How to get someone committed involuntarily
How to get someone committed involuntarily:
READ THIS. The laws vary from state to state.
https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/component/content/article/183-in-a-crisis/1596-know-the-laws-in-your-state
Friend or loved one acting dangerously strange? Take Action!
Family and friends concerned Noah Green was unraveling before Capitol attack
Another instance of tragic neglect of our mentally ill.
How to get someone committed INVOLUNTARILY
Excerpts from the Article:
Brendan Green said the troubling signs his brother was unraveling built up until the night before authorities said Noah Green launched an attack outside the Capitol.
Brendan Green said his brother was violently ill Thursday evening in the Virginia apartment they shared, before he left and sent a forlorn text that was one of their final communications.
“ ‘I’m sorry but I’m just going to go and live and be homeless,’ ” Brendan Green said the text read. “Thank you for everything that you’ve done. I looked up to you when I was a kid. You inspired me a lot.”
Less than 24 hours later, Capitol Police said a man crashed his vehicle into two officers at a barricade outside the Capitol before getting out of the car and charging them with a knife. At least one officer opened fire, fatally wounding him. Several people familiar with the investigation identified the suspect as Noah Green.
Noah Green, who was in his early 20s, was remembered as a stalwart defensive back on the Christopher Newport University football team before he slid into deep religiousness and paranoia that left family and friends concerned about his mental state in recent years.
Family and friends said he blamed former teammates and roommates for drugging him with Xanax in 2019, which one teammate said most people regarded as unmoored from reality. Noah Green felt the episode left him addicted to the drug and suffering withdrawal symptoms.
Noah Green moved out into his own apartment in Newport News, but he continued to suffer hallucinations, heart palpitations, headaches and suicidal thoughts that could have been related to drugs or mental illness, his brother said.
One officer dead after car rams Capitol barricade; suspect fatally shot by police, officials say
Brendan Green said that Noah suddenly abandoned his Newport News apartment one day and moved to Indianapolis, saying that the drugs had inspired him to go there. When he was in Indianapolis, Noah Green began to tell his brother that people were breaking into his apartment.
Brendan Green flew to Indianapolis to make sure his brother was safe. The apartment seemed secure, he said, but his brother’s “mind didn’t seem right.”
A couple of months ago, Noah Green left Indianapolis and moved to Botswana, according to his brother. While in Botswana, Noah Green told his brother that “his mind was telling him to basically commit suicide.” He told his brother that he had jumped in front of a car and was so badly injured that he had surgery at a hospital. Brendan Green saw bruises and scars on his brother’s body.
About two weeks ago, Noah Green called Brendan Green asking for help, crying and saying he was “in a really bad situation and in really bad shape,” Brendan said. He asked to move in with Brendan, and the brother obliged.
A post on Noah Green’s Facebook page on March 17 said that “these past few years have been tough, and these past few months have been tougher.”
“I have been tried with some of the biggest, unimaginable tests in my life. I am currently now unemployed after I left my job partly due to afflictions, but ultimately, in search of a spiritual journey,” the post read.
On his Facebook page, Green listed himself as a “Follower of Farrahkan” — an apparent reference to Louis Farrahkan, leader of the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam. Green’s last post links to a video of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, that Green said was a “divine warning to us all during these last days of our world as we know it.”
In the March 17 post on Facebook, Green wrote his life had been on the “right track,” before he was hobbled by drugs he was “unknowingly” taking, which appeared to be a reference to the incident allegedly involving his former teammates.
“He was really paranoid from that point moving forward,” Toran said.
He hadn’t thought of Green again until Friday, when another teammate sent Jiggetts a news article naming Noah as the suspect in the Capitol attack. Jiggetts clicked on the link and saw another car driven by Green, crumpled into a barrier at the Capitol.
Sprawling prison abuse lawsuit tied to Vaughn riot dismissed; others continue
Unfortunately, this was inevitable. Because the guards who beat inmates, then denied them medical care, and otherwise abused them, wore their “goon squad” uniforms – full facial coverage – and wore no badges or names, it was impossible to prove who did what to whom. Damn shame.
Here again we see that DOC officials cannot be believed: Correction Commissioner Claire DeMatteis, who took over the department in the summer of 2019, and other defendants denied the allegations in court. DeMatteis has said that no abuse occurred following the uprising. … Bullshit; If they had not intended to commit crimes and other abuses, why did the guards conceal their identity and prevent the filming of their conduct?
