Micro$oft screws up again!!! 11

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Unless I'm mistaken it is not MS and MS's lawers that say what someone will be charged with....that is the DA's job. Someone, in this case, MS report a crime and the DA decides what to charge them with given the evidense etc.

I'm, saddly, in agreement that Mr Neale was wronged if the search warrents where not valid. But then I don't blame MS for the faulty warrents, inappropriate charges, plea bargin etc. That is all the DA office's responcibility.

The fact that this was charged under the wrong offences is an injustice to MS and other legal testing organisations in my view.

Are you upset with SCO for what they are doing? From my understanding they are towing the legal line with the Linux suite. I'm not saying you, people in this thread, are just MS haters. I'm saying it is a fact that there are people that would side with just about anyone to spite MS.

I don't think that SCO's suite will win but they are clever in how they are running it right now....maybe MS should ask for some of SCO's lawers in return for all that money they are paying them.

Like CC has said before I'm sure there is more here then what we are being told and wouldn't be at all surprised if its mostly political reasons why this whole situation ended up as it is.

Nice to know a judge can admit his ignorance when he signed search warrents and over turn that.

Agian to me Mr Neale's actual charge is irrelivant. He's obtained and sold questions he has no apparent legal right to. The fact that the DA's office charged him wrong, and I don't care if MS lawers helped, is moot.

In the end Mr Neale hurt MS less and hurt legal education companies more. That's where I see the problem.


Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

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[sleipnir214]

It would have been Microsoft's lawyers who got this ball started rolling. They would be the ones to have pressed a specific charge.

The DA's office would be the ones to decide whether to prosecute this as-is, or change the charge for strategic reasons. Unfortunately, I think the DA's office was, perhaps, motivated by the benefit the office would derive from seizure and sale of assets as much as protecting the public good. For this conclusion I cite the negotiations between Microsoft and the DA's office over how Mr. Neale's computers were to be distributed between them.

The party most hurt by the actions of Microsoft's lawyers was Microsoft. Now there is precedent which states that this information does not fall under one state's trade secret laws, which can affect Microsoft's ability to use a similar tactic to go after others in Mr. Neale's industry. This is why the judge's decision is very relevant.

What is even more important is the fact that no formal charges were ever filed. Then they gave him a deal of pleading to a misdemeanor in exchange for return of half of his property. Who's the DA there, Torquemada?

And I suspect that Judge Richardson was originally making decisions based on flawed legal opinion given to him by the DA's office and that his own legal staff hadn't or wasn't capable of researching the topic in depth. I also suspect that the testimony of Mr. Neal's expert witness, Mr. Lee, was instumental in clarifying things for Judge Richardson. The phrase from the article I linked earlier, "as well as falsehoods within the police affidavits on which the warrants were based", probably played a major role in the judge's reversing himself, too. I'm figuring some heads rolled over that.




I am actually entertained by Darl McBride's antics -- but then my taste in entertainment tends toward the surreal. And if SCO is toeing any legal line, it is strictly because various courts are forcing them to do so.

Darl McBride and SCO's lawyers can be as clever as they can, but I do not believe their cases, any of them, have any merit. If Mr. McBride's occasional Barnumesque demonstrations to the press are any indications, SCO is in a deep hole here in terms of proving their claims.

But one good thing that will probably come out of this is that there will finally be a determination by the courts as to who owns what rights to Unix. That trail is currently so muddied, I'm not sure anybody really knows what has gone on there.





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[sleipnir214]

Actually, the more I think about it, the whole SCO circus reminds me of a colorful expression I picked up in the Army:

It's like a monkey trying to [fornicate with] a football:[ol][li]there's a whole lot of screaming and yelling going on,[/li][li]at least half the participants seem to be enjoying themselves,[/li][li]but in the end, very little will be accomplished.[/li][/ol]



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[SemperFiDownUnda]

Now there is precedent which states that this information does not fall under one state's trade secret laws

Is this the case? That to me is like saying that there is a precedent for stranglers to walk free because some case was messed up pretrial and never got to court.

I mean this was dropped by the DA. Precedents are set by a judges ruleing which there was none in this case because it never got to court. Correct me if I'm wrong but that is my understanding.

The Judge in this case just sign and overturned the search warrents...he/she didn't make any ruling on the case right?

I've got to agree with you about the SCO case. Personally I think as bad as it is some good will come of it...but will all the money poured into it be worth it.

Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

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[sleipnir214]

By overturning his own decision [It is "he". The article I posted refers to him as "District Court Judge Bert Richardson"], Judge Richardson has made a court decision. His ruling will be part of the public record and can be used to support legal interpretation in other cases.




No, I don't think the money being poured into the case will be worth it. SCO is nearly certainly going to lose in a large way, so the only people I see making money off the deal is SCO's lawyers.

I don't know how closely you've been following the SCO case, but there is a good article it at the Wikipedia



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[SemperFiDownUnda]

But he didn't make a ruling...about a court case. He made a ruling on search warrents. To me there is a big difference here....but then I'm not a lawer.

I haven't followed the SCO case for a few months now.

Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

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[sleipnir214]

True. But we're talking criminal charges and probable cause. A defense attorney can use Judge Richardson's decision on the original search warrant to get other search warrants invalidated. You invalidate the search warrant, and the evidence gathered by that warrant can be thrown out.

No evidence, no case. Makes it a little bit harder to get a trade-secret violatio conviction.



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[SemperFiDownUnda]

Ah yea got you.

Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first