4 ms·

> I have testified in a court... Out of curiosity, were you given the option of giving a deposition instead of taking the witness stand? ---- Random boredom-

> I have testified in a court... Out of curiosity, were you given the option of giving a deposition instead of taking the witness stand? ---- Random boredom-browsing took me to this article: https://www.gu.se/en/gnc/defendants-with-autism-spectrum-disorder-in-the-courtroom-considerations-and-implications https://www.gu.se/en/gnc/defendants-with-autism-spectrum-dis... > A defendant with ASD may shift the topic of the court discussions to a topic which is of interest to them and it can be difficult for anyone to interrupt them. The interest may be one of the individual’s preoccupations. Jurors may perceive this behaviour as an indication that the defendant is deliberately being evasive and trying to avoid answering the question that has been asked of them. As mentioned earlier, they may also go into excessive and unnecessary detail (and often at great length) when asked a question. Their responses may, in addition to being detailed and lengthy, it can also be repetitive ---- Like some (most?) of us here, I've got ASD too; I've been in court too, though only as a small-claims plaintiff (got a default judgement against no-show defendent with a negative net-worth, fun...); and yeah, I remember putting a lot of details into what I said in court and the judge seeming annoyed with me - but I thought it was all relevant (still, the judge said I would have won anyway even if it wasn't a default judgement...). But yeah - if I was was ever a criminal defendent, the prosecution would probably let me talk myself into a trap - or something. Stuff like that makes me think I should intentionally play-up the autism instead of trying to act normal, to clearly demonstrate to the jury that I'm far more of a social-idiot than a cold sociopath.

fsckboy 3y ago
I'm not an expert and I left details out to simplify, but depositions had already been submitted. Sometimes judges will hive off a piece of a case to "a special master" or something like that, to answer a subsidiary question. This was such a thing, the person presiding was a retired judge, and he has "powers" (like kicking me out if I continued to not say "yes or no", which kills my case because I'm the one making the complaint) and his purview was answering the question of whether the petitions had been properly served. All parties to the suit were there, but it was not in a court, and there was no "stand", we all sat around a table. I suppose it was something like a deposition, but the master was there and my attorney was not free to argue directly with their attorney. This piece of the story is also a big bowl of horribly unfair spaghetti. Wanna hear it? There is no such thing as "service" or "serving" where a shareholder petition is concerned, there's no standard for it, it's not a thing. You could do it by mail, etc. because the officers are your fiduciaries and they are to look out for your interests. As it stood, by total coincidence, when I went to the front desk where paperwork like an actual service would be handled, the "mailing address" so to speak, who is standing right there but the president of the board! So I smiled and said "I've got petitions for you", which she was well aware my group had been collecting, they just thought we'd never make it over the hump. She went cold and like wouldn't take the envelope, was holding her hands away, and told me to leave it at the desk, the desk she was standing by. So I did. Then she started inventing reasons why these petitions had not been served properly (they were served the way she told me to). In her deposition, this event turned into me "lying in wait, angrily physically assaulting her with the envelope". I was not angry: nobody thought we could get enough signatures but we did, I was positively giddy. I wasn't even showing my inner Nelson, "HAA-HAA", that's what I was covering up with my smile. In any case: to repeat, there is no standard for service, it's not a thing. But the way we delivered them was the way service would be made. She is also my fiduciary who was obligated to look after my shareholder rights. It cost me about $250,000 in attorney fees to just cover this piece of the case. How can an overfull court system claim that this is something that must be looked into? They had to invent reasons to look into it. All entirely separate from further time and money wasting whether what we were petitioning was something we could petition (it was, to call a shareholder meeting) and what is allowed to come to the floor at a shareholder meeting (you know who decides that, who courts won't override? shareholders, and they'd be at the meeting) and we were explicitly petitioning to remove board members at the meeting, another of our enumerated rights in the by-laws. We did not have the right to call an election, but all board members being removed triggers an election under a separate clause so... if you're going to make up a standard, it's so easy to see this should be thrown to the shareholders. The board was simply throwing up one implausible excuse after another to avoid calling the meeting. So many legal questions which weren't even legal questions, for this type of corporation there are no standards for any of it, but the court was entertaining far flung notions borrowing ideas from other facets of industry as sort of frontier justice or something. It should have been a slam dunk, I don't know why the court didn't just order a meeting immediately because meetings are easy to hold, it's not a big deal, and no matter what, the shareholders were both the affected parties and the arbiters, so why not just let them have a meeting? oh, the attorney lady was an employment law attorney, and I know of another incident where she claimed somebody had assaulted her with documents. I have a feeling that's her modus operandi in employment lawsuits "they were angry, they might have done anything". Disgusting. And equally disgusting to spend a million in shareholder money trying not to have a shareholder meeting.
- smcl 3y ago
  Man I'm sorry but this is incoherent.
kennethrc 3y ago
> Like most of us here, I've got ASD too "Most"?
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Hyperbole
- clarionbell 3y ago
  It may not be a safe bet ... but it's not completely unreasonable assumption.
kuhewa 3y ago
> Stuff like that makes me think I should intentionally play-up the autism instead of trying to act normal, to clearly demonstrate to the jury that I'm far more of a social-idiot than a cold sociopath. No you just do what your lawyer says, and perhaps that will form part of the defence. But this was Sam's problem, being so confident he was smarter than the lawyers when in this domain he was half an idiot.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  your lawyer cannot give you advice every step of the way, and does not anticipate where trouble will arise for you. Even though your lawyer is on your side, he has much more in common with the other lawyers in the room than he does with you. My lawyer did not anticipate that when he showed me photocopies and asked me "are these the petitions" that I would answer "no they are not". I don't know the standards of the law, "photocopy just as good", and it's second nature to him. I actually fear perjuring myself; my opponent, an attorney completely did not. I've been in several large lawsuits. My attorneys like working with me, I am incredibly diligent, I research everything I can, I come up with ideas they didn't think of, and most importantly, I seek and follow all of their advice and never mention a peep about the case, etc. my lawyer still got me into hot water by not preparing for these questions becaused they seemed obvious to him, and the system jumped on board.

