression are entitled, which would make sense. They took the easy way out to make a buck, and when Miers called them on it they gave up. Good on her.
And Sam says that everyone who practices law needs to recuse themselves from cases that involve law. Sheesh.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
hey, sam. how do you propose the world stop using the products when damn near everything is made to run on their software and on other vendors secondly??? this women obviously has no respect for the people who lost their information and were required to pay for a fix for software that didn’t work correctly and overpaid for anyway.
i cant even fathom how anyone could be for her when she has had no experience as a judge.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
I think some of you are missing the point here, and maybe some of you aren’t old enough to remember, but DOS was distributed on floppy disk (remember those?) which meant that the disk itself probably cost $9.95 just to package and distribute (you didn’t download fixes like you do now).
Miers argued that a collection of individuals who were NOT harmed by a software bug should not be able to claim damages from the company. The judge agreed (yeah for the judge!).
Most companies today, if the possible suits will be too expensive usually recall an item or send out a patch.
I don’t think it matters who you are working for - if you stood up for the right thing. This situation is analogous to the Hot-coffee suit in the following way:
Imagine that John gets burned by 180-degree coffee from McDonald’s. John can sue for damages - he was injured by the coffee. Now, some enterprising lawyer puts together a class action suit of everyone who has ever bought coffee from McDonald’s whether they were burned or not - and tries to sue McDonald’s. I think we would all agree - that’s ridiculous! Just because something “may” damage you should not give you the right to sue the company. Not if there is another option!
Microsoft provided 3 options: you could continue using the faulty software, you could STOP using the faulty software, or you could pay a small fee to be sure that your software works fine. At the time, the lawyer for the class-action suit had every right to restructure the class to include only INJURED peoples - but I would guess that he/she probably couldn’t get enough people…
October 4th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
# John Doe Said:
October 4th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Erik said:
She was working for Microsoft.
She was paid to do a particular job and represent her client.
She did it well.
You’re reaching, aren’t you?
-Now, let’s use the same arguments…
-Ben Laden is working for Al Qaida.
-He is paid to do a particular job and represent his organization.
-He did it, hum, very well.
-Are you reaching your point isn’t very relevant?
-Or do you want me to start over again with any nazi under WW2?
Nice red herring. Here, let me go ahead and give you the definition of this logical fallacy. “This is the most general fallacy of irrelevance. Any argument in which the premisses are logically unrelated to the conclusion commits this fallacy.” WW2/Nazism has nothing to do with this discussion. Please, try an intelligent argument next time.
-Having a job is one thing. Acting immorally for your job is another.
Morality is subjective. Perhaps you should learn that your opinion is not greater than that of others; What you believe, is not necessarily the same that the person next to you believes.
Also, you don’t seem to understand the basic tenants of our legal system. It is a system in which two sides submit opposing views. The facts and arguments are weighed and a verdict is reached. Morality is not used when presenting an argument, rather, it and the rule of law are called in during the verdict. Either by the mores of the Judge or views of the Jury.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
I find it more than a little insulting that a post about a woman performing a job is filed under the category of “Corruption”. The article clearly makes some effort to appear unbiased and aloof and inviting of discussion, but assigning it to a “Corruption” category belies the veiled intentions of the author.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
Imagine that Dana gets injured because of a defective mini-spare tire from GM. John can sue for damages - he was injured because of the tire. Now, some enterprising lawyer puts together a class action suit of everyone who has ever bought a car with that mini-spare from GM, whether they were injoured or not - and tries to sue GM. I think we would all agree - that’s ridiculous! Just because something “may” injure you should not give you the right to sue the company. Not if there is another option!
GM could provide 3 options: you continue using the faulty tires, you refrain from using the faulty tires, or you pay a small fee to be sure that your tire works fine. The lawyer for the class-action suit would have every right to restructure the class to include only INJURED people - but I would guess that he/she probably couldn’t get very many.
October 4th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
poojab
October 4th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Not to beat this to death, but what if a vehicle has a defect - isn’t every vehicle recalled and fixed at the manufacturer’s expense? This almost drove Ford and Firestone to bankruptcy recently. But if the next year’s model has the fix, people are not entitled to trade up to the new model free. They are only entitled to the fix on their existing model.
I can buy the argument for Microsoft if MS-DOS 6.2 had other features besides the fix, and likely it did. So, Microsoft could have offered a fixed version of MS-DOS 6.0 free of charge. Yes, that would be expensive to load the disks and distribute, but likely around $2/disk, or less. Microsoft could afford it.
People could apply for the disk, and receive it in the mail. Likely only those who were damaged would bother.
But the merits of that case are a digression. I don’t think Miers is qualified because she has never been a judge. Her record representing corporate interests and being close to Bush are no foundation for a Supreme Court Justice. We need someone who is seasoned at looking for the big picture, what is best for all parties. In our system a judge does that, not a lawyer. Being a good lawyer does make a good judge.
