For reference, here's the January 2004 NYT article "In Trial Work, Edwards Left A Trademark":
In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl.Those were the days, when John Edwards was in his depth. It was 1985, and he was fine. By October 2007, he was saying I'm having a little trouble. In 2011, he was saying I need out. He speaks to you through me. I didn't plan to blog about this, but right now I feel him. I feel him inside me... Ugh! Get out of me, you creepy old man. Back to your malpractice practice, speaking in the voice of brain-damaged children, springing open the hearts of fully brained, but mushy jurors in some cloistered little courtroom in a southern state.
Referring to an hour-by-hour record of a fetal heartbeat monitor, Mr. Edwards told the jury: ''She said at 3, 'I'm fine.' She said at 4, 'I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing O.K.' Five, she said, 'I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, 'I need out.' ''...
''She speaks to you through me,'' the lawyer went on in his closing argument. ''And I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you.''
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51 comments:
Eeek. Southern slur from Althouse. Having John Edwards inside you can make that happen.
It's not a southern slur. He's back where he came from is the point. Back being local.
Med malpractice lawyers are usually on a contingency basis so for the most part the lawyers are pretty choosy about cases they take to trial. So theatrics aside usually the lawyers have a pretty good case when they do go to trial. At least Edwards is back to earning a somewhat more respectable living than being a Democrat politician. Somewhat, not much more respectable. As for hiring him, with his sleaze, who would want him advocating for you in front of a jury?
Understood. John Edwards makes me jumpy.
Re: "I didn't plan to blog about this, but right now I feel him. I feel him inside me.."
Crazy Street Corner Guy Off His Meds Says:
Wait until it is Harvey Keitel.
In Court, before a jury, credibility is everything. Who would believe him now? Can he disqualify every juror who recognizes him? Who would not?
Ann Althouse said...
"It's not a southern slur. He's back where he came from is the point. Back being local."
I wish the damage he did to medicine really was local. It's not. Because of his massive lawsuits obstetrics is much more expensive and difficult to obtain.
I thought he'd lost his law license. How could he have been admitted to practice after he publicly demonstrated such a lack of integrity?
I hope that John Edwards' well-earned public persona as one of the creepiest liars in American public life will now be transferred to the aspect of his life where he got rich and now apparently hopes to gain more riches; plaintiffs' personal injury law and more specifically plaintiffs' medical malpractice law and even more specifically birth trauma litigation.
He's a scumbag inside a courtroom just like he was a scumbag outside a courtroom.
More evidence that a man eventually learns his limitations.
Well, it reads like a southern slur, sort of implying that jurors from a northern state would never fall for Edwards' schtick.
"Well, it reads like a southern slur, sort of implying that jurors from a northern state would never fall for Edwards' schtick."
You read it that way. Are you from the south?
"DKWalser said...
How could he have been admitted to practice after he publicly demonstrated such a lack of integrity?"
Good one! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, you were serious? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
DKWalser said...
I thought he'd lost his law license. How could he have been admitted to practice after he publicly demonstrated such a lack of integrity?
I agree. He did enough to warrant disbarment in NC (six felony count indictments). But isn't disbarment that on a state-by-state basis?
I thought Edwards might get more sympathy in light of Emperor Obama's chilling witch hunt against Edward's right of free speech? Shouldn't we be freaking about that?
@Althouse. Virginia, ma'am. Born in Illinois but a naturalized Virginian.
Are courtrooms bigger in Wisconsin ? I admit the one one county over is kinda small but it was designed by Robert Mills.
Only in America can an unemployed man go to Riker's Island, for a joint in his pocket, but - instead of dealing with that "negative" reality - whites and the media have an interest in, and feel sympathy for, a Southern millionaire who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, while they both were trying to dupe the nation, because he "has to" get back to work.
More of the "good culture" I keep hearing so much about,...
Illuninati wrote -
"I wish the damage he did to medicine really was local. It's not. Because of his massive lawsuits obstetrics is much more expensive and difficult to obtain."
I mentioned some time ago that maternity benefits alone added 50% to the premium of our local BC/BS policies. There are several factors that go into that bump, but nonetheless it was the single most expensive coverage you could add.
cubanbob - that's a laugh, "having a pretty good chance."
I sit on a committee that reviews cases for medical staff. The most ridiculous claims get settled because the issuance company does not want to gamble on a jury. So they offer what it would cost to defend the case it they were to win, or less - just to get rid of it.
Bad outcomes does not mean bad medicine, but a crippled kid will tug at the heart strings, and who has deep pockets?
The great fraud that got Edwards his lucrative courtroom successes was an earlier version of a Total Hoax Science like todays UN "Co2 is pollution" hoax science.
I blame the Colleges and the Phds that first sold their souls for money and power.
He won wealth using an authority of an expert scientists argument based on a whole cloth faked out hoax science accredited by a University that took grants from trial lawyers donors to do that destructive act.