fsckboy 3y ago

I'm not an expert and I left details out to simplify, but depositions had already been submitted. Sometimes judges will hive off a piece of a case to "a special master" or something like that, to answer a subsidiary question. This was such a thing, the person presiding was a retired judge, and he has "powers" (like kicking me out if I continued to not say "yes or no", which kills my case because I'm the one making the complaint) and his purview was answering the question of whether the petitions had been properly served. All parties to the suit were there, but it was not in a court, and there was no "stand", we all sat around a table. I suppose it was something like a deposition, but the master was there and my attorney was not free to argue directly with their attorney. This piece of the story is also a big bowl of horribly unfair spaghetti. Wanna hear it? There is no such thing as "service" or "serving" where a shareholder petition is concerned, there's no standard for it, it's not a thing. You could do it by mail, etc. because the officers are your fiduciaries and they are to look out for your interests. As it stood, by total coincidence, when I went to the front desk where paperwork like an actual service would be handled, the "mailing address" so to speak, who is standing right there but the president of the board! So I smiled and said "I've got petitions for you", which she was well aware my group had been collecting, they just thought we'd never make it over the hump. She went cold and like wouldn't take the envelope, was holding her hands away, and told me to leave it at the desk, the desk she was standing by. So I did. Then she started inventing reasons why these petitions had not been served properly (they were served the way she told me to). In her deposition, this event turned into me "lying in wait, angrily physically assaulting her with the envelope". I was not angry: nobody thought we could get enough signatures but we did, I was positively giddy. I wasn't even showing my inner Nelson, "HAA-HAA", that's what I was covering up with my smile. In any case: to repeat, there is no standard for service, it's not a thing. But the way we delivered them was the way service would be made. She is also my fiduciary who was obligated to look after my shareholder rights. It cost me about $250,000 in attorney fees to just cover this piece of the case. How can an overfull court system claim that this is something that must be looked into? They had to invent reasons to look into it. All entirely separate from further time and money wasting whether what we were petitioning was something we could petition (it was, to call a shareholder meeting) and what is allowed to come to the floor at a shareholder meeting (you know who decides that, who courts won't override? shareholders, and they'd be at the meeting) and we were explicitly petitioning to remove board members at the meeting, another of our enumerated rights in the by-laws. We did not have the right to call an election, but all board members being removed triggers an election under a separate clause so... if you're going to make up a standard, it's so easy to see this should be thrown to the shareholders. The board was simply throwing up one implausible excuse after another to avoid calling the meeting. So many legal questions which weren't even legal questions, for this type of corporation there are no standards for any of it, but the court was entertaining far flung notions borrowing ideas from other facets of industry as sort of frontier justice or something. It should have been a slam dunk, I don't know why the court didn't just order a meeting immediately because meetings are easy to hold, it's not a big deal, and no matter what, the shareholders were both the affected parties and the arbiters, so why not just let them have a meeting? oh, the attorney lady was an employment law attorney, and I know of another incident where she claimed somebody had assaulted her with documents. I have a feeling that's her modus operandi in employment lawsuits "they were angry, they might have done anything". Disgusting. And equally disgusting to spend a million in shareholder money trying not to have a shareholder meeting.

smcl 3y ago
Man I'm sorry but this is incoherent.

kennethrc 3y ago

> Like most of us here, I've got ASD too "Most"?

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
Hyperbole
clarionbell 3y ago
It may not be a safe bet ... but it's not completely unreasonable assumption.

kuhewa 3y ago

> Stuff like that makes me think I should intentionally play-up the autism instead of trying to act normal, to clearly demonstrate to the jury that I'm far more of a social-idiot than a cold sociopath. No you just do what your lawyer says, and perhaps that will form part of the defence. But this was Sam's problem, being so confident he was smarter than the lawyers when in this domain he was half an idiot.

fsckboy 3y ago
your lawyer cannot give you advice every step of the way, and does not anticipate where trouble will arise for you. Even though your lawyer is on your side, he has much more in common with the other lawyers in the room than he does with you. My lawyer did not anticipate that when he showed me photocopies and asked me "are these the petitions" that I would answer "no they are not". I don't know the standards of the law, "photocopy just as good", and it's second nature to him. I actually fear perjuring myself; my opponent, an attorney completely did not. I've been in several large lawsuits. My attorneys like working with me, I am incredibly diligent, I research everything I can, I come up with ideas they didn't think of, and most importantly, I seek and follow all of their advice and never mention a peep about the case, etc. my lawyer still got me into hot water by not preparing for these questions becaused they seemed obvious to him, and the system jumped on board.