I made some people angry

Judge Greif wrote a litigant: 

     "I also wanted to kill Crain today at CFC graduation. But I was worried about all the witnesses if I just ran and body slammed her."

      Greif: May 16, 2017 4:59 p.m.

Yesterday this blog wrote an update to the Greif story.  

I learned I have made some very prominent people very angry.

Judge Greif is running for re-election. Her campaign began showing activity this week, having posted a $50 contribution. She has an opponent, Joe Charter. The fact that an active campaign is beginning seemed to me to be blog-post-worthy, especially in light of the fact that judge races tend not to get significant local coverage in the media. 

The text messages are documents. They are facts. I consider them on their face to be strong evidence of a lack of judicial temperament and behavior. But this blog discusses messages, both intended and unintended, and that means that nothing, and certainly no document, is understood on its face.

Everything needs interpretation.

Some very prominent people, including an elected official, tell me I am dead wrong, and defend Judge Greif. Here are the arguments that have come my way so far:

1. The texts were supposed to be secret. The argument is that the text messages were never expected to become public. They were the unguarded private communication to a friend. If I hadn't published them, no one would have known about them. She shouldn't be blamed for something we weren't supposed to know about.

2. Judge Greif was provoked by Judge Crain and former OnTrack agency head Rita Sullivan. I should have realized that the primary targets of Judge Greif's texts--"those bitches" as Greif described them--were difficult people on their own. We should interpret Greif's texts in that context. Judge Greif was driven to these outbursts by their targets. 

3. Blame and worry the messenger.  People tell me I was unfair to Judge Greif, that I should have let this drop, and that I making trouble for my wife, an attorney and the Executive Director of the local nonprofit legal services organization. I should be aware that people unhappy with me and fans of Judge Greif are taking it out on my wife's organization and therefore her clients. Shame on me. I am told that my disclaimer at the bottom, saying my blog is my own work, is ignored. 

4. Judge Greif is no worse than Judge Crain. This is not the same as the argument that Judge Greif was provoked into acting out; rather it is that Judge Greif is being graded more harshly than Judge Crain, who I should realize was not a perfect colleague either. So what about Judge Crain, why am I picking on Judge Grief?

5. Look at Joe Charter instead. Maybe instead of looking at Judge Greif and her texts, I should be seeing if Joe Carter has done anything wrong.  Why not him? He lives in Ashland, sure, there's that, but don't you know he was seen at a Republican dinner?

All of these are good political arguments on behalf of Judge Greif. They change the focus from her to a fellow Judge, to Rita Sullivan, to me, to my wife, to Joe Charter. This is smart. They change the subject from Judge Greif.  Distraction works in politics.

I invite Judge Greif and her friends to make these arguments, and others, which I will publish as guest posts.

My position is a simple one: 

1. I think the text messages are vicious and wacko and beyond intemperate and injudicious. She wrote them. She is stuck with them.

2. I am uncomfortable with her own descriptions of how she helped a litigant with a case, how she used her "moles" in the media to trash OnTrack to try to get a richer settlement offer for the litigant, and the way she undermined a colleague on the bench.  

3. We have elections so we an decide who we want in office. Judge Greif's term is up, so I figure we might look at her and her record--including her texts--and see if we are happy, or if we think we can do better.


[Note. Once again let me note that my wife is an attorney but I write this blog on my own, with no input whatever from her. Nobody but me decides what goes in this blog. My wife doesn't even read it. She is busy with her own work.]