When you think of cities hosting the lowest levels of sexual and human depravity what comes to your mind? New York City? Los Angeles? Maybe New Orleans is your cup of gumbo. How about Mineola Texas? Mineola is a small East Texas town boasting a very non big city population of 5, 600 residents. The Mineola web site boasts a congenial small town warmth for numerous antique shops, bed and breakfasts etc. It is also “The Birding Capital of East Texas”. The web site goes on to state that Mineola is “Where People Make The Difference”. There is no doubt that people have made the difference in putting tiny Mineola on the national radar of depravity along side above mentioned cities. Over the last year, Mineola has been the focus of one of the most despicable scenarios of depraved sexual theater known to mankind. It is not a question of subjective sexual morality and values. What has allegedly taken place in Mineola would probably shock the most hard core pedophile. Children in Mineola as young as 7 were allegedly working and performing sex acts for paying customers in a local swingers club. The club ironically had previously operated as a day car center.

Here are the facts as reported by The Dallas Morning News:

1. The sex-abuse allegations were first reported to police and Texas Child Protective Services in 2005.

2. The biological mother of three of the children was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of sexual performance by a child. She was sentenced to life in prison. The foster parents are not defendants. They have been foster parents for 36 years. They have have adopted 27 children, including the three siblings in swing club sex ring sex-ring case.

3. It is alleged that children were threatened with beatings, hanging and starvation if they didn’t perform sex acts and lewd dances as strangers watched. The children were allegedly given Vicodin to relax them. These drugs were called “silly pills”. The children were allegedly taken to the homes of several of the defendants where they were instructed in sex acts and dancing. These lessons were called “kindergarten”. When the children were deemed “ready” they were made to perform for an audience at the sex club.

While not as shocking as the allegations it is surprising that this reality sex show has not garnered more national attention. In NYC this is just another group of perverts who may be your next door neighbors.  You would not know however because you do not speak with your neighbors. In Mineola Texas these ARE your next door neighbors.

The cases against the defendants are proceeding under a gag order. There is undoubtedly a script in the works for a Lifetime or USA network movie of the week. Dallas, Austin and Los Angeles producers and scriptwriters are perched like vultures waiting for the gag order to be lifted so they can swoop down on the the involved parties for the option rights to their story. This would certainly be more juicy than the Texas Cheerleader Scandal.

The Mineola Web sites also mentions the “Peforming Arts”. I do not think anyone had this in mind. Welcome to Mineola!

Jerry Seinfeld’s lawyers urged a judge to throw out a defamation lawsuit brought against him cookbook author Missy Chase Lapine. Seinfeld claims he was exercising his First Amendment rights on the show, and that “any statements Lapine perceived to be derogatory were made while he was in comedian mode,”

“Nobody who was listening to Jerry Seinfeld thought he was doing anything but making very funny jokes,” attorney Orin Snyder told E! “Nobody believed him to be stating facts. Everyone understood him to be doing what he has done so well for so many years, which was telling jokes and entertaining. So the claim against him is frivolous and we have asked the court to dismiss it too.”

Not long ago Jerry Seinfeld was sued for slander among other things by Lapine who also claims that Jerry’s wife stole her idea for a children’s healthy eating cookbook. Missy Chase Lapine (“Lapine”) and The Sneaky Chef, Inc. filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Jerry Seinfeld and Jessica Seinfeld for copyright infringement, defamation, and trademark infringement.

Lapine, the author of “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals,” accused Seinfeld’s wife of plagiarizing her cookbook. Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food” . The publisher had previously rejected a book by Lapine but published a book by Seinfeld on the same subject. Jerry being the comedian that he is, had his next routine laid out like red carpet.

On a nationally televised David Letterman talk show appearance he called Ms. Lapine a wacko and a crackpot and compared her to the killers of John Lennon and Martin Luther King.(video below) On the Letterman show, Mr. Seinfeld did not refer to Ms. Lapine by name, but spoke of a “three-name woman” and said that “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins.” Jerry has become quite the historian.

Jerry has moved to dismiss slander/defamation claim stating that it was “in jest” only and could not be taken seriously by anyone. If he is talking about Lindsay Lohan, he is making a good point but we are talking about a private individual’s cookbook. Jerry may be a comedian but when you take his comments in the overall light of the manner they were intended, a jury could easily find them defamatory. You can decide by viewing the video.

While it is not spelled out in the Constitution, one right private citizens have as compared to celebrities is the right not to be insulted on national television. There also appears to be a good argument that his comments were not part of a comedy routine but motivated by an intent to inflict emotional distress upon the plaintiff.

Ms. Lapine is not a public figure who are generally easy fodder for jokes as the standard for defamation is much higher. If it is Lindsay Lohan you can pretty much say anything you want about her as long you don’t accuse her of giving you and STD. (unless of course it’s true).

Moral of story? Make national television fodder of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan all you want but leave happy home-maker alone.

Watch the video below and come to your own conclusions. Does she have a case?

Being an attorney, I have an attraction to movies that revolve around lawyers or courtrooms. It is often entertaining to watch how the realities of litigation and law are blurred, butchered and disregarded altogether in the name of entertainment or dramatic license.

Here is the list of my great courtroom movies. For a movie to be on my list, it has to be something I have seen within the last 5 years. If the movie predates that and I have not seen it in the last five years, then it was not entertaining enough for me to see it again. An example of a movie that would come under this exclusion is Twelve Angry Men. This movie is on every respectable top ten list out there and unquestionably a great movie. It is not one that has that pull for me to see over and over. I saw it in high school almost 30 years ago and have not seen it since. The same would be true of To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind. These are all great classic courtroom movies on every top ten list. I have not seen any of them in the last five years so I am leaving them off. There are also movies that revolve around lawyers but I do not view as courtroom movies such as The Firm, The Client The Pelican Brief and Michael Clayton. If I say a movie is technically good from a courtroom perspective I am judging the overall portrayal to the layman and not passing judgment on every little evidentiary/trial fau paux.

