The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • This Week’s Non-post Post

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    Ruth Carter

    The purpose of this week’s blog is to tell you that there’s going to be a real blog next week.

    I’m sorry kids, but I’ve had no inspiration this week, and what few ideas I have are being brutally bashed by my overtaxed mind.  My friend gave me a slew of great law-related ideas to write about.  I tucked them away for future use.  Today it feels like everything I do is law related – working at my internship, applying for judicial clerkships, and contemplating my future in the legal profession.  I know that not everything I do is law related, but it feels that way today.  I need a mental break from writing about the law.

    Captain Kirk said, “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”  He is absolutely right.  I am, therefore, giving myself the week off from blogging.   I’ll be back next week.  Instead I’m going to go sit in my backyard, with my feet dangling in my pool, and relax while watching the stars.

    So I don’t feel like I’m not completely neglecting my readers, I’m sharing the lyrics of my law school theme song:  The Beauty of Your Dreams.  The music was written by Joan Szymko and the lyrics were adapted from the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt.  My choir performed this song years ago.  It helps calm me down when the world gets stressful.

    I will make a prayer to ask what I can do,

    I will make a prayer to ask for courage to follow the light

    as it is given to me.

    You gain courage and strength and confidence

    every time you look fear in the face.

    You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

    Life must be lived!

    Cast out fear and face the unknown.

    Face the unknown with courage

    and integrity and a high heart.

    Believe in your dreams,

    believe in the beauty of your dreams.

    The future belongs to those who do believe

    in the beauty of their dreams.

    See you next week.

    – Ruthie

  • Summer School 2010: Improv Acting Class

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    Ruth Carter

    I spent a significant amount of time this past semester applying for summer positions.  With the economy still on the rebound, they were hard to come by.  I made a promise to myself that no matter what I did during the summer before my last year of law school, I got to take improv acting classes.  I had a few experiences in the last year that inspired me to take a formal class:

    1. Captain Eric Mayer, U.S. Army JAG:  I had the pleasure of spending last summer with the Army JAG in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  Captain Mayer was the defense attorney in the office, and he was phenomenal in the courtroom.  Whenever there was a court martial, I sat in the audience and watched him in complete awe.  He never seemed uncomfortable or at a loss for words.  I don’t think he ever wrote a script for anything he did, not even his opening statement.  When he questioned a witness, he didn’t have a list of questions.  He put a list of the information he needed to get out of the witness to build his case and would check off each one once he got the answer he needed.  I was intimidated by his skills just from sitting in the audience.
    2. Professor Dallyn’s Applied Evidence Class:  This course taught us how to apply the rules of evidence to a courtroom situation.  Every day we did role plays where we took turns playing the parts of the questioning attorney, the opposing counsel, and the witness who on the stand.   The final for the class was a fake trial.  I tried to use Captain Mayer’s approach to questioning a witness, but found myself needing a script of questions and feeling flustered while the opposing counsel and I were making objections.
    3. Improv AZ’s Coroner Prank #2:  I’m a founding member of Improv AZ, a local performance troupe in the Phoenix area.  After our success with the Coroner Prank on the light rail in October 2009, we decided to repeat it at a local mall.  Things did not go according to plan, and we were confronted by the mall cops who called the real cops.  My fellow coroners were former professional improv actors.  When things turned sour, they slipped back into improv mode.  I turned seven shades of white and tried not to pass out while reserving my right to remain silent.  Thankfully the cops let us go after questioning us and the mall cops banned us from the mall for three months.  Check out my legal analysis of the event and the video.

    My class started a little over two weeks ago with Jester’Z Improv and it has been amazing.  It’s a 12-week course that ends with a showcase for our friends and family.  I hope that taking this class will help improve my ability to think on my feet.

    Having been a gymnast and a singer for most of my life, you might think that taking improv acting would be easy. However, in both of these activities, the performance is completely scripted.  With improv, you don’t know what’s going to happen until you’re up on the stage.  It’s a bit unsettling when you don’t know what your partner is going to say or what scenario you might be playing out.

    I went to the Jester’Z Improv show featuring the regular cast and nearly peed my pants from laughing.  Part of me simply enjoyed the show and part of me was a student trying to absorb ideas from the actors and thinking, “Oh geez, these are the games I might be in during my showcase!  How am I going to pull this off?”  It’s going to be awesome.

    Photo courtesy of Jester’Z Improv Comedy Troupe.

  • The Legal Side of Blogging – Part 1 of 4: Can My Blog Get Me Sued?

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    Ruth Carter

    Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I am a law student. In accordance with ABA policy, this blog should not be viewed as legal advice. It is simply my experiences, opinions, and stuff I looked up on the internet.

    First Amendment
    Image by NomadicEntrepreneur via Flickr

    Thanks to the First Amendment, we have the right of free speech in the United States. There are limits on free speech  regarding the time, place, and manner of the speech which is why we can’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. The First Amendment also doesn’t protect obscenity or libel.

    Speech on the internet is generally protected, including anonymous speech. I don’t understand why people want to speak anonymously in this public forum, but the law protects it.

    Americans are very quick to sue people they don’t like, so the real question is, can I be sued and lose because of my blog? A quick search on the database and Google has revealed that bloggers have been successfully sued for their blogs.

    Defamation and Libel
    Based on case law I read, a blogger can be sued for defamation and libel if they use their blog to make false statements about a public figure. The courts seem to apply a broad definition to “public figure.” If the public figure the blogger talks about in their blog can show that the blogger made a false statement about them and that the statement was made with “actual malice,” then they have a valid claim for defamation and libel.

    Conversely, a blogger’s personal opinion is protected by the First Amendment. It’s only when they are making statements of fact or a combination of fact and opinion that they have to be concerned that they could be sued if they are publishing false statements.

    Copyright Infringement
    A person gets a copyright if they create an original work of authorship that is fixed in a tangible medium. They don’t have to register their work in any database; they just have to create it. Therefore, bloggers should own the copyright for all their posts, unless they previously gave up their copyright rights to someone else. If a blogger posts someone else’s material and claims it as their own, that’s copyright infringement. Writing about the same ideas is ok; stealing someone’s verbiage is not.

    I don’t know why anyone would do this – isn’t the purpose of having a blog to express your own views and ideas? I suspect few bloggers are policing the internet looking for people infringing on their work and most aren’t equipped with the resources to file a claim against another blogger for stealing their work. I’m fine with people stealing my verbiage for their blog as long as they include a link back to this site. My guess is most bloggers are equally fine with others quoting them as long as they get the attribution.

    You Can Be Sued for Your Comments – Not Sure If You Can Lose
    Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic-Power.com when negative comments about the company appeared on Wall’s website, SEOBook.com. Wall opted to remove the comments about Traffic Power instead of spending his time, energy, and money to fight the lawsuit.

    I don’t know what the comments about Traffic Power said, but it makes me wonder if other companies will threaten lawsuits against bloggers to remove negative comments about themselves online. Most bloggers probably won’t want to go through the time and hassle of fighting the suit, even when the comments might be protected by the First Amendment. Even if there wasn’t a valid case in this situation, it should serve as a reminder that bloggers are responsible for the comments they allow to be posted on their sites.

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