But I strenuously object to the shoddy reporting that has occurred today after the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denied his petition for rehearing en banc. Hey, media people - perhaps you should try actually reading the opinion before reporting on it. For your convenience, I have linked to the actual opinion here.*
The Associated Press couldn't get it right:
The AP article stated: "'We agree that the evidence of the defendant's guilt was overwhelming,' the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 15-page opinion." Try again. The majority opinion is the opinion of the Court. This quote is from the dissenting opinion, which is not the opinion of the Court and should not be stated as such. Of course, later in the article, the AP stated the opinion was "just one paragraph long and contained no explanation." Right, except that the AP reported just two paragraphs earlier that the Court did have an explanation - there was overwhelming evidence. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"The court refused to grant the "so-called" en banc hearing." I want to know exactly what a "so-called" en banc hearing is. If it is granted, it is an en banc rehearing. Nothing so-called about that. Ryan didn't make up this thing called an en banc hearing. Perhaps a review of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure would help. I think that's where the Court came up with this "so-called" en banc thing. Just like every other circuit court in the country.
"Not clear whether Ryan will be now be required to report to prison." Get a clue. This opinion was not about whether he will report to prison. It was about whether he will be granted a rehearing. Insinuating the Court of Appeals was remiss in someway by not mentioning when he will go to prison is ridiculous.
In addition, over the lunch hour, WCBU got it wrong. First, use the correct name for the Court. It is the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Not the Seventh United States Appellate Court. It's not that hard - it's the first thing on the first page of the opinion.
Second, WCBU reported that the "full court" considered the case. Untrue. In fact, Judges Joel Flaum and Ilana Rovner took no part in the decision, as noted on the first page.
But what really gets under my skin is that no one even mentioned the 14 page dissenting opinion (aside from the mistake mentioned above). The dissent carefully lays out the argument for granting the petition for rehearing en banc in painstaking detail. That is the interesting part of this decision. True, Ryan has not prevailed in the Court of Appeals.
However, what the dissent has done is sent a 14 page direct message to the Supreme Court. That is the news today.
Of course, since the media can't the basics right, why would they care about the actual issues?
* The link doesn't seem to be working. Try this: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/7N0Z0RGD.pdf
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8 comments:
Not that I understand half of what you wrote, but WLS-AM did report the push for the Supreme Court in their 5 o'clock news. After reading this blog entry, I couldn't help but think they were a bit smarter than the rest.
What you heard over the noon hour was a story from the Associated Press broadcast wire. I'm not saying we are absolved of the errors. We chose to air the story without fact checking what the AP wrote. I wish we had time to do that.
The versions that ran in our afternoon newscasts (written by an Illinois Public Radio reporter in Chicago, not the AP) corrected the errors you wrote about, and specifically mentioned the dissent that could be used in a possible appeal to the Supreme Court, and that it was the dissenting opinion that made reference to "overwhelming evidence".
I pulled the story we (WCBU) aired at 12:30 PM. I'm not sure where in here we report anything about the "full court considered the case". Can you help me out?
CHICAGO (AP) - Former Governor George Ryan has been out on bond
since being convicted of racketeering and fraud more than a year
ago, but it isn't clear how much longer that will be true.
Ryan took a step closer to prison today when a federal appeals
court rejected his request for a new hearing.
The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down Ryan's
request for a rehearing by all actively sitting judges on the
court. A three-judge appeals panel already had turned down the
appeal by Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner.
One of Ryan's attorneys, former Governor James Thompson, had
said weeks ago that Ryan's legal team would fight the case "all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court" if necessary.
Thompson's office today said it had no immediate comment on the
latest appellate court ruling.
Jonathan - Thanks very much for your comments. I figured WCBU had only read what came over the wire, but it is so often that AP makes mistakes in the haste to get the story out and those mistakes are repeated until they become fact.
Of course, I heard the WCBU story over the radio in my car coming back from lunch and did not write down direct quotes. When I refered to WCBU stating that the full court considered the case, I was referring to the statement that "The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down Ryan's request for a rehearing by all actively sitting judges on the Court."
As pointed out in my post, not all of the actively sitting judges considered the case. Judges Flaum and Rovner did not consider the case, for reasons not specified in the opinion. It is true that nine actively sitting judges considered the case, but the Seventh Circuit consists of 11 actively sitting judges (and several senior judges).
I am pleased that WCBU corrected the errors in a later report. Unfortunately, I am unable to listen during the work day (except on my lunch hour) but I always listen in the morning.
I'm afraid neither link to the actual opinion worked for me. It downloads something, but then Acrobat says that the PDF file is corrupted and can't be loaded.
I have no idea why the link will not work. But, you can get it by doing this:
Go to: www.ca7.uscourts.gov
Click on: opinions (left hand side)
Enter: 06-3517 in the case number slot
This will actually get you to the panel opinion, the denial of rehearing en banc, and audio file of the oral argument.
06-3517 says it is U.S. vs. Lawrence Warner.
Lawrence Warner is George Ryan's co-defendant. They were indicted and tried together and their appeals were consolidated. Everything that appears under 06-3517 that is accessible to the public pertains to both defendants, including the opinions.
Funny how people forget that other people's lives were involved in this case as well.
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