Excerpts from the Article:
Since the 2017 fatal riot inside a building at Delaware’s largest prison, dozens of inmates that were in that building have said in court, lawsuits, interviews and letters that they were assaulted and deprived of basic rights in the hours and months after by corrections officials.
And since then, those claims have been the thrust of lawsuits meandering slowly through local courts. Those challenges seek recompense for injuries suffered by prisoners that said they too were hostages when control of James T. Vaughn Correctional Center’s C Building was violently overthrown by a smaller set of prisoners.
Last week, a federal judge in Wilmington dismissed the largest lawsuit making such claims, a complaint that sought damages on behalf of 107 inmates against 52 defendants, including at times Gov. John Carney, top Department of Correction leadership and a host of officers.
That lawsuit largely focused on what happened after a team of inmates used coordinated violence to take the building’s three officers and a counselor hostage, kill one of those officers and hold the building for 18 hours starting on Feb. 1, 2017.
The lawsuit claims that officers retaking the building wore black masks, hid their name tags and went cell to cell, delivering indiscriminate kicks, punches and racial slurs to inmates while encountering no resistance from those still in the building.
It claims the police deliberately decided not to record the retaking of the building and denied the inmates substantive medical care immediately afterward. Then, in the months following, it claims corrections officials sanctioned “systemic torture” of C Building inmates.
Inmates who were taken from Vaughn’s C Building when the uprising was quashed were cycled into the building’s yard where investigators photographed puddles of blood, which inmates said was the result of indiscriminate beatings by officers.
That alleged torture included physical violence, mental abuse and denial of basic rights.
The veracity of these allegations was not tested before the court dismissed the lawsuit last week. Attorneys also did not reach the stage where they could compel evidence from the Department of Correction about the claims. Instead, the litigation failed for a lack of specificity.
In dismissing it, Delaware District Court Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark referred to the complaint as a “shotgun pleading,” leaving the reader “unaware of who exactly is being accused of what conduct.”
Attorneys for the defendants said the complaint’s lack of specificity left them unable to prepare a defense. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that was difficult because of officers’ effort to conceal their identities.
Acknowledging that, the judge said the complaint didn’t meet the required standard of clearly setting out which plaintiffs suffered which specific act of misconduct. Having afforded the plaintiffs multiple chances to address these problems in recent years, Stark dismissed the complaint and shut the door for it to be amended.
DIGITAL WALKTHROUGH:See how the Vaughn riot unfolded
“Despite the preference of the courts to adjudicate claims on their merits – and, hopefully, reach the truth of what happened, redress proven wrongs, and do justice – the court cannot do so when plaintiffs fail to do what is required to give defendants notice and begin to press their case,” Stark wrote.
Correction Commissioner Claire DeMatteis, who took over the department in the summer of 2019, and other defendants denied the allegations in court. DeMatteis has said that no abuse occurred following the uprising.
“The Department of Correction has consistently argued that this frivolous litigation was without merit and must be dismissed,” wrote Jason Miller, a spokesman for DeMatteis. “We are pleased the court has done so.”
Stephen Hampton, the Dover attorney that filed the lawsuit, said he thinks the Department of Correction has sufficient information about the allegations to move forward and defend the case and feels that Stark is holding the plaintiffs to too high a standard in not allowing the lawsuit to continue. He said he will appeal the decision to federal appeals court.
While that lawsuit was the most sprawling, others tied to the takeover and alleged abuses afterward continue to churn through the courts.
Donald Parkell, an inmate who was in C Building that day, began litigating against the department two weeks after the riot. His initial handwritten complaint was an early account of what happened during the takeover and alleged abuses in the immediate aftermath.
It was also one of the first retellings of how a group of inmates, including Parkell and Terek Downing, banded together to protect prison counselor Patricia May, who was held hostage that day.
DOWNING: He protected a woman hostage on Delaware prison’s ‘darkest day’; now he seeks mercy. The complaint is now in its fifth iteration, and the court has appointed counsel to represent Parkell.
In addition to claims about a lack of medical care following the uprising, it claims the takeover was the foreseeable outcome to state and Department of Correction leaders that understaffed the building, knowingly mixed dangerous inmates and ignored glaring warning signs in the weeks and months preceding the riot.
Officials’ intent in creating such problems was to undermine a legal settlement that changed the way the Department of Correction operated, specifically as it related to how those with mental illness are confined, the lawsuit claims.