Bush nominated her for three reasons - she’s a crony, she’s a woman, and she does not have a record for rival sides to pick apart. There is less ammunition for the bruising fight any successor to swing-vote Sandra would receive in confirmation. Miers is nominated for political reasons, not because she is in any way the best candidate for the job. For that reason she should be denied confirmation, the President should find a fully-qualified candidate, and the political confirmation process can take its course.
October 4th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
The problem with the spare tire analogy is that everyone who drives implicitly depends on the spare tire even if they don’t actually use it. It is there for insurance. But not everyone ever used compression, and they can’t say they didn’t get what they paid for if they never had plans to use compression. Microsoft bundled compression in and the cost of having separate pricing would have exceeded the cost of the compression itself.
The analogy is like some extra gear for going up steep hills with low gas consumption that in some cases doesn’t work. Only the people who tried to use it where injured, to the extent they had to use a less advatageous gear.
October 4th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Correction - In my previous post I should have said:
Being a good lawyer does not make a good judge.
October 4th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
I’m disturbed by the number of commenters who seem so willing to put “just doing her job well” over her the actual societal effects of her job.
Yes, I agree. Anyone that I disagree with or who did something that we perceive to be immoral should be denied the legal representation afforded them by the Constitution.
Interesting and stupid take, IMO.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
I didn’t say that anyone who practices law should recuse themselves from cases involving law. That’s dumb and a complete misrepresentation of my statement.
Miers has received money from these companies in the past. Miers may still be receiving money from these companies. I believe there was an op-ed in the WSJ recently about the number of cases the justices recuse themselves from because they hold stock in the litigants through mutual funds. I’m no legal expert, but there may be situations where her past employment would cause her to recuse herself.
As for the idea that you need to have been a judge in the past in order to be a judge going forward: that simply isn’t the case. No one would disagree that past judicial experience gives a clear indication of the suitability of an individual for the position. No one would disagree that most of the past justices have previous experience as a judge. However, there was a pretty significant voice amongst both Democrats and Republicans that Mr. Bush look beyond the current judicial benches for candidates as most of those people were too politically volatile on way or the other. Do I necessarily agree that Miers is what they meant? No, certainly not. But that doesn’t mean that judgeship is a absolutely requirement for the post.
With respect to whether or not the senate should confirm Miers because she’ll defend the little guy, I will again refer you back to Robert’s testimony. I’ll try to paraphrase: if the law says the big guys should win, they should win. if the law says the little guys should win, they should win. But if the law says that the big guys should win it’s not up to the judge to just decide that the little guys are cooler and deserve a leg up.. and vice versa (check the latin, yo).
The idea is similar to that of the president and spending. The president can’t, per se, lower taxes. GW didn’t lower taxes: congress did. He can suggest that such and such a law be passed. He can use his unique position to pressure the legislature. But according to the constitution he has absolutely no authority to make decisions regarding the finances of the government outside of whatever authority is granted to him by congress (eg. you are hereby allocated to spend $100 dollars on lunch with Dick. you can pick whatever you want, so long as you give equal weight to all ethnic food groups in making your decision, but you can’t spend more than $100 and you must submit your receipt, and proof of your appropriate consideration of various ethnic food groups in the form of reviewed menus and a certified history of menu selections, to the OMB for auditing).
The biggest issue I see with this particular candidate is that she worked primarily as a political appointee. Sure, all judges at the federal level are political appointees. However, she’s GW’s “right hand legal lady”. In a lot of ways she is beholden to GW and his family for most of her career. The question I have is whether or not, as a Supreme Court Justice, she’ll be able to be her own person.
October 4th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
And another thing…
Comparing a lawyer who defends a client in a civil suit that didn’t involve any kind of physical harm CANNOT HARDLY BE COMPARED to the BURNING AND GASSING OF MILLIONS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. I bet you didn’t even vote in the next election to try and make a difference regarding this specific case. Talk about a guilty silence… If you really think this is that important, why haven’t you fought tooth and nail to change the law?
Yes, it absolutely is stretching to compare her effort to *make a legal argument* to a soldier in a nazi death camp. She didn’t break the law. What, *GASP*, if she had lost the case? Does that mean she should have picked up the tab for Microsoft?
No.
She didn’t commit the wrong (and, according to the record, apparently neither did MS). She made every effort to ensure that the laws were equally applied by working her hardest for her client. Would you expect any less from the public defender assigned to an accused serial killer???
October 4th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Heck, what about the lawyers to are assigned to defend the accused at war crimes tribunals. Should the be sent to prison as well?
October 5th, 2005 at 9:21 am
mmm the fact that she did her job doesn’t make her a bad person….but the fact that she could still be “grateful” to microsoft is the scary part…looks like america is still for $ale …. if you know what i mean
October 5th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
A supreme court justice needs more than judicial experience, but complete expertise on constitutional law.
