The Other McCain

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Did Roger Shuler Violate Alabama Law by Impersonating an Attorney as ‘RogerS’?

Posted on | November 2, 2013 | 62 Comments

Portrait of a Kook: Roger Shuler

On Oct. 24, Patterico called attention to a commenter using the name “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com, a site rather notorious for attacking enemies of Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser. Conspiracy theorists won’t believe it was just a coincidence that, the day before Patterico published that post, authorities in Shelby County, Alabama, arrested blogger Roger Shuler on contempt of court charges.

Speaking of coincidences, however, when Brett Kimberlin fanboy Bill Schmalfeldt reported the arrest of Schuler, he described Shuler as an attorney — and Shuler is definitely not an attorney, so we have to wonder where Schmalfeldt got that mistaken impression.

Oh, Patterico, can you please tell us what “RogerS” was doing?

One of the cast of little transparent sock puppets at Breitbart Unmasked is a fellow who goes by the handle “Roger S.” This “Roger S” was recently on the site talking up the high quality of Kimberlin’s recent RICO lawsuit. My God, Roger S says, the defendants ought to be scared. And Roger S should know! He himself is a lawyer who has handled RICO lawsuits himself! With devastating results!

Hmmmm. So it seems that “RogerS” was presenting himself at a pro-Kimberlin site as an experienced attorney, and pro-Kimberlin blogger Bill Schmalfeldt erroneously “reported” that Alabama blogger Roger Shuler is an attorney. Just a coincidence?

Aaron Walker examines the evidence suggesting that this is not a coincidence, that Schmalfeldt and “RogerS” were in frequent communication, and that Schmalfeldt knew that “RogerS” was Roger Shuler of Alabama and, apparently, believed the bogus claims by “RogerS”/Shuler that he was indeed an experienced attorney.

Readers may examine that evidence and decide for themselves what to believe. Roger Shuler’s got himself a whole heap of trouble down in Alabama nowadays. Having frequently (and unsuccessfully) gone to court as a pro se litigant, Shuler is now on the defense against some very experienced attorneys, including the formidable Bill Baxley.

One might pity Shuler, were it not for the type of atrocious defamation that has been Shuler’s ouevre as a blogger. And if Roger Shuler was indeed “RogerS,” what about this comment?

RogerS on September 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm said:
Well, I think Kimberlin has it correct in his suit, saying that Mr. McCain is not a “legitimate journalist.” Legitimate means that the journalist follows legitimate rules of ethics established by legitimate governing bodies. As you have made abundantly clear, Mr. McCain refuses to follow these legitimate rules of ethics. Instead, he engages in what is obviously malpractice journalism, just as a lawyer who violates the rules of ethics on a wholesale level engages in malpractice lawyering.
I would go even further, and say that Mr. McCain could never be hired by a legitimate media or news company because of his serial violations of the rules of ethics. I believe that he knows this and that is why be engages is his smear blogging tied to tip jar donations.
Mr. McCain is a blogger, a smear blogger, but he is not a journalist as that term is used in the profession. As an attorney, I have no doubt that a federal judge will agree with Kimberlin’s portrayal of Mr. McCain.

Ahem. What horribly false things to say about me, “RogerS.”

Sitting your ass in the Shelby County Jail now, aren’t you, “RogerS”?

Maybe I should just let bygones be bygones, and work myself up some sympathy for Roger Shuler’s constitutional rights.

Trying.

Trying real hard.

Gosh, this is embarrassing.

Despite my profound commitment to the First Amendment, and my concern about “prior restraint” issues in the Shuler case, for some reason I’m unable to work up any sympathy at all for Roger Shuler.

Tell you what: Have yourself a look at the various comments of “RogerS” at BreitbartUnmasked.com and tell me what you think.







Now, it just so happens — lo and behold! — that on Oct. 31, “RogerS” showed up in the comments at BreitbartUnmasked.com to deny that he is Roger Shuler. “Xenophon” vouched for this and, of course, we can always trust what an anonymous blogger says when vouching for the veracity of an anonymous commenter, right?

See, there are coincidences and then there are coincidences. As anyone can see from the comments I’ve screencapped, “RogerS” had been commenting quite frequently: Oct. 17, Oct. 18, Oct. 19, Oct. 21, Oct. 23 and then . . . silence, beginning the same day Roger Shuler was arrested in Alabama, continuing for a full week until, after Aaron Walker pointed out that it is a crime in Alabama to impersonate a lawyer, suddenly “RogerS” pops up to say he is definitely not Roger Shuler.

What kind of coincidence do you think that was? And don’t you think that authorities in Alabama, who seem to be very zealous in their enforcement of the law, might be able to get a subpoena to determine whether Roger Shuler was indeed the phony lawyer “RogerS”?

Because it seems to me that if there were probable cause to suspect Roger Shuler of actually committing a crime — as opposed to a mere contempt of court problem regarding civil litigation — they could get a search warrant for Roger Shuler’s computer.

However, that’s just common sense talking. I am not a lawyer, and I sure as hell would never impersonate a lawyer on the Internet.

 


Category: Aaron Worthing, Patterico, Roger Shuler

Comments

62 Responses to “Did Roger Shuler Violate Alabama Law by Impersonating an Attorney as ‘RogerS’?”

  1. Kyle Kiernan
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 11:09 am

    “30 years” seems to be the catchall goto term when some lamer wants to claim longstanding experience in some field of endeavor. I cite Shuler in this article and Schmalfeldt in support of this thesis. People with real experience cite specific period of greater specificity in practice, ie: “32 years as a RF/Microwave antennas Engineer”. Losers want a number that looks big and they don’t know enough to claim a specialty within field. We can therefore likely conclude anyone claiming “30 years” of any kind of experience to a pudknocker.

    PS: lookin at you Roger and CB.

  2. La Pucelle
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 1:01 pm

    Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, it’s been established that speech which can be demonstrated to actively endanger others or infringe on their rights is not protected by the First Amendment. (i.e., the familiar “Yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater is not protected speech” statement)

    I imagine that impersonating a lawyer is considered to be reckless endangerment, albeit not as badly as impersonating a doctor or a law enforcement official.

  3. Quartermaster
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 1:34 pm

    Isn’t that where Wile E. Coyote is senior partner?

  4. Quartermaster
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 1:39 pm

    How about “_____ could not be contacted for comment.”

    That would at least be truthful, since he is under disability.

  5. Quartermaster
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 1:42 pm

    Engineers and Surveyors are subject to state licensure and, as such, are bound by certain codes of ethics. I’m and Engineer and Surveyor and am involved in the initial stages of a complaint against another Engineer for shoddy work, so I know about such things as the apply to my type.

  6. Quartermaster
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 1:43 pm

    You mean he of the “false but accurate” line?

  7. kryon77
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 6:22 pm

    That’s wildly overbroad, and does not correspond to the discrete categories of exceptions to the scope of the First Amendment. Jenny McCarthy, for example, is protected by the First Amendment when she tells parents not to give their kids vaccinations, even when parents’ following that advice gets their kids killed. If she took money for that advice, however, the First Amendment would not protect her from claims of fraud or negligence.

    But what if she didn’t take money, but falsely represented herself as a licensed doctor, and then contributed to the death of a child through her anti-vaccine advice?

  8. La Pucelle
    November 3rd, 2013 @ 9:32 pm

    That’s wildly overbroad, and does not correspond to the discrete categories of exceptions to the scope of the First Amendment.

    You wouldn’t happen to have a source for that, would you?

    Jenny McCarthy, for example, is protected by the First Amendment when she tells parents not to give their kids vaccinations, even when parents’ following that advice gets their kids killed. If she took money for that advice, however, the First Amendment would not protect her from claims of fraud or negligence.

    That…isn’t a First Amendment issue. That’s an issue with underage children essentially being the responsibility of their parent(s).

    But what if she didn’t take money, but falsely represented herself as a licensed doctor, and then contributed to the death of a child through her anti-vaccine advice?

    That’s what I’m asking here. I don’t think you can look at it as a Constitutional case. Since there’s really not any “free speech” issue when it comes to blatant lying, I can only guess that it’s up to individual states to make that call.

  9. kryon77
    November 4th, 2013 @ 8:41 am

    The source is many Supreme Court decision interpreting the scope of the First Amendment. There are many discrete exceptions, e.g., defamation gets less protection, as does commercial speech. But the presumption is that a given instance of speech is protected, unless it falls into an exception recognized by the court.

    These exceptions are discrete, in the sense that they have fairly distinct boundaries. “Endangering others” isn’t one of them. Communist speech, historically, was part of a causal chain that killed millions. But that’s OK, in America.

    (As for sources, I trust you can find them yourself. Read recent Supreme Court decisions dealing with the First Amendment, which, before deciding the case at hand, often recapitulate the court’s approach to the First Amendment.)

    BTW, in these posts I’ve been using “protected under the First Amendment” as a shorthand for the pronouncements of the Supreme Court. It’s a separate question as to what the court got right, or wrong, in its interpretation of the Constitution.

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