IN DEPTH: Never-released report shows prison officer’s death should not have happened
State officials have denied the claims in court, and the lawsuit has not yet reached the phase that would potentially allow Parkell’s attorneys to demand documents and depose current and former state leaders. There are also pending lawsuits still churning filed on behalf of the men accused by police of taking over the building.
Police originally indicted 16 on charges of murder in the death of correctional officer Steven Floyd, who was killed during the hostage standoff. Two others were indicted on lesser crimes.
Dwayne Staats, who admitted his role in the takeover, was convicted of murder. Another who admitted some hand in the plot was convicted of several charges, but not murder. One inmate charged with lesser crimes took a plea and cooperated with investigators.
The rest were either acquitted by juries or had their charges dropped before trial.
C tier of C Building
Most of them are now being held in Pennsylvania’s prisons, where some say they are being treated as if they had been found guilty.
Jonatan Rodriguez, a former C Building inmate whose murder charges were dropped, sued last year, claiming that after he was indicted in 2017, officers and officials at Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown intentionally instituted a “regimen of intimidation, torture and abuse,” which included threats, slurs and denial of rights.
He also claims he was assaulted by officers who afterward carried out a coverup by falsifying reports. Officials have denied the allegations in court filings.
A separate complaint filed by Staats, the one inmate who admitted to orchestrating the takeover as a protest of prison conditions, sought to represent several others formerly charged with Floyd’s murder. It makes claims of abuse before and after the uprising.
SENTENCING: How do you punish someone already serving life?
A 2019 court order stated that the defendants had to file lawsuits individually. Since then, officials have moved to dismiss Staats’ lawsuit, which has largely been on hold due to the pandemic.
Underpinning these continued legal challenges is the fact the state has already paid $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by state employee victims of the takeover, who argued correction officials failed to act on warning signs ahead of the riot.
Biden rolls out diverse first slate of judicial nominees
One area where the racism of many Republicans came to the surface is judicial appointments. Thank God that is changing!
Excerpts from the Article:
President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated a racially diverse and overwhelmingly female group to federal and other judgeships, including three Black women for the U.S. courts of appeals, one pathway to the Supreme Court.
Biden promised as a candidate to nominate an African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court should a seat open up during his term.
With the announcement of his first slate of judicial nominees, Biden signaled his intent to counter his predecessor’s reliance on white men to fill openings on the federal bench, and to appoint judges who bring a broader range of background and life experience to the role.
Several of Biden’s nominees served as public defenders. One is a former military prosecutor. Nine of the 11 are women. The slate also includes a nominee for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Biden’s group includes candidates who, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate for lifetime federal appointments, would be the first Muslim federal judge in U.S. history, the first Asian American Pacific Islander woman to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the first woman of color to serve as a federal judge for the District of Maryland.
Three of the picks are Black women whom Biden wants for the federal courts of appeals, often a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. The most prominent of the trio is U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Biden is nominating to the seat left vacant on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Judge Merrick Garland’s departure to become Attorney General.
The two other Black women Biden wants for the appellate circuit are Tiffany Cunningham, 44, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, based in Washington, and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, 41, for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Both are in private practice.
The D.C. Circuit, in particular, is a place where presidents have searched for Supreme Court justices. Three of the high court’s current nine members have served on the D.C. Circuit.
Some liberal Democrats have urged Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is 82, to retire to allow Biden to choose a possible replacement. Jackson, 50, is a graduate of Harvard Law School and previously served as a law clerk to Breyer.
Other Black women who would be front-runners if a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court were to open are California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger and U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs. Childs is a favorite of Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who made a crucial endorsement of Biden just before the state’s presidential primary last year.
Some of Biden’s candidates had been tapped for judgeships by Democratic President Barack Obama, but Republicans never allowed the full Senate to vote on them.
“This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession,” Biden, a former Senate Judiciary Committee chair, said in a statement. “Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong.”
The White House said Biden’s choices reflect his strong belief that the federal courts should reflect the “full diversity of the American people.”
Administration officials emphasized the speed with which Biden announced his first batch of nominees, stressing that the president was out of the gate with names faster than his immediate predecessors. There is good reason for Biden to move quickly on this front.
There currently are 72 judicial openings. The Senate, which must confirm the nominees, is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris called on to break some tie votes. Biden would need the Democratic caucus to stick together in support of his candidates if Republicans unite in opposition, though the administration hopes to attract GOP support for some, if not all, of the nominees.
