by Steve Timmer

Jun 26, 2014, 9:30 AM

A comment from a Michelle MacDonald supporter

Ayrlahn, a Michelle MacDonald supporter, weighs in on my post about MacDonald’s handling of a custody case representation in Dakota County:

Mr. Timmer, What kind of agenda could Ms. MacDonald possibly have? She is representing her client in the case where you state “I refer to her contemptuous and obstructive behavior — detrimental to her client — while representing her in a custody hearing in Dakota County Family Court” Pro Bono (for Free). I suggest you do a little more research before coming out with your conclusions and check what the Judge has been doing to this Client and exactly what has transpired in this case. It is horrible from any angle. And why aren’t you supporting more transparency in Minnesota Courts? What’s wrong with taking pictures and video recordings in Court? 36 other states allow it. Why the lack of transparency? What are they hiding? Not to mention it drives up the cost for all litigants if forced to buy a transcript and raised the cost to the State when the State has to pay for transcripts for In Forma Pauperis litigants. You should be working towards getting rid of Rule 4.01. We don’t need it.

First, I know what pro bono publico means.

Second, “What kind of agenda could Ms. MacDonald possibly have?” asks the Tea Party commenter. Her agenda is obvious to the most casual observer: the abolition of the Family Court, and maybe all courts, perhaps except the ecclesiastical ones. Between us, my friends, I think that is a really stupid idea, but it’s a free country; believe what you want. When a lawyer is representing somebody in court, though, it is her or his case, not the lawyer’s. It doesn’t matter whether you are getting paid or not: the lawyer’s fidelity is supposed to be to the client’s case, not some hare-brained idea the lawyer has, or to herself, as was the case with our diva here.

Third, one of the reasons for disallowing cameras in court is to discourage grand-standing boobs (that’s a term of art) like Michelle MacDonald.

Fourth, rather than accepting the tab charge for the contempt and contesting it later, MacDonald retreated to the fainting couch, which resulted in a continuance of the client’s trial. How this furthered the client’s interests escapes me.

Fifth, a few snapshots by Michelle MacDonald during a break in the action does not make a record on which anybody, an appeals court or the public, can make any meaningful judgments. The commenter fails utterly to understand what a trial record is. Maybe MacDonald fails to, too. Contending that MacDonald was in the pursuit of “transparency” here is, well, transparent crap.

Sixth, and maybe most important, is to understand that all the tea partiers, sovereign citizens, these little nut balls of ideological grievance and resentment — are there any other arrested-development types I’ve forgotten? — are just nihilists. They talk a great game about the Constitution, but they want to elevate a religious tract above it as a legal document. Well, the Taliban wants to do that, too.

MacDonald a RPM convention – Uptake video screenshot

A judge walking into a courtroom and banging a Bible on her head for inspiration, like something out of a Monty Python movie, ought not to inspire confidence, my friends; it surely doesn’t in me.

Monty Python’s Holy Grail