Movies like Liar Liar, My Cousin Vinny and Legally Blonde are hilarious. I did not include comedies. The reason is that no matter how funny the movie may be, there is really no character or individuality. They all basically revolving around making courtroom dialogue humorous

9. Primal Fear This movie has absolutely absurd courtroom dialogue but the story line and performances by Edward Norton and Richard Gere are so good that you really don’t care.

10. Music Box This is one of the few movies dealing with the issues of aging former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers who committed war crimes living in the United States. Jessica Lange and Armin Mueller-Stah give great performances.

The movie is based on the true story of John Demjanjuk. While the premise of a daughter representing her father on trial for his life is a stretch, it works well here. Jessica’s emotional opening statement is also unrealistic and inadmissible. The movie is incredibly moving on all levels.  You are torn between her father as a loving grandfather and a brutal murderer guilty of terrible war crimes. In an interesting twist of life imitating art, the father of Joe Eszterhas who write the screenplay, was accused of writing anti-Semitic propaganda before and during World War II. Like the character in Music Box, his father denied being the person who wrote these materials. Mr. Ezterhas denies knowing anything about his father’s past at the time her wrote the screenplay. There is a great article about this that can be read here.

Class Action This movie is based on the Ford Pinto Rear End End Explosion cases. Gene Hackman is great as the both idealistic and cynical plaintiff’s attorney going after the huge car maker. Once again a defense firm is portrayed as as unethical. They hide then destroy key evidence in the case. The conduct of the character played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, while portrayed as noble in the movie would have probably resulted in her disbarment in real life. She knows a partner in her firm has destroyed evidence. She tells the other side(who happens to be her father) about it. She also gives them a corroborating witness not previously known about. Noble maybe but career ending absolutely.

Presumed Innocent This is one of the great courtroom movies of the last 20 years both in style and drama. Great performances by both Harrison Ford and Brian Dennehy. A show stealing supporting performance is turned in by late actor Raul Julia. The movie also does fairly well on a courtroom technical basis. One dramatic license taken is the hammer which needed to be taken. The statement that the police wouldn’t look for it because if they dont find it , that would be brought up in court is just silly. They don’t look for something because they might not find it? Search warrants are executed to find evidence, not to leave it.

And Justice For All. Al Pacino’s great courtroom flick. (I refuse to put The Devil’s Advocate on there) The movie is technically ludicrous and it is supposed to be! That is the whole point. The point is that the legal system is ludicrous and often forces attorneys to choice between morality and victory. While the drama is exaggerated the message is right on. The below video says it all.

That’s my list. Are there other good courtroom movies? Of course. These were the ones that I can watch over and over. Some other courtroom movies I found entertaining but didn’t make my watch over and over list are,

Rules of Engagement

Hart’s War.

Red Corner.

Please feel free to comment and make your case for your favorite courtroom movies and why they are great. Please don’t say its great, because it’s on some list or because everyone else says it is great. Give us your own opinion. Example: I have no desire to see Twelve Angry Men again. It is a great movie on jury and group dynamics. It is also fairly boring. When was the last time you saw it?

In what appears to be a unique case, a Federal Court in Tampa Florida has ordered a company to use ‘negative keywords’ to avoid being associated with another firm’s trade mark.

In the case of Orion Bankcorp Inc. v. Orion Residential Financial, the court ruled that Orion Residential was basically devaluing the trademark and intellectual property value of the keywords people use in search engine searches that would take them to Orion Bankcorp. The court ordered Orion Residential to insert “negative keywords” into their website.

Without going into to all the legal shmegal, the court basically stated that Orion Residential was infringing Orion Bancorps trademark by inserting keywords that Orion Bancorp has trademark protection for in their name as used in keywords and such. The court entered an order:

“barring defendant from purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or “adwords” in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff’s Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term “ORION” as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.”

This frankly is not unusual in terms of trademark cases. Please are always getting sued for trademark infringement in trying to siphon off business using someone else’s established good will.

Search engines often get sued for devaluing trademarks in this way. Google has been sued several times for selling key words in its’ Google AdWords program that a company may feel are protected trademark. Until the American Airlines suit however they have been primarily obscure companies not making big news . It is however the first time I have seen a court order a company to insert safeguard in their web site to protect the trademark of another company. If anyone has seen other cases like this I would would love to hear about them.

This is very similar to the issue in the much more prominent and publicized case of American Airlines v. Google. Without going into all the intricacies of the case American Airlines sued Google for allowing other companies to have their banners come up when Google searches for American Airlines and related words were done. The basic argument is that these banners devalue the intellectual property and infringe on the trademark of American Airlines. In layman’s terms? American Airlines was sick and tired of companies getting a free ride on the back of trademark value they worked so hard to establish while Google made a killing.

This case is still pending. Google is fighting back hard. They make a killing selling these keywords to companies. A win by American Airlines will have financial ramification for Google and set the standard for future suits of this nature.

We all know that keyword abuse in the business world is rampant. How many company specific keywords do you have on your business site in the hopes that people looking for the more established company will be decided to check out your web site instead when it appears in the search rankings. There is no getting around the fact that this practice tends to run afoul of U.S. trademark law.

I believe that these keyword suits will become much more common and high profile over the next decade as the internet becomes more and more integrated in the the everyday shopping experience. The American Airlines Suit is just the first high profile salvo.

I had better go take my Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse key words out of my web site for Mickey’s House of Hookers…..