Miers has neither and clearly demonstrates the amount of respect our president has for our government.
October 5th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
As much as these arguements all have merrit, I believe we may be missing one significant point. Way back when the government may have been for the people and by the people (or at least that was what we were told), which in theory is great. I hope we don’t hold that fantasy at heart now a days. You can guarantee that if something happens in politics or government it has happened for a specific reason and has been planned. All I ask is where is Miers’s loyalty..? If it was for the people and truth, would she have been chosen..? I personally smell a rat.
October 7th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Knowing this doesn’t change my opinion of her in the slightest.
I still think she is a poor choice to serve on the Supreme Court. She does not appear to have any experience on Constitutional Law, nor has she ever sat on a judge’s bench.
There is a difference in being a lawyer, and being a judge.
October 12th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
It disturbs me that some of you are so desperate to demonize the current administration that you’ll go so far as to call a person a nazi or a terrorist for defending a client who inconvenienced, (not killed, nor endangered, not even threatened) a few people.
There’s no moral issue here, just a lawyer defending a client according to the law. Trying to assign some kind of evil design to this is like calling someone a filthy mass murderer for stepping on a bug.
October 12th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
It disturbs me that some of you are so desperate to demonize the current administration that you’ll go so far as to call a person a nazi or a terrorist for defending a client who inconvenienced, (not killed, nor endangered, not even threatened) a few people.
There’s no moral issue here, just a lawyer defending a client according to the law. Trying to assign some kind of evil design to this is like calling someone a filthy mass murderer for stepping on a bug.
October 16th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
You guys suck at analogies.
The tire one cracks me up:
“Imagine that Dana gets injured because of a defective mini-spare tire from GM. John can sue for damages - he was injured because of the tire. Now, some enterprising lawyer puts together a class action suit of everyone who has ever bought a car with that mini-spare from GM, whether they were injoured or not - and tries to sue GM. I think we would all agree - that’s ridiculous! Just because something “may” injure you should not give you the right to sue the company. Not if there is another option!
GM could provide 3 options: you continue using the faulty tires, you refrain from using the faulty tires, or you pay a small fee to be sure that your tire works fine. The lawyer for the class-action suit would have every right to restructure the class to include only INJURED people - but I would guess that he/she probably couldn’t get very many. ”
Ok, so I guess when Ford/Firestone were forced to recall/replace all those SUV’s with Faulty tires that -may- cause rollover and/or death, that was “ridiculous”. You gotta get put in the hospital or die before you can sue to get your faulty tires replaced?
Basically, you’re saying that a company can sell you a defective product, one that could lead to someone’s death (Or the death of important data on your hard drive), and they shouldn’t be required to fix it free of charge, unless it actually kills you or wipes your hard drive of it’s precious data?
Had Microsoft fixed the problem for free, none of this would be an issue.
Microsoft touted MS-DOS 6.0’s compression features as a selling point. Then it turns out if you use it, you may lose your data. But hey! For $10 you can ‘upgrade’ to a version that works!
Oh, and to the moron who thinks that a backup will always save the day, think again. Backups go bad, and backups are only made so often. Backups are only supposed to be used in emergencies, and you still lose whatever data was added since the last backup. Restoring backups takes time and costs man hours, you should not have to rely on backups just because Microsoft wants to shaft you for more money for a product that you already bought.
Imagine Firestone saying:
“If one of your tires explodes, just put on your spare. You do have a spare, don’t you?”
Oh, and I think Sam accused someone of not voting in the ‘next’ election. Anyone know how Sam voted in the next election already? Time travel perhaps?
October 17th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
Aye chihuahua.
The tire anology is silly, and it undermines the point it’s trying to make. If your car’s tires may explode cause of a defect, you are entitled to the manufacturer replacing them at no charge, wether it will make them go bankrupt or not. That’s for the investors to worry about, and it’s the company’s obligation to it’s customers to solve major defects.
Microsoft in that case actually did have an obligation to repair the software.
Now, how this ties into the judge candidate, I actually still stick to the ‘doing the job’ argument. That’s what she was paid to do. That’s what a lawyer does… Period.
And take her perspective and the TIME into consideration.
This wasn’t major antitrust deal corporate behemoth Microsoft.
This was smaller computer firm that can’t afford to send disks to millions of people to fix a minor glitch.
‘Next election thing’; obviously that’s a typo. Chillz.
October 17th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
“Now, how this ties into the judge candidate, I actually still stick to the ‘doing the job’ argument. That’s what she was paid to do. That’s what a lawyer does… Period.”
That’s what hired assassins do… in a candidate for judge (even a local magistrate) you are obligated to consider the ethical standards that the candidate may or may not have. The important thing is whether people approve of the decisions that she will make in the future, and the only way that we can even make a wild guess about them is to examine the decisions that she has made in the past.