Assuming they hadn’t passed this act, what should Ehrenfeld’s next move have been?

To have ignored the judgment and gone about her life, except to stay out of the countries where it is enforceable. Which, of course, she still needs to do since neither the NY statute nor the U.S. Constitution will do her much good while traveling abroad.

The problem isn’t the constitutional claim, it’s getting jurisdiction over the Saudi plaintiff; the Second Circuit suggested as much when it ruled in her favor last June.

Unless and until the plaintiff sued on the judgment in New York, there’d be no way to enforce the judgment there. Once the plaintiff did sue in NY court, jurisdiction over the plaintiff would have become a non-issue, and Ehrenfeld would have been free to assert a First Amendment defense. She almost certainly would have prevailed under that theory, so apart from giving her two substantive defenses rather than one, I’m not sure what this new law is supposed to accomplish.

kaltes on April 2, 2008 at 1:31 PM

Like kaltes said.

And surely jihadi-funder funds some jihadis with a website. A website that’s accessible from New York. Wouldn’t running a jihadist website bring an expectation of being haled into court? Especially in New York.

OK, it’s a novel argument. That’s what lawyers are for.

V for Victory!

Swinehound on April 2, 2008 at 12:29 PM

Or turn the V around for a good Anglo-Saxon “screw you“.

I’m surprise about this free speech victory. More than a few NY politicians would like to muzzle the press to hide their corruption. We are lucky to get this bill passed. I assume that Governor Paterson is forced to sign it?

Maybe, I’m too pessimistic, but I doubt this bill would pass Congress.

thuja on April 2, 2008 at 11:36 AM

the nice thing about that, you can slide it under him and ask him to sign please.. he wouldn’t be the wiser unless someone told him..

My first question, why did Ehrenfeld file an appeal to the New York courts and not the Federal Courts?

Maybe, I’m too pessimistic, but I doubt this bill would pass Congress.

Yes it would. The First Amendment trumps even Saudi oil money, in public.

In private? I wouldn’t give you odds.

I can’t imagine that the Plaintiff could attempt to enforce the judgment here in America without subjecting himself to the jurisdiction of US courts. After all, availing himself of our legal system in order to engage in collection efforts would easily subject anyone to US jurisdiction. You can’t employ the courts as a weapon and then claim you aren’t subject to them.

The only problem was that a court refused to issue an order declaring the Saudi’s judgment in the UK unenforceable because it was not at issue: he wasn’t trying to enforce it here. Therefore it isn’t really fair to him when he really isn’t subject to US jurisdiction. The proper procedure is to ignore the judgment until he attempts to enforce it through a lawsuit filed here, then oppose that lawsuit.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing outrageous or unusual going on here.

The bigger problem, though, lies not in the ability to file such abominable lawsuits, but in the judges who pass this stuff on without a single bit of critical analysis. They are the true rotten core of the justice system.

Maybe, I’m too pessimistic, but I doubt this bill would pass Congress.

Liberal tourism ??