Evergreen Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million Judgment

The Denver Channel (ABC) ^

[per loin]

Evergreen Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million Judgment

Quigleys Sue Anti-Defamation League After Fight With Their Jewish Neighbors

POSTED: 6:23 am MST March 2,

2004
UPDATED: 9:51 am MST March 2,

2004
DENVER -- A jury award of more than $10 million to a former Evergreen couple portrayed as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation League will stand, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it.

The decision on Monday means "this is the end of the case," said Bruce DeBoskey, director of the ADL's Mountain States Region.

The victors in the case are William and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley, whose lawyer, Jay Horowitz, described them as "extraordinarily delighted" with the news.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision came without explanation, and DeBoskey said it was a disappointment.

"But through the entire process we have continued to serve the community," he said. "We do remain committed to our fight against hatred and racism and bigotry and extremism and anti-Semitism."

The fight was between the Quigleys and their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candice Aronson.

The Aronsons sought help from the ADL in 1994 after overhearing the Quigleys' comments on a cordless telephone, a signal that was picked up by the Aronson's police scanner.

They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a campaign to drive them from the upscale Evergreen neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house.

Based on recordings of those calls, they sued the Quigleys in federal court, Jefferson County prosecutors charged the Quigleys with hate crimes and Saul Rosenthal, then the ADL's regional director, denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites in a press conference.

But later authorities discovered the recordings became illegal just five days after they began when President Bill Clinton signed a new wiretap restriction into federal law.

The hate charges were dropped, Jefferson County paid the Quigleys $75,000 and two lawyers on the ADL's volunteer board paid the Quigleys $350,000 to settle a lawsuit.

Neither family paid the other anything, the Aronsons divorced and the Quigleys moved to another state.

Then in 2000 a federal jury concluded a four-week trial before Denver U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham with a decision the Anti-Defamation League had defamed the Quigleys.

The jury awarded them $10.5 million, which is now estimated at $12.5 million including interest.

DeBoskey said the ADL had set aside funds to pay the judgment if necessary.
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[Boot Hill]

"Defamation was only one of the charges and it arose out of the privacy invasion."

The thread article only sites the charge of defamation as an issue decided by the jury in this case. The case may have risen out of an invasion of privacy, but there is no evidence before us that the privacy issue played any role in the jury's decision on the charge of defamation.

From my perspective there is only one question:   Could remarks regarding "Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house" be reasonably construed as being anti-Semitic?

To me the answer is an unequivocal yes!

--Boot Hill

[Boot Hill]

"I think they were defamed, because everyone has a reasonable right to private conversation."

For me, the charge of defamation falls flat for one simple reason -- the ADL charge of anti-Semitism appears to be true! The remarks attributed to the Quigley's were clearly anti-Semitic. The issue of invasion of privacy is a side issue to deciding whether a defamation occurred or not.

--Boot Hill

[per loin]

Nothing could better illustrate the potential danger to all our constitutional liberties from this Hate Crime madness than this wretched Quigley affair.

Yes, madness is the word. Both the prosecutor and the ADL took action without even hearing the tapes first.

[Boot Hill]

"I'm just wondering why you're fighting this simple, direct, highly relevant question so tenaciously."

Don't be an ass.

[American_Centurion]

Then peer through this lens.

If two married people have a sexual proclivity such as BDSM, they only practice this in their bedroom at their own home. They both enjoy it, and don't want their pastor or fellow church members to find out about it because their congregation would view such activities as perversion.

Somehow, it doesn't matter how because the privacy issue isn't being addressed here, a neighbor finds out about the sexual activities of these two people and talks to the pastor about it. The pastor in turn gives a sermon directed at this and then at the end calls these two people out and asks them to repent in front of the congregation.

In this scenario the pastor has indeed defamed the couple.

The Quiglys were defamed in the same manner because the public revelation has an impact on their public stature.

It's really simple, if you don't agree please explain why.

[Boot Hill]

"OK. Let's see if you have yet learned the integrity to admit it when you are wrong: here and here"

Are you getting forgetful, per loin? I already addressed your point in post #37! Admittedly, it was a minor point that you brought up, but, yes I did address it.

But what I'm not forgetting is the deceitful way you withheld links to the quotes you were putting up.

"per loin", my, what a good screen name for you!

--Boot Hill

[Boot Hill]

I was saying that, based on what we know of Quigley comments, that they were indeed anti-Semitic and the ADL was justified in calling him anti-Semitic.

--Boot Hill

[mdmathis6]

You know if they got around to reading every man's thoughts and banning incorrect thinking, all of us would be in jail. Shades of "Minority Report", that's just what you would have. I'm sure many Freepers would have been Arkansied during the Clinton candidacy for their private views.The Secret service would be arresting most conservatives, even if their only thoughts of revenge was in feeding their cat, Socks to a pit bull,

That is really what this case is about. You don't want to encourage wire-tapping and decrypting your neighbor's conversations and data. You have to ensure privacy of discourse and the reasonable space needed for blowing off steam to one another. (There is a reason why men don't have mental telepathy, and it more a mercy from God as well as a benefit.) That Democratic Operative couple that recorded Gingrich down in Florida got themselves in trouble, I believe that's one of the reasons both Dems and Pubs passed that law and Clinton signed it(ala Linda Tripp). The Dems would not be above recording their foes but they also knew the same could be done to them.(with Clinton, it is instructive to study what is going on with the Dems when they agree wit the Pubs with anything).

It sounds like the neighbors didn't like each other, and if we could have tapped into the Aronson's calls and private thoughts, I'll bet we would have found out some interesting things too regarding their thoughts regarding their neighbors. Plus you just don't always inadvertantly just tap into a wireless phone, "accidentally" using a scanner. The Aronsons were hunting for it, though of course no one could actually "prove it", I got the strongest sense that that was the one of the main issues when the case was ultimately decided. If they had stopped recording when the law went into effect, that is one thing, but they continued after the law went into effect. I think the courts were right on this one.

Was there any evidence that the Quigley's actually did or planned to do any of the stuff they talked about? If they found plans or materiel related to their talks, well that would be a whole other kettle of fish.

Most of us from time to time while working out how best to react to neighbors and mean bosses and the like, have said things in private that could get us in trouble with those same people. Let's all be honest about that! These are surface emotions...the truth really rises out of our deeper hearts...what is our actual behavior, what is our follow-thru regarding our thoughts? Do we act on Christian principles and "Love our neighbors", an active love that respects and upholds them, even if the emotions don't always follow thru....this is not hypocrisy, this is the carrying of our crosses, of actively not giving in to the evil revenge thoughts that might arise from our hearts!

Thus is the privacy needed to work out our frustrations with those we love. If that privacy is lost, either by tapping phones or Tapping thoughts(like that brain wave machine that can tell when some-one is lying, talk about the enormous potential for abuse if that thing really works like they say it does, or doesn't work because some-body's brain chemistry works differently), there would be a war like you wouldn't believe. I believe if God truly were to punish us, he could make us all mental telepaths, man we'd all be nuclear crisped with in a fortnight, we just couldn't stand each other and our-selves!

[Boot Hill]

"If two married people have a sexual proclivity such as BDSM, they only practice this in their bedroom at their own home......"

LOL, you've got to be nuttier than a fruit cake if you think I'm traveling down that road with you!!!

--Boot Hill

[wita]

You mean when the world is turned upside down, and good is bad and bad is horrible but no