Prince William climate case judge already anticipating the appeal
By Tom Jackman Washington Post
The e-mails of climate researcher Michael E. Mann are at the heart of a Freedom of Information Act case that will almost certainly wind up in the Virginia Supreme Court. (Tom Jackman – The Washington Post) If you’re into predicting the outcome of a legal case based on the comments made by the judge, retired Arlington Circuit Court Judge Paul Sheridan’s questions to the lawyers in the climate change/Freedom of Information case Monday were pretty interesting.
When the lawyer for renowned climate scientist Michael Mann said that the FOIA request for his e-mails by Rep. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William) and the American Tradition Institute was calculated to annoy and harass Mann, Sheridan interjected: “How does that affect their legal right to FOIA production? Do we have a ‘purity of heart test’ before we apply the FOIA acts?”
Later, when Mann’s lawyer said that the process of peer review for research was “the bedrock of science,” Sheridan responded, “But is it the bedrock of open government? …Why does the general public have to trust scientists? Citizens wonder about open government. Why don’t we have access to the process? … FOIA is saying citizens have a right to see what government is doing.”
But at the end of four hours of argument, the judge did not grant ATI’s immediate request for 12,000 withheld e-mails written while Mann was a professor at U.Va., and did not rule that the school had waived its right to withhold the e-mails by providing them to Mann last fall. Instead, Sheridan acknowledged that however he rules, the case is headed to the Virginia Supreme Court to resolve several key FOIA issues the case raises:
Read more here:
Dr. David Schnare writes in with this:
Chris Horner and I will do a write up on the hearing after we get the transcript and can use actual quotes. In the mean time, you may wish to point interested readers to the Washington Post article. It gives some useful insights.
There were some block buster things that came out of the hearing, as you’ll see when we get our write up done. For example, the court forced UVA to admit on the record that the climate change debate is by no means settled. Just one example.
We’ll try under the Big Top. Someone, somewhere has got to cry mercy for Michael Mann. He is sitting on a Richter 11 hybris/nemesis fault line and he’s going to take a huge fall. Why do I have to be the one to feel sorry for him?
=============
Hay.
Wut.
How yew no wich wun uh thim trees is a T.R.E.E.M.O.M.I.T.U.R.
Caws THISN’S uh WUN I’m’a ’bout tuh DREEL, BOY, now GIT BACK!1! GIT BACK!!
In my IANAL op[inion, had Michael not Mann-handled his data and procedures, no one would be interested in perusing his Emails. As is usual in a courtroom – it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up!
[snip -over the top – Anthony]
Admad on April 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm said:
“Hmm. Advanced, untreated paranoia. Extreme persecution complex. Deep self-pity. This guy isn’t an undiagnosed alcoholic or addict, is he?”
What Mann seems to be addicted to are taxpayer funded research grants. Which keep flowing from the Powers that be as long as he gives th[em] junk science to hang their hat on.
I am left wondering whether you can invoke the Fifth Amendment Right on a FOIA Request?…,
In criminal embezzlement cases they can’t hide behind academic freedom. Privacy of their work. No this won’t go away. The more they fight it the worse the outcome for mann.
We have reason to believe it is worth a lot to block access to the records.
This is going to be good. Mann must not be feeling too happy. Ah well, he wanted it hot and it’s getting hot for him. Nice. Kind of like instant karma.
I can see why the emails are dubious. They’re subject to regulations requiring storage in case of legal actions, but they’re NOT a researcher’s work product. The latter (code, data, intermediate results, etc) is certainly public domain and shouldn’t even require a FOIA. Pushing hard on the work product is justifiable, but pushing hard to get the emails (through legal channels) may be counterproductive.
I think like most sceptics I am watching this unfold and just waiting. At some point the world will see these emails, its just really a question of when. No one in their right mind would go to the trouble and expense of hushing this up of there wasn’t something to hush up here.
I mean, UVA just went and handed out other emails for other professors without question and then along comes a FOIA request for Dr. Mann and suddenly then are spending serious money to not reveal these emails and claiming all sorts of things about these emails. Something is up in these emails otherwise the university itself wouldn’t be involved.
Its a double standard and you do not see these without real purpose. At first I thought it might just be one of those “magician tricks” that warmists like to pull to hide something from sceptics which is a very popular liberal/warmist trick where they pretend to hand wave about one thing that is just plain nuts and hide something else under the media frenzy…which is normal, but this has been going on for so long now you know that is not the case…
Shrug, regardless, there really is no defense for hiding one set of emails but not others, and the fact that anyone would claim this as foul obviously never saw the fact that other professors had their private emails snooped through under foia and obviously don’t see an issue with that.
Like I always say here and elsewhere in the words of Animal Farm: Some animals are just more equal then others.
Dang, Looks his Karma has run over his dogma.
polistra says:
April 17, 2012 at 6:10 pm
I can see why the emails are dubious. They’re subject to regulations requiring storage in case of legal actions, but they’re NOT a researcher’s work product. The latter (code, data, intermediate results, etc) is certainly public domain and shouldn’t even require a FOIA. Pushing hard on the work product is justifiable, but pushing hard to get the emails (through legal channels) may be counterproductive.
———-
So, FOIA only applies to “work product?” Presumably, that is what is ultimately published. That’s the “Hockey Stick”. What is being argued here that every relevant communication during the time of the formation of that “work product” is subject to FOIAs. Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to have enacted an FOIA law. Who would need an FOIA? Just go to the news stand and buy the “work product”.
