Conflicted Judges Are Classier With English Accents 74
An anonymous reader writes "Remember The Right Honourable Professor Sir Robin Jacob, Retired Lord Justice, who staged a temporary comeback on the bench of the England and Wales Court of Appeals last fall? He's the one who required Apple to publicly retract its claims that Samsung copied the iPad and imposed sanctions on Cupertino when he concluded Tim Cook's lawyers hadn't fully complied. He has now made worldwide headline news again because he signed up as a Samsung expert witness at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Samsung says he was hired by its law firm, not the company, but the ITC filing says 'Sir Robin Jacob working on behalf of Samsung.' His clerk issued a statement according to which Sir Robin had no idea of Samsung's desire to hire him before January — two months after he gave Apple a blast. Leading legal blogs agree that there is no evidence any law was violated, but they suspect that 'the general issue of what engagements retired judges are permitted to accept will be very much up for discussion' and that this was 'a less than savvy public relations move by Samsung' because it casts doubt on the widely-noticed ruling in its favor. As one of them puts it, in the U.K. you 'never know if the judge might be looking for a new job,' so you better 'make sure [you] have fat rolls of cash spilling out of [your] pockets' in front of a U.K. judge."
Re:so you can't get a job after retirement? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it does. And as a judge, he should avoid "looking bad." Reverse the position: imagine that Judge Lucy Koh (you know, the one who awarded a big-ass judgement against Samsung here in the US) 'retires,' and goes to work in Apple's legal department two months later.
How many bloody murders are screamed by Slashdot, and how many petitions are generated at Whitehouse.gov by outraged neckbeards, demanding that Pres. Obama become a dictator, step in, and have her thrown in Gitmo, because she was clearly prejudiced, and Apple used its money to buy a friendly ruling against poor little innocent, beleaguered Samsung?
Repeat after me: It does not matter what company does it - if it's fucking bad behavior, it's bad behavior and deserves to be criticized. You lot need to stop making excuses for your teams. If Samsung does it and it's bad, it deserves criticism. If Apple does it and it's bad, it deserves criticism.