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& NEWSLETTER & Indian River County Bar Association October 2002 Next Bar Meeting: 12 Noon, October 11, 2002, 2nd Friday
14th Avenue Steakhouse, Vero Beach, Downtown - Speaker – Jeff Barton, Clerk of Court Next Bar Board of Directors Meeting: October 29, 2002 at 12 Noon, 4th Tuesday Law Offices of Moss, Henderson, etal., Beachland Blvd. IRC Bar Association Contacts: Greg Gore, President – gorejg@earthlink.net Helen Scott, Newsletter Editor – hsunivest@aol.com Carroll Palmer, Webmaster – ircbar@gate.net
Marketing Online Article Revisited Our newsletter issue for September contained an article suggesting promotion of law practices via use of the Internet, including the possibility of using e-mail for this purpose. Perhaps the article should have included a warning about the formats used with e-mail because some members' output could have technical problems of which they may not be aware. It has to do with link buttons that can cause addressee problems similar to e-mail attachments, i.e., the e-mails may not load their linkage content in the receiving hardware/software. Some of the addressees of the promotional e-mails can be MailTV customers and use TV sets, not computers, to access the Internet and deal with e-mail. These addressees apparently can receive promotional e-mail index pages containing link buttons, but when they click on these buttons, linkage may not occur. This doesn't do the senders any good to have this happen to their attempt to promote their services to potential clients. Members would be advised to do some beta testing before engaging in mass sending of promotional e-mail. This situation raises a relevant question. Where the e-mail sender's address is of the type senderID@lawfirmwebsiteID, should the firm exercise oversight of the content and format of the promotional e-mails? There are relationship and imprimatur differences between issuing e-mails via senderID@commercialserverID and via senderID@lawfirmwebsiteID, particularly with promotional or similar associative content. Member Pictures On The IRCBA Website The Board has requested that the Membership Directory link of our Website include portrait pictures of listed members. This will be done using a (Click For Picture) button beside each individual member vita because otherwise the Directory link would take much too long to load if all pictures are a part of the Directory per se. The B&W pictures in the Association's printed directory cannot be used for this purpose. Also, the plan is to use colored pictures, but The Association will not be the provider. If any member wants a picture linked to the vita, she/he will need to provide it. The pictures on the web will be about 1”x2” monitor size, but can best be supplied for scanning in a 6x4 (portrait view) size, although other reasonable sizes will be acceptable. Pictures will not be accepted via e-mail! If you do not have a suitable portrait picture, but have some other photo from which a portrait can be cropped, send that. If it can't be suitably cropped in scanning, we will contact you for another photo. If you want your picture to appear as indicated, mail a photo-quality print to: Carroll Palmer, Webmaster, 2800 Indian River Blvd. #J10, Vero Beach, FL 32960. The pictures will be inserted on the web promptly after receipt. The prints will not be returned. TIGHT-LIPPED EX-LAWYER REMAINS JAILED Former Pennsylvania lawyer H. Beatty Chadwick could spend the rest of his life behind bars, even though he hasn't been convicted of a crime. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 20 that the ailing 66-year-old holds the keys to the cell he's called home for more than seven years. As soon as he turns over the $2.5 million he owes his ex-wife, he will be a free man, the court found in Chadwick v. Janecka, No. 02-1173. Lawyers for Chadwick's former spouse, Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick, say they are thrilled the court determined that there isn't a time limit on civil contempt. The court ruled that the test is ability to comply. "He's the one who has control of the situation; he can get out whenever," says Philadelphia lawyer Nancy Winkelman. She argued the case for Chadwick's ex-wife in the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit. The unanimous court rejected a district judge's finding in January that Chadwick's civil contempt confinement had lost its coercive power and had become unconstitutionally punitive. Because Pennsylvania's courts have repeatedly found that Chadwick has the ability to pay, then there is "no federal constitutional bar to Mr. Chadwick's indefinite confinement," Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in his opinion for the appeals court. Delaware lawyer Thomas S. Neuberger, who represents Beatty Chadwick, plans to seek a rehearing en banc. He maintains that if an individual won't comply with an order after a year or so of confinement, then a criminal proceeding should begin, with all the procedural safeguards in place. Chadwick asserts he can't comply with the divorce court's 1994 order because the money in question was lost to bad foreign investments. Neuberger is proposing the courts follow the 18-month time limit set by Congress for federal grand jury contempt findings or the 12-month limit for confinements ordered from the family courts in the District of Columbia. Legal experts, however, argue that setting artificial limits could create even more problems by offering parties an incentive to wait out the court. "Any legislation designed to put absolute time limits on civil contempt confinements is likely to make the situation worse," says Stephen C. Yeazell, who teaches law at the University of California at Los Angeles. "By and large, judges are pretty sensible in deciding how long is too long." DePaul University School of Law professor Margit Livingston agrees, although she is concerned about the lack of "full-blown" due process protections in civil confinements. For contempt to have any bite, the confinements need to be for indefinite periods, says Livingston, who wrote a Washington Law Review article on the subject two years ago. Yeazell says the sensational cases like Chadwick's are far from the norm. Odell Sheppard is said to hold the record for a civil contempt confinement. He spent 10 years in a Chicago jail because he refused to reveal the whereabouts of his missing daughter. Sheppard was released from jail in 1998 after the girl's mother died. As in the Chadwick case, Sheppard maintained he couldn't comply because he didn't know where the girl was. In another stream of cases, parties have admitted knowing the answers to a judge's questions but refused to comply. Reporters who refuse to name their sources, for example, may be forced to litigate contempt findings under state shield laws. Parents in custody disputes have also refused to reveal the location of their children. That's what happened when plastic surgeon Elizabeth Morgan chose to spend two years in jail rather than disclose her daughter's location. Morgan was released after Congress set the one-year civil contempt limit in D.C. "There must be some sort of limits on the power to hold people for years and years and years," says Chicago litigator C. Steven Tomashefsky, who represented Sheppard pro bono. "It's pious fiction for courts to indulge the notion of civil contempt, which can involve limitless incarceration in a prison population without a trial, without the sort of proof and process that come with a criminal sentence." Tomashefsky also is uncomfortable with the power given to parties in these cases. Presumably in the Chadwick case, if Barbara Jean Crowther Chadwick drops her claim to the money, Beatty Chadwick will be freed. "She's holding the keys as much as he is," Tomashefsky says. ©2002 ABA Journal Article submitted by Russell Petersen
The Bar Website The Bar Website is maintained on a near daily basis. It has the Judicial Assignments and other notices at http://irclaw.org/events.htm . Check it and print the notices and Court Administrative Orders. Members should check the membership directory to verify or correct their address, areas of practice, e-mail address, telephone numbers, etc. Send corrections or modifications to the Webmaster via e-mail at ircbar@gate.net or via Fax at 562-8666. Please send content you would like to submit for the Newsletter to the Editor, Helen Scott via e-mail at hsunivest@aol.com or via Fax at 231-5155. |
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