There is no guarantee that Democrats will hold the majority after the 2022 midterm elections, meaning the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will have to be aggressive about pushing nominees through confirmation in much the same way that Trump and former Senate leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did to get the former president’s nominees confirmed.
Schumer and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the Senate will work quickly to hold hearings and confirm Biden’s picks.
“America is so much better when our rich diversity is reflected in every aspect of society, especially our justice system,” Schumer said.
Trump leaned heavily on white men to fill judicial vacancies. An Associated Press analysis found that over 86% of the more than 200 federal judges confirmed under Trump were white, the highest rate of white judicial appointments since George H.W. Bush’s presidency.
Two-thirds of Trump’s judicial appointees were white men; less than a quarter were women.
Overall, about a third of active federal judges are women, and Biden’s nomination of three Black women to federal courts of appeals is particularly significant. Currently, of the approximately 170 active judges on federal courts of appeals, only four are African American women, and all are 68 or older, according to a Federal Judicial Center database.
Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the organization was “gratified” that Biden is acting to diversify the federal bench.
“Such diversity will greatly enhance the judiciary and judicial decision-making,” Ifill said in a statement.
Trash company helps truck-obsessed child celebrate 5th birthday – We need more companies like this!
Take a break from the crazy world of criminal “justice” with this feel good story!
Excerpts from the Article:
It started when Finnegan was 3. For some kids, it’s Hess trucks. Others, it’s monster trucks.
Finnegan has some other trucks of interest in his family. His father works for UPS. His uncle works as a firefighter. Neither of those trucks do it for Finn.
“He couldn’t care any less for those things,” said Erin McCullin, Finn’s mother.
Finn, she said, has always been drawn to the trash truck. And not just waving at them when they go by.
The family has a sign outside their home in the Appoquinimink School District that says “I Love Garbage Trucks.” Finn, now 5, was a garbage truck for Halloween a few years ago. He has trash truck toys and a t-shirt that says “Trash Day is the Best Day.”
“We own every trash truck toy you can think of,” McCullin said. “He can tell you every part of the truck.”
So imagine Finn’s reaction when, on his 5th birthday, a local trash company helped him celebrate by sending out a parade of trucks and bringing him a bag of goodies?
After making some phone calls, McCullin got in touch with Republic Services. The company sent out a few trucks. The drivers honked their horns and stopped to give Finn a gift bag. They even let him sit inside a truck.
“It’s a memory like Disney World,” said his mother, an elementary school teacher.
“I just want to recognize this company. They bent over backwards, and they were incredibly kind.”
CAR PARADE: ‘We’re not going to let him fight alone’: Car parade planned for birthday of 5-year-old boy battling cancer
The family’s regular trash company is Waste Industries. Finn sometimes goes outside when they’re picking up and gives water bottles to Phil and Ernie, who honk the truck’s horn when they drive by. Finn writes to them and draws them pictures, too.
“It’s something that’s kind of got us through the year,” McCullin said.
Some states seek to close loopholes in marital rape laws
It is long past time to get rid of these idiotic sexist laws allowing RAPE! Several states are changing these laws.
Excerpts from the Article:
The AP does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Teeson has shared her story publicly, including during testimony before legislative committees. Democratic state Sen. Karla Bigham credited Teeson’s advocacy for persuading lawmakers to pass the bill.
“She had to relive the trauma every time she shared her story,” Bigham told her colleagues during a debate in the Senate chamber this past week. “Her voice speaks loudly to those women who deserve justice. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s right this wrong.”
AEquitas, a resource for prosecutors, reported last month that 17 states still maintain some form of the exemption for spouses who rape partners when they are drugged or otherwise incapacitated: Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington and Wyoming.
In Ohio, state Rep. Kristin Boggs, a Democrat, said she’s not optimistic the upcoming version of the marital rape bill will be any more successful in the Republican-controlled Legislature than it has been in the past.
But at least one past opponent — the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association — has evolved on the issue. Executive Director Lou Tobin said he expects the group will support a bill that seeks to eliminate the exemption.
“In the past, I know that there’s been some concern that these cases are difficult to prove; they can be a lot of he-said, she-said back and forth,” Tobin said. “But sorting through those things is what prosecutors are for.”
Boggs’ bill would again call for removing references to the marital exemption throughout Ohio’s criminal code. Her argument in favor of it is straightforward.
“Our rationale for introducing this legislation is simply that your legal relationship to another human being shouldn’t give you permission to rape them,” she said.
