Defending Greif. Even guilty people deserve a good defense.

    "If the facts are against you, pound the law. If the law is against you, pound the facts. If both are against you, pound the table."

        Legal aphorism.

Judge Greif's texts show she has no business being a judge. But she deserves a defense. We are seeing it.

Her problem with the facts:  She wrote the texts. She could have argued that her phone was hacked, that that someone else impersonated her, but the reality is she wrote them, and knew any claim that they were fake could be proved dishonest. She is stuck with this.

Her problem with the law:  The Code of Judicial Ethics says that a judge should demonstrate high standards of conduct to demonstrate the integrity, impartiality, and independence of the judicial system. A judge must not use the judge's role to gain advantage for the judge or any other person. The texts show her breaking those rules, actively and joyously.

Pound the table:  Pound the table means to put up implausible or irrelevant arguments. 

Her first defense is that the Judge Greif of today did not do these things. That was the old Judge Greif, the one of two years ago. She has changed. The new--current--Judge Greif is sorry for what the old one did, using that bad language. Some former prosecutors have contacted me and scoffed at that. "Are you sorry you did it, or are you sorry you got caught," one said. 

The second defense is one this blog has discussed, the notion that her error was primarily her bad language, not the inappropriate behavior and manipulative hostility that was the emotional source of that language. 

A third defense is to blame her accuser. The Mail Tribune attributed the texts to "court documents" which is true. It is absolutely correct of them to attribute them back to their actual origin, the courts, revealed in the "discovery" process in a lawsuit. But I came upon them and revealed them publicly, where the Tribune could see them. I am a much, much softer target than is the Mail Tribune, and it is far wiser to question my motives than those of the Tribune. The Tribune won a Pulitzer. Better to blame the guy who brought these to the attention of the people who won the Pulitzer.

Social media and comments on my blog are starting up saying I am biased. I know and like Dr. Sullivan. What if Judge Greif is only in trouble because a biased person revealed what she did?  Look at bad Peter, not Good Judge Greif.  It is a cynical but smart move.

I am, indeed, friendly with Rita Sullivan. I like and respect her. I thought OnTrack was an important community asset. I had no illusions that it was perfect and I fully assumed there would be problems with their low income housing for people in recovery. Being a landlord is hard, and especially so providing housing for people at a low spot in their lives. They had hundreds of employees, thousands of clients over the years.. Of course, there would be problems and unfortunate incidents. I thought the barrage of unanswered stories in the newspaper and on TV made OnTrack look worse than it was, but I attributed this to the media's inevitable bias toward the exciting (bedbugs!!!) and against the humdrum (regular maintenance.) 

I also liked and respected Lisa Greif, until I read these texts. I had no idea that Greif felt or acted the way that was revealed in the texts. I thought she liked me. I was shocked and disappointed at the texts, and I thought people ought to know the truth, so I published them. They speak for themselves. They are, indeed, court documents, not my opinion. Judge Greif's problem is what she said and did. Read the texts.

The fourth defense is the nasty part.  I have been deleting some comments on my blog. Some things I won't tolerate. Establish your own blog for that.

The Greif texts include some I did not publish. There are also blog comments which I saw and removed immediately. They reveal motive and animus on the part of Judge Greif, and now of her supporters, to justify Greif's behavior with mean spirited innuendos. It is another version of the distraction ploy. Don't look at Greif's behavior, look at the shiny object.  

There are many potential distracting issues, none of which are relevant. This goes in every direction. Judge Greif's language isn't relevant; her weight isn't relevant; Greif's personal life isn't relevant nor is that of anyone else; whether there were problems at OnTrack isn't relevant; whether there was soiled carpet or a leaky gutter at OnTrack housing isn't relevant; whether Judge Crain preferred the Drug Court assignment to other assignments isn't relevant; whether Dr. Sullivan was a demanding boss isn't relevant.

Commenters bring these issues up, but they are not relevant, any more than it would be relevant if a man who committed an armed robbery complained he had a nit-picky wife at home. Don't look at the robbery, look at her! Nor would it be relevant if, two years later, at sentencing, that the robber said he was sorry he did it clear back two years prior, but that thanks to yoga and meditation he is a different, better person now.

What is relevant is Judge Greif's behavior. As revealed clearly in her own texts, Greif carried out underhanded, biased course of action over many months, using her contacts and credibility as a judge in favor of a litigant, while actively working to undermine a fellow judge to a witness to that judge and the court system. That is behavior and language that reduces confidence and respect for the judicial system.

It is unbefitting a judge and it contradicts the Code of Judicial Conduct.