Where do you think Al Gore got the idea from?
cubanbob said...
"Med malpractice lawyers are usually on a contingency basis so for the most part the lawyers are pretty choosy about cases they take to trial. So theatrics aside usually the lawyers have a pretty good case when they do go to trial. At least Edwards is back to earning a somewhat more respectable living than being a Democrat politician. Somewhat, not much more respectable. As for hiring him, with his sleaze, who would want him advocating for you in front of a jury?"
Harry Reid and Dick Durbin were also personal injury lawyers and both did some medical malpractice. Bruce Braley got to Congress the same way as Edwards; bankrolled by personal injury contingency-fee riches, as well as the ardent support of fellow trial lawyers. All Democrats. Of course.
Edwards going to trial doesn't mean he has a meritorious case. When Edwards takes a case to trial it is invariably because he wants much more than the settlement value of the case should be, or because the defense/hospital/doctor all think the case is meritless and they assuredly would NOT go to trial against a pop-star like Edwards unless they had very strong expert support.
I know a lot of the experts Edwards has used in his birth trauma cases and they are the usual hired gun professional testifiers, offering up the usual incredible and unjustified opinion testimony.
The trick for a guy like Edwards is to just get past summary judgment and get to a jury, where he can make appeals to their emotions like the one highlighted by Althouse.
I'm guessing not one person here matches the description you are picturing in your feverish hallucination.
The southern slur is so common to Northerners they don't even realize they are delivering it. We're used to it. That said, and though I'm no fan' I can think of worse lawyers to have at my table than John Edwards.
Those media people are while liberals Crack Emcee. I can tell you the conservative here in NC feel no pity and would like nothing more than to see him disbarred for his illegal activity.
The Crack Emcee said...
Only in America can an unemployed man go to Riker's Island, for a joint in his pocket, but - instead of dealing with that "negative" reality - whites and the media have an interest in, and feel sympathy for, a Southern millionaire who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, while they both were trying to dupe the nation, because he "has to" get back to work.
More of the "good culture" I keep hearing so much about,...
Rand Paul. If you want to fix this problem support Rand Paul because that is the only way out of the escalation of blame that created the war on drugs/black people. Libertarians and liberals can change this disgraceful variation on Jim Crow, but only if they work together. The hysteria about race/crime is strong in this country.
Addendum - Not that I think the Professor dished one...I was just musing in general
"The southern slur is so common to Northerners they don't even realize they are delivering it."
Well, I "realized" when I wrote that last sentence that I would be accused of delivering a southern slur, so it was not unconscious anti-southernism. I was ahead of the accusers, contemplated the possible slurfulness, and made my decision. Nothing unwitting about it, so you're definitely wrong if that's supposed to be what you think of me.
Just seeing the addendum, surfed. So, thanks for not saying that's what you think I did...
The Southern slur by Northerners is first cousin to the European gambit of twitting the American as vulgar and uncouth. Happened once in Costa Rica. A table of Germans were drunk and being obnoxious. They pick on the wrong table - full of wild eyed Southern boys. And while we may make fun of Yankee's they are our brethren and no one, BUT NO ONE is allowd to make fun of them but us. Their hash was settlerd quickly leading one of the wits at our table to muse - "Krauts - either at your throat or at your feet."
Was that a micro-aggression against Southerners?
Edwards is a slur against the South, not Althouse--at least in this case.
"Democrats and liberals and the media have an interest in, and feel sympathy for, a Southern millionaire who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, while they both were trying to dupe the nation, because he "has to" get back to work."
Fixed it for you, Crack. But that's a truth you can't bring yourself to admit.
MB said...
cubanbob - that's a laugh, "having a pretty good chance."
I sit on a committee that reviews cases for medical staff. The most ridiculous claims get settled because the issuance company does not want to gamble on a jury. So they offer what it would cost to defend the case it they were to win, or less - just to get rid of it.
Bad outcomes does not mean bad medicine, but a crippled kid will tug at the heart strings, and who has deep pockets?
4/18/14, 11:11 AM"
Gee you sit on a medical review board and tell us you never see bad medicine only bad outcomes?
The lawyers aren't stupid, they get the documentation before they sue from the health insurance carriers who have an interest in these cases since the companies get paid first before the patient. If there isn't enough in the records to reasonably assure a victory they aren't going to float the entire cost of a trail on the come. They will obviously push for a settlement but unless the provider's carrier is total pushover the settlements aren't all that large since delaying and dragging out works for the malpractice carriers.
Yes I have friends who are med malpractice lawyers (and friends who are doctors and surgeons) and some of the med malpractice cases aren't just bad medicine they are for all practical intents criminal negligence.
Well, I "realized" when I wrote that last sentence that I would be accused of delivering a southern slur, so it was not unconscious anti-southernism. I was ahead of the accusers, contemplated the possible slurfulness, and made my decision. Nothing unwitting about it, so you're definitely wrong if that's supposed to be what you think of me.
I had to parse this a couple times to make sure. You were consciously slurring southerners?
"I know a lot of the experts Edwards has used in his birth trauma cases and they are the usual hired gun professional testifiers, offering up the usual incredible and unjustified opinion testimony."
Chuck, first these guys you mentioned aren't cheap and they usually want their money up front. Second the insurance company also do oppo research and bring to the jury the information about the how expert these experts are and they in turn bring their own experts. And even if the jury awards some outrageous amount of money the award is often substantially reduced by the trial judge or the appellate court.
Like I said before, when these lawyers take on these type of cases on a contingency-where they are fronting the money and taking a business risk-they try to pick the cases that are as close as possible to being a sure thing in court.
...creepy old man...
Interesting choice of words. You left out "white" this time.
Edwards is 60 and you are...older than that?
Other than that, this post made me laugh out loud. Well done.
Oh hey, it's Crack! After the interesting NPV and Transcendence posts this morning, I'd almost forgotten that Ann lets a vicious hateful bigot post on her board because, I think, she's impressed by his obvious con.
But Crack never fails to show up, in posts that have absolutely nothing to do with his phony race schtick, and remind us of his noxious presence.
The Northern sense of superiority is base upon superior education. The Southern sense of inferiority is based on inferior education.
But superior education is found in pockets in the North, like Madison and in pockets in the South like Atlanta.
Southerners know how dumb many areas of the South are...we live here.
The decision not to allow slaves to be educated is still a curse today. It was also used on the poor whites. Edwards is a bright guy. But he grew up in a lower education area.
And now, as the Professor notes, he's back.
Is Detroit still the murder capitol of the U. S.?
Well Ann it WAS in Southern California. Orange County to be exact, where a jury of twelve good men and true (well they may have been good, but they were also dumb) awarded $103 million in damages and punitive damages in a Pinto rear end case. I think there were two dead, and two who had severe burns. Their socioeconomic background was such that there was damned little of that $103 million needed to represent their lifetime earnings. It's not just juries in the Southeastern United States who let their emotions run away with them.
And of course Johnnie Cochran, he of the "if the glove don't fit, you must acquit" defense of OJ Simpson knew how to bamboozle a jury.
The General Counsel of a Fortune 50 company told me that the definition of a good trial lawyer is that he is someone who can make a jury believe that bovine excrement tastes like vanilla ice cream.
There are lawyers like that all over the country---and juries ready for that taste of ice cream in a lot of jury boxes. John Edwards is just very good at the act.
"The decision not to allow slaves to be educated is still a curse today. It was also used on the poor whites. Edwards is a bright guy. But he grew up in a lower education area."
The curse is the decision to enslave them and in the process be impelled to believe that they were inferior. "Educating" the slaves (in whatever grotesque form that would have had to take) would have made no difference. Do you really believe that if the slaves had been universally taught to read and write race issues would be better now?
@cubanbob, did you know it's possible for a woman to get pregnant from anal sex?
There's nothing else that explains where medical malpractice lawyers come from.
David,
Fredrick Douglass certainly though educating slaves was a big deal, as did all those southern legislators who--not content with relying on "who on earth would do such a thing?"--wrote laws prohibiting such education.
@cubanbob, did you know it's possible for a woman to get pregnant from anal sex?
There's nothing else that explains where medical malpractice lawyers come from."
Big Mike you would have a point if doctors didn't from time to time amputate the wrong limb or ignore heart attack symptoms, prescribe medications that are potentially lethal when taken with the other medication the patient is taking among other minor medical errors.
I don't think the New Englanders who stuffed the slaves into the holds of the slave ships took much time to educate the slaves during the Middle Passage.
@David....Slave labor was wrong and the New England ship owners and their Banks that got wealthy selling slaves to the cotton plantation areas of the South were evil men.
But after Nat Turner's revolt even the moderate white Southerners went nuts fearing a black rebellion would kill them in their sleep. Guilt does funny things.
Then Slave Codes came into law making educating slaves a crime.
The 13th Amendment ended slavery, but not for convicts of a crime. So the poor whites joined the poor blacks being arrested for vagrancy and enslaved as rental prisoners working on the old plantations and Chain Gangs for public road construction.
Keeping that class of poor men and women illiterate was an evil intentional policy that lasted until after WWI. Until the 1920s education of the poor in the South was rare except in churches that started their own schools.
That Edwards quote makes one wish a jury could find for someone and against his lawyer.
"We find for the plaintiff. We do not find for that smarmy lawyer he has though. Him we charge with contempt of decency and contempt of the intelligence of the jury."
I regret to inform you that Edwards is more lawyer you and has a hundred times more money. Live with it.
I have been looking for a medical malpractice lawyer myself. That would be really great and would be really helpful too. I am just hoping that I can find someone that can help me out.
Jak Manson | http://www.lahmlaw.com/syracuse-ny-medical-malpractice.htm
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