L.A. Times Quotes Yagman in Rafeedie Obiturary — While Omitting a Few Salient Details
An L.A. Times obituary of federal judge Edward Rafeedie is mostly complimentary — but just had to lob this little grenade:
Rafeedie had detractors. In the case of Jarek Molski, who filed 400 lawsuits alleging violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Rafeedie ruled that Molski could not file any more suits in Los Angeles federal court without approval from a judge. The jurist called Molski a “hit-and-run plaintiff” and accused the disabled man’s attorney of assisting in the “abusive litigation practices.”
Stephen Yagman, who represented Molski’s attorney, called Rafeedie mean-spirited and cruel. “This judge is trying to bar the door to the federal courthouse,” Yagman said in 2005.
Of course, the paper didn’t mention that Rafeedie’s decision was upheld by the plaintiff-friendly Ninth Circuit, which thought Molski was faking his injuries. Or that Yagman is a felon who is entering federal prison today. Or that judges found that Yagman had a practice of saying rude things about conservative judges, to get them to recuse themselves and allow him to steer his cases to more sympathetic liberal judges.
As long as they’re hiding all that, why not quote Yagman’s more inflammatory statements about Rafeedie? There are plenty to choose from — like his claim that Rafeedie was a “fucking fat ugly asshole” and “fascist judge” with a “weird-shaped head” that “looked like a Martian.” (Yes, those are real quotes from Yagman about Rafeedie.)
Hey, if you’re going to piss on his grave anyway, why not fully empty your bladder? And why not show Yagman to be the unbalanced criminal he really is?
“…why not show Yagman to be the unbalanced criminal he really is?”
Thanks to you, Patterico, I know Yagman to be an unbalanced criminal. To the LA Times he is an “attorney” or something. The truth is apparently too toxic for the LA Times.
tyree (a784fa) — 3/31/2008 @ 4:26 amBravo Patterico!
Alta Bob (aada0c) — 3/31/2008 @ 6:39 amMore reasons to cancil subcritions to the L.A. SLIMES
krazy kagu (be5799) — 3/31/2008 @ 7:58 am…why not show Yagman to be the unbalanced criminal he really is?
Because that would be journalism and journalism is not the purpose of the LAT.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 3/31/2008 @ 8:14 amYagman was under the delusion that the judge I clerked for loved him, when in fact my judge thought he was a press whore and a twit. So he would send holiday cards to my judge, and my judge would send cards back to him care of what was then the federal courthouse’s press room. As far as I can tell Yagman never grasped the insult.
But even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. Rafeedie was one of the top three least pleasant federal judges I had to appear before.
Ex-Fed (c97a0c) — 3/31/2008 @ 4:54 pmAfter Yagman asked my Jewish wife what she was doing with an LA cop like me, she replied that she preferred a REAL man. It was the only time I ever saw him speechless.
I plan to send him a few cards and fotos while he hangs out with his peers.
Clark Baker (3f59b1) — 3/31/2008 @ 7:03 pmI think you just gave the LA Times the wordsmith equivalent of a swift kick to the groin. Well done.
Ron Crawford (56a0a8) — 3/31/2008 @ 8:35 pmP,
The “entering federal prison today” link above goes to the edit page, not the yagman-to-surrender-to-prison-officials-on-march-31 post I think you intended. Did he actually go? I can’t find anything about it online.
Stashiu3 (c8e98a) — 3/31/2008 @ 9:53 pmStashiu,
I fixed the link.
Patterico (f25e7a) — 3/31/2008 @ 10:33 pmL.A. SLIMES,NEW YORK SLIMES,WASHINGTON COMPOST,BOSTON SLOB,ATLANTA URINAL CONSTIPATION,SLIME,NEWSREEK,USA DECAY,U.S. NOOSE AND WORLD DESTORT,DECAY SHOW,NBC DATELIES,NIGHTLIES,GOOD MORONS AMERICA,cBS NEWS and the uncountible other lie a day journalists
krazy kagu (6a69d6) — 4/2/2008 @ 6:30 am