From $15 million to $0: As racial tensions simmered, Trump administration sought to defund DOJ ‘peacemaker’ unit
Another reminder of what a negative, obstructionist, racist tRump is. We must never let him gain any authority again.
Excerpts from the story:
As racial tensions spilled into America’s streets, the Trump administration repeatedly sought to eliminate a long-standing Justice Department unit that for decades has mediated racial, ethnic and gender clashes that are once again surging across the country.
For four straight years, DOJ’s Community Relations Service, established nearly 60 years ago by the landmark Civil Rights Act, was variously targeted for severe staffing reductions and outright elimination, according to Trump budget proposals.
While congressional intervention kept the unit afloat, the persistent budgetary attacks and the Trump administration’s pursuit of harsh immigration policies along with a rollback of some civil rights protections prompted some wary communities to refuse its help.
Witnesses: Onlooker anger increased as Floyd stopped moving
It is cleat from this trial that we have a looooooong way to go in training police.
Excerpts from the Article:
Onlookers grew increasingly angry as they begged Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin to take his knee off George Floyd’s neck, but Chauvin would not let up, and another officer forced back members of the crowd who tried to intervene, witnesses testified Tuesday at Chauvin’s murder trial.
WARNING: Video in this story may contain graphic content.
Witness after witness described how Chauvin was unmoved by their pleas, with the teenager who shot the harrowing video of the arrest that set off nationwide protests testifying that the police officer gave the crowd a “cold” and “heartless” stare.
“He didn’t care. It seemed as if he didn’t care what we were saying,” said 18-year-old Darnella Frazier, one of several witnesses who testified through tears.
Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd while fellow Officer Tou Thao held the crowd of about 15 back, even when one of the onlookers identified herself as a firefighter and pleaded repeatedly to check Floyd’s pulse, according to witnesses and bystander video.
“They definitely put their hands on the Mace, and we all pulled back,” Frazier told the jury.
The firefighter, Genevieve Hansen, wept on the witness stand as she recalled how she was not allowed to give any medical assistance or tell the police what to do, such as administering chest compressions.
“There was a man being killed,” said Hansen, who testified in her dress uniform and said she had emergency medical technician training. “I would have been able to provide medical attention to the best of my abilities. And this human was denied that right.”
Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Floyd last May by pinning the 46-year-old handcuffed Black man to the pavement for what prosecutors said was 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd was arrested after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at the convenience store.
Floyd’s death, along with the bystander video of him pleading that he couldn’t breathe, triggered sometimes-violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality across the U.S.
The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.
The defense has argued that Chauvin did what his training told him to do and that Floyd’s death was not caused by the officer but by a combination of illegal drug use, heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body.
On Tuesday, the prosecution asked multiple witnesses to describe their horror at what they saw, buttressing the testimony with multiple videos, some of which had never been seen before. Many testified about feelings of helplessness and guilt as Floyd gasped for air, pleaded for his life and finally fell limp and silent, his eyes rolling back in his head.
The testimony was apparently aimed at showing that Chauvin had multiple opportunities to think about what he doing and change course.
But Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson also sought to portray the onlookers as angry and agitated, in an apparent attempt to show that the crowd posed a potential threat to police that might have distracted them during their encounter with Floyd.
Hansen testified that the crowd was getting more upset and that the paramedics did a “load and go”— placing Floyd on a stretcher and quickly getting him away from the crowd so he could be treated elsewhere.
Donald Williams, one of the onlookers, testified that he called 911 after paramedics took Floyd away, “because I believed I witnessed a murder.” In a recording of the emergency call, Williams could be overheard yelling at the officers: “Y’all is murderers, bro!”
During cross-examination, Chauvin’s lawyer pointed out that Williams seemed to grow increasingly angry at the police, taunting Chauvin with “tough guy,” “bum” and other names, then calling Chauvin expletives, which the defense lawyer repeated in court.
Williams, a professional mixed martial arts fighter, initially admitted he was getting angrier, but then backtracked and said he was controlled and professional and was pleading for Floyd’s life but wasn’t being heard.
Williams said he was stepping on and off the curb, and at one point, Thao, who was controlling the crowd, put his hand on Williams’ chest. Williams admitted under questioning that he told Thao he would beat the officers if Thao touched him again.
But witnesses also testified that no bystanders actually interfered with police.
When Frazier was asked by a prosecutor whether she saw violence anywhere on the scene, she replied: “Yes, from the cops. From Chauvin, and from officer Thao.”
