Judge grants temporary restraining order against Proviso Probe

Emanuel "Chris" Welch has sued me for defamation (again). He is represented by Myron Mackoff, of Richardson & Mackoff.

Today Cook County Judge Martin Agran granted a temporary restraining order that required me to remove one paragraph of the original entry. While I'm not happy about this, I don't feel it substantially changes the meaning of what I wrote.

I disagree that Judge Agran's interpretation of the law is a good interpretation of the law, but I'm not sure that it's incorrect.

Under Illinois law, as Judge Agran explained it, accusing someone, including a public figure, of a crime is sufficient to constitute defamation, even if it's couched in what a former boss called "weasel words". For example, "I believe X committed a crime," "I speculate X committed a crime" and "The State's Attorney should prosecute X for a crime" would all be potentially defamatory.

And, according to Judge Agran, it would be proper to issue a temporary restraining order to remove these statements irrespective if they were true.

I was representing myself. I'll post the gist of my arguments later. So, maybe if I quoted some case law and had an attorney I would have prevailed.

Based on Judge Agran's ruling, if a blogger wrote, "Based on the testimony at the Rezko trial Governor Rod Blagojevich should be prosecuted for corruption," Blagojevich could get a temporary restraining order to get the sentence removed.

Of course, the downside for Blagojevich would be that he'd be opening himself to depositions. Welch has the same problem. I don't think he will want to be deposed on the issues in question.

I disagree with the interpretation Judge Agran is using, but I'm not sure he's misinterpreting the case law incorrectly. I think public figures should be open to being accused of criminal activity, especially politicians.

Whether someone gets prosecuted or not is an intrinsically political decision. Prosecutors (the Illinois Attorney General and county state's attorneys) are elected.

This is a system that tilts criminal justice in favor of political bosses. Why would a county state's attorney prosecute people who can cause him/her problems in the next election?

Local officials, like Welch, Eugene Moore, Ron Serpico and Karen Yarbrough, can do stuff that looks like it violates Illinois law. And regular citizens need to be able to afford a lawyer to call-out the public officials who are already getting a massive benefit-of-the-doubt from the state's attorney.