In my opinion, I suggest that you may want to readdress your logic and conclusion. The issue is how did he arrive at the “work product”. Particularly, in this context, that all of this time and effort was payed for by public tax grant $s. Did he conduct valid research and determine valid conclusions? That inquiry is the basis of all scientific progress in the history of urbanic culture. Why should this very new branch of untested “scientific” research be exempt from normal and established scientific scruitiny?
Today is tax day in the US. How appropriate. I’m not particularly satisfied with the continued public tax subsidy of what appears to be substandard, or perhaps just secret and very questionable work, that is causing untold greater, and perhaps unwarranted, expenditures because of the conclusions of the “work product.” All paid for by my tax dollar. I’d rather spend it on my children and to put food on the table. Wouldn’t you?
This man gave the world his “work product”, at the potential ultimate world cost of trillions of dollars or more, and for what evidentiary based demonstrable benefit? That is the problem. Don’t we deserve the right to learn the basis of this “work product?”
This judge seems to have a grasp on what he is dealing with and its implications. Bravo!!
And the relevance of the photo of the walrus?.. ooops. My mistake again. Carry on.
The Mann has spent millions of taxpayer dollars engaging in studies to which he was quite happy to tie public policy. His hockey stick also did collateral damage to historians whom he turned into purported liars for using the Medieval Warm Period as an analytical tool. It is entirely appropriate that his professional communications be subjected to public scrutiny, especially as there is a strong chance that the UVA e-mails will be of a similar calibre to the Climategate opus – and yes, there was a lot to see there!
He was happy to be public figure while the publicity winds blew favourably. He now has to accept the back end of the hurricane he helped unleash.
@ur momisugly vigilantfish says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:53 pm
The Mann has spent millions of taxpayer dollars engaging in studies to which he was quite happy to tie public policy. His hockey stick also did collateral damage to historians whom he turned into purported liars for using the Medieval Warm Period as an analytical tool. It is entirely appropriate that his professional communications be subjected to public scrutiny, especially as there is a strong chance that the UVA e-mails will be of a similar calibre to the Climategate opus – and yes, there was a lot to see there!
He was happy to be public figure while the publicity winds blew favourably. He now has to accept the back end of the hurricane he helped unleash.
*
Totally agree with you.
.
Shawn says:
” These emails deal with “the fate of the planet” and, at least, the fate of national economies. Why not release voluntarily? If his work is so solid, he could then laugh at his critics.”
A very good point which should be hammered home by ATIs legal team. If the judge is made to see that the future fate of the world from both a climate and a economic viewpoint hinges on Manns research, then he cannot possibly deny the release of the documents.
“beesaman says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:00 am
I can’t be the only one wondering why Mann is so desperate to suppress those emails!”
Well Michael Mann’s legal pleadings claim that just allowing a judge to read the emails in private
will damage the reputations of climate scientists around the world. Let alone what would happen if after reading them the judge decided to let the public see them. I suspect it is one of the few things in which I can say that I agree with Mann.
I do not want Mann’s emails made public. And I’m not sure I would trust a judge to decide which ones are too private. This is an invasion of privacy, I think we are treading on thin ice here.
Now if we could only hire Peter Gleik to trick Mann into releasing the emails, plus he could write a few fraudulent ones as well. That might just be the best way around this dilemma.
I hear he’s looking for a job.
I think for +20 years the IPCC’s CAGW gatekeepers have applied a ‘purity of heart’ requirement for scientists to be included in the IPCC process. The gatekeepers require a pre-science/’a priori’ belief in the CAGWist presumption that it is bad for mankind to burn fossil fuels.
John
Trust is irrelevant in the epistemological processes that the scientific method depends on.
Forget trust and apply pure skeptical verification of all scientific research which wishes to be considered part of the body of Science (with a capital ‘C’).
John
Oops . . .
John Whitman on April 18, 2012 at 6:38 am said:
Science (with a capital ‘C’).Science (with a capital ‘S‘).
John
“When the lawyer for renowned climate scientist Michael Mann…”
Isn’t that a misprint? Shouldn’t that read “notorious climate “scientist” Michael Mann”?
OR “infamous climate “scientist” Michael Mann”? Scientist should always be in quotation marks when referring to these pseudos.
klem says:
April 18, 2012 at 5:33 am
You are off the mark here, Klem. That is no invasion of privacy. It has been understood that emails of public officials are in public domain, especially when criminal acts are charged. There is also no claim of “expectation of privacy”, when one uses electronic written media.
The confusion arises with phone conversations. A phone conversation is ongoing, so it carries an inherent expectation of privacy, and the conversation cannot be recorded. However, a phone message that is recorded by the alleged perpetrator (past event) is not protected, nor are the details of a past conversation (viz. time, place, duration).
This is all by legal precedent.
Does this mean Cuccinelli will make the case against Mann? Cuccinelli will tear it apart!
I’m ashamed of my alma mater. Is no revered institution imune from this AGW tripe?
There is also a Washington Times article, but not nearly as in-depth as the Post’s (and although I no longer have much faith in the Post to report based more on fact than on hype or opinion, I did find the article referenced above to be refreshing).
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/16/conservative-group-sees-glimmer-of-hope-in-climate/