Also Tuesday, prosecutors played cellphone video recorded by yet another bystander, 18-year-old Alyssa Funari, that showed onlookers shouting and screaming at Chauvin after Floyd stopped moving. The footage also showed the Minneapolis firefighter calmly walk up to Thao and offer to help, before he ordered her to get back on the sidewalk.
“I felt like there wasn’t really anything I could do as a bystander,” a tearful Funari said, adding that she felt she was failing Floyd. “Technically I could’ve did something, but I couldn’t really do anything physically … because the highest power was there at the time,” she said, referring to the police.
Frazier testified that she looks at her father and other Black men in her life and thinks of “how that could have been one of them.”
“It’s been nights I stayed up, apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more, and not physically interacting and not saving his life,” she said, adding of Chauvin: “But it’s like, it’s not what I should’ve done, it’s what he should’ve done.”
Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6B over 2020 election claims
Good, and may they win every penny of it! TRUTH MATTERS!
Excerpts from the Article:
Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, arguing the cable news giant, in an effort to boost faltering ratings, falsely claimed that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.
The lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the voting company and other targets of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden. Those claims helped spur on rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent siege that left five people dead, including a police officer. The siege led to Trump’s historic second impeachment.
Dominion argues that Fox News, which amplified inaccurate assertions that Dominion altered votes, “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press. “The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” the lawsuit said. “… If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.”
Even before Dominion’s lawsuit on Friday, Fox News had already filed four motions to dismiss other legal action against its coverage. And anchor Eric Shawn interviewed a Dominion spokesperson on air in November.
There was no known widespread fraud in the 2020 election, a fact that a range of election officials across the country — and even Trump’s attorney general, William Barr — have confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden’s victory, also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies were dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court, which has three Trump-nominated justices.
Still, some Fox News employees elevated false charges that Dominion had changed votes through algorithms in its voting machines that had been created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chavez. On-air personalities brought on Trump allies Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who spread the claims, and then amplified those claims on Fox News’ massive social media platforms.
Dominion said in the lawsuit that it tried repeatedly to set the record straight but was ignored by Fox News.
The company argues that Fox News, a network that features several pro-Trump personalities, pushed the false claims to explain away the former president’s loss. The cable giant lost viewers after the election and was seen by Trump and some supporters as not being supportive enough of the Republican.
Attorneys for Dominion said Fox News’ behavior differs greatly from that of other media outlets that reported on the claims.
“This was a conscious, knowing business decision to endorse and repeat and broadcast these lies in order to keep its viewership,” said attorney Justin Nelson, of Susman Godfrey.
Though Dominion serves 28 states, until the 2020 election it had been largely unknown outside the election community. It is now widely targeted in conservative circles, seen by millions of people as one of the main villains in a fictional tale in which Democrats nationwide conspired to steal votes from Trump, the lawsuit said.
Dominion’s employees, from its software engineers to its founder, have been harassed. Some received death threats. And the company has suffered “enormous and irreparable economic harm,” lawyers said.
One employee, Eric Coomer, told the AP he had to go into hiding over death threats because of the false claims. He has sued the Trump campaign, conservative media columnists and conservative media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network.
Dominion has also sued Giuliani, Powell and the CEO of Minnesota-based MyPillow over the claims. A rival technology company, Smartmatic USA, also sued Fox News over election claims for a similar sum of money. Unlike Dominion, Smartmatic’s participation in the 2020 election was restricted to Los Angeles County. Fox News has moved to dismiss the Smartmatic suit.
Dominion lawyers said they have not yet filed lawsuits against specific media personalities at Fox News but the door remains open. Some at Fox News knew the claims were false but their comments were drowned out, lawyers said.
“The buck stops with Fox on this,” attorney Stephen Shackelford said. “Fox chose to put this on all of its many platforms. They rebroadcast, republished it on social media and other places.”
The suit was filed in Delaware, where both companies are incorporated, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.
Let Georgia Know that YOU know they are RACIST!
The GOP moves in GA are an absurdly racist move, nothing more. INTENDED to prevent poor people and people of color from voting. Let them know you are not going to take it!
When the politicians are so afraid of the people that they do not want them to vote, you know it is time to get their butts out of office! 🙂
CLICK HERE, ON EACH PICTURE, TO CALL AND EMAIL EVERY ONE OF THOSE DUMB-ASS GEORGIA LAWMAKERS: https://www.legis.ga.gov/members/house
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