In the following book, Murder.Com, we find the book beginning with stories about how Brent had been bullied in school. And it seemed that, even after becoming a lawyer and establishing a practice, those who bully, especially ones that do so without having the "guts" to sign their own name, were still winning. Not only did he not win the defamation online case, he was forced to pay all fees--$50,000!!! A sum of money that Marks didn't have!
Matthew Kronenberg (affectionately referred to as “Kronendork” by many attorneys who appeared in his courtroom) had a Napoleon complex, which was typical among many federal judges. Appointed for life by President George W. Bush through the recommendation of the local Congressman, he, like his brethren, marched his short frame up the stairs and roosted high above the court on his bench every day, passing judgments on strangers he had never met. Judge Kronenberg had made his mind up today to kill Brent Marks’s libel case and there was nothing that was going to change it, although he did express that his decision was a “tentative ruling” and he invited Brent, whom the tentative decision was against, to exhaust any arguments he had before lowering the boom. The judge had a permanent grimace, as if he were constantly plagued by constipation. As Brent’s mother always used to say about people like that: “If he smiled, his face would crack.”
The case was all about defamation on the Internet – and it was all directed against Brent. It wasn’t the first time he had faced down a pack of bullies, but it was easier before in a way because they couldn’t hide behind an anonymous wall like the Internet. Through much of his adolescence Brent had faced them down, so much so that his father had to change the family name from Marquez to Marks. Bullies select a trait or traits that are unique to you to exploit. In this case, it was Brent’s surname. His father, Jose Marquez, had emigrated from Spain before he met Brent’s mother. When Brent was born, Jose had never anticipated the future problems that his name would cause his son. The bullies concentrated on the name, calling Brent a Mexican, and Brent always wondered why that would be such a bad thing. He could have passed for Mexican himself, with his dark brown hair. His hazel eyes often looked brown, but he was much taller than most Mexicans. He was fluent in Spanish, which had helped him in the old days when many of his clients in Santa Barbara happened to be Mexican.
Brent faced the judge at the podium. He was dressed to impress in his best two-piece grey suit with a cobalt blue shirt and button-down collar, but that was not going to protect him from the storm that was about to hail down on him. Never back down. Great mantra, he thought as he stood facing judgment from the man who was about to turn him from the plaintiff into a defendant. “Your Honor, for this motion to dismiss to succeed, the defendant has to prove that the statement in issue was protected speech. That is impossible, because this speech is, per se, defamatory, and defamatory speech is not protected free speech under the Constitution. Secondly, he has to prove that the speech related to a matter of public interest. “The defamatory statements were all about me, Your Honor. I’m not a movie star, a president, or Congressman; or even a Federal judge like you. I'm just a regular person who doesn’t take kindly to my reputation being dragged through the mud by a mob of Internet cyber-stalkers. Therefore, I am not a person in the public interest, and this case cannot, by definition, be a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The defendants in this case are trying to seek immunity from liability for defamation, which is an improper use of the SLAPP statute under the Hilton case.”
Brent’s opposition, Geoffrey Kelley of Noble, Saperstein and Kelley was so anxious to speak, he looked as if he would pop out of his three-piece suit like a brand new tube of toothpaste that had been squeezed too hard. He kept biting his lip and wiggling in his seat, eager for his turn to spout. But Brent was determined to use his ten minutes of allotted argument time. If the motion to dismiss his defamation case was granted, there would be two consequences. He would have to pay a hell of a lot of fees, and there would be more libelous postings against him on the Internet; this time with impunity. It would be a libelous free-for-all; an opportunity to throw sticks and stones, and call Brent any names they wished, as well as accuse him of any vile, illegal or immoral conduct they could think of.
“Further, Your Honor, your tentative ruling states that the anonymous postings that accuse me of stealing money and running scams are non-actionable opinions. These are not opinions. They are accusations of a crime, and that is libel per se, which implies malice, and this is a question for the jury. It cannot be resolved by this motion.” Brent would have liked to have given his opinion of Kronendork, but that would only have earned him a one-way ticket to jail on a contempt of court citation.
“Mr. Marks, you sued the website in this case. How is the service provider not immune from the posters’ statements under the Communications Decency Act?” asked the judge. Communications Decency. What a name for a law that allows people to smear other people anonymously on the Internet, thought Brent. There was nothing “decent” about these communications. Kronendork already knew his answer to that question. Brent’s was irrelevant to him.
“Your Honor, I sued the website because they are not just acting as a service provider, giving their users a forum to post their defamatory statements, but because they also moderate and contribute their own material to the conversations, making them a content provider as well; so they have no immunity under the Communications Decency Act, according to the Kruska case that I’ve cited in my brief. “Moreover, without the defendant's website in this case, I’ll never know who the libelous posters are. This is a smear site that caters to cyber-stalkers, Your Honor, who are nothing more than grown-up bullies. They shouldn’t be allowed to publish my address, pictures of my house, and my unlisted home telephone number. That is a violation of my right to privacy.” Brent was going down in flames. The slimy cyber-mob was probably enlisting new members and readying another onslaught of slander and libel against him. 'Brent was a crook and a shyster, and should be disbarred': all these were statements of opinion, protected by the First Amendment. “Mr. Marks, your time is up.
The Court will now hear from Mr. Kelley.” Judges speak never of themselves in the first person; always the third person, like the Queen of England. Kelley stood up and almost stumbled over his shoelaces. He was so excited, he nearly bumped into Brent on his way to the lectern. Brent resisted the urge to “accidently” put out a foot to trip him. His gut lopped over his belt and some fat skin showed through where his button had popped open. “Thank you, Your Honor. The defendant has made a sufficient showing that the statements made were Constitutionally-protected opinion and that, since they concerned matters about Mr. Marks, who is a licensed California lawyer, these are matters which the public may be interested in. Therefore, under the Nygard v. Uusi-Kerttula case the statements are in the public interest. “Since we have proven that the statements are Constitutionally-protected speech and in the public interest, the burden now shifts to Mr. Marks to demonstrate that he has a probability of succeeding in his claim. This is something he has not, and cannot, show. No shit. I haven’t even had the chance to do any discovery yet. “Finally, Your Honor, the Communications Decency Act gives immunity to service providers who merely publish user-generated content, like my client. Mr. Marks is free to sue the third party users who generated the content, but not the interactive computer service which enabled them to put it online.” Yeah, all I have to do is sue 007, Shyster Crusher, and Attack Dog, who are all hiding behind your client’s skirt, Gee-offrey. “The Court will adopt the tentative in this case and grant the motion to dismiss,” said the judge.
“The case is dismissed and Mr. Marks, you are ordered to pay $50,000 in defendant’s attorney’s fees.” Okay. Let me just run to the car and get my checkbook. Or do you take American Express? It was official now. Brent Marks, once a private citizen who happened to be a lawyer, was now a public figure with no right to privacy. Anyone from now on could say anything about him, whether it was true or not, and there was nothing he could do about it. Instead of shaking his hand like a good sport, after the judge left the bench, Kelley smiled at Brent with a big mouth of jagged teeth and said, “See you in the malicious prosecution case, Marks.” Venus flytrap. The spark had gone out of Brent’s sometimes-green, sometimes-brown hazel eyes. Brent Marks, once the defender of lost causes and a champion of civil rights, and now officially a crook, a shyster, and a scammer, crawled out of the courtroom a defeated man.
Ironically, Marks gets a new, rich client who has one goal - to gain a perfect credit report. Which, given the things he got himself into, was not an easy task. But it was going well, and the money was coming in routinely for Brent, fortunately.
It was interesting how speaking anonymously gave people the right to be crass; to bare their ugly inner thoughts to everyone without the responsibility of owning up to them. Bekker is dead! LMFAO – Flusher Becker commits suicide – put in your claims now – Truth Seeker.
And as time goes on in the investigation, discoveries of activities from the Dark Web began to pull everything together... Things were happening quickly and suddenly Brent was being accused of...murder!
So Brent Marks, the former defender of lost causes turned public figure with no right to privacy (and soon to be famous murderer) drowned his sorrows on his deck facing the Santa Barbara Harbor with all the available clear liquids from his liquor cabinet. The cool-headed voice of logic became dim and dull and had all but disappeared. In its place, the illogical beast with only the zest for simple pleasures and thoughts that contradicted all logic began to argue with the impaired, logical one. It’s not fair! I didn’t murder Flusher! Fair is irrelevant. This is the law – it has nothing to do with justice.
There has to be a way – there has to! There’s always a way – but not all of them are always legal. Hmmm. Saturday was a blur that managed to clear itself up by the evening, when stone cold reality had set back in. Then, early on Sunday morning, Brent found himself driving north along the coast humming ‘Mrs. Robinson’ to himself. “Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.”
After passing Buellton, he began singing ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’ as he kept barreling northward, driven by an unknown force inside him that refused to accept that he was a week away from being convicted of a murder he had nothing to do with. Do you know the way to San Jose? I’ve been away so long, I may go wrong and lose my way…
I've told you that Eade is my favorite legal beagle...so of course, I recommend you read this one...learning more about the dark web than maybe you wanted to, sorry to say... But all is happy with Brent at the end...at least until his next case!
AFTERWORD This is a fictional story but, as with all my stories, it is based on solid research about real-life issues. If you care to read on. The Internet has outgrown the common law of defamation, and new regulations to protect the Internet, free speech and the freedom to speak anonymously have been abused by cyber-bullies and cyber-stalkers, who have used this new medium to dispense their bullying in a greater distribution among more people. I thought it may be interesting to examine the possibility of an Internet bully or cyber mob hiring a hit man anonymously through the Internet. I thought that this would be a unique idea, but, upon delving into the macabre world of the Dark Net, I realized that it was not. Most of the sites I found while searching for murder-for-hire” were probably scams or were set up by law enforcement to catch would-be conspirators, but the concept is definitely not an original one.
See more with Kenneth G. Eade as Guest Blogger, Next!
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