"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Recently court filings demonstrate the truth of this quote from "The Mourning Bride" (1697) by William Congreve.
Jon Ralston and the Las Vegas Sun have kindly posted the motion filed by Nevada First Lady Dawn Gibbons to unseal the divorce proceedings after Governor Jim Gibbons obtained an order sealing the matter pursuant to NRS 125.080 and 125.110.
I have long been an advocate of telling the client’s story. I even occasionally teach people how to do it. However, I am not an advocate of trying cases in the court of public opinion. Given the hyperbolic nature through which Dawn Gibbons’s tale is being told, it seems apparent that it is that court, rather than in the 2d Judicial District court, in which the First lady wants to try the case.
Normally I wouldn’t delve into this sordid combination of public/private litigation. Dissecting the marriages of politicians, even those of Republicans who claim to adhere to family values, is generally too much like shooting fish in a barrel.
Oh, and in bad taste, too. Anyway, divorces are a particularly nasty sort of litigation, and no one escapes untarred from such matters. William Congreave had it right about extremes of rage and fury.
However,the First Lady's motion warrants comment from a legal writing perspective. In fact, I believe I will henceforth use it as a shining example of “over the top” legal writing. A "poster child," as it were. (See. p. 31 of the brief)
The narrative just goes too far. Telling the story is one thing. Telling a story suitable for a tabloid is another. I just don't think that making the reader feel the need for a shower is an effective persuasive technique. (However, as tabloid writing goes, it was very well written with several nice, evocative phrases. I parrticuarly admire the latter portion of page 6).
There are other issues I take with this brief. The creative capitalization evokes amusement, rather than the desired emphasis. Lengthy passages seem to both quote and discuss opinions, but what is discussion and what is quotation isn’t really clear. The seemingly endless dissection of Burkle could surely have been cut down to, say, 2-3 sentences.
And shouldn’t Johanson v. Dist. Ct., 124 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 23 (May 1, 2008) at least have been acknowledged? It is, after all, an opinion less than a month old that specifically addressed NRS 125.110.
The sad result here, I think, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The First Lady is painted as having been vilified, but the extreme language and accusations will most likely result in this motion becoming a source of vilification. And ridicule.
Sealing cases can make sense in certain contexts. However, I actually believe, as the First Lady advocates in this brief, that the person who wants a matter sealed should be required to demonstrate a legitimate reason to take a court matter out of the public eye. Unfortunately , the hyperbole in this brief might well present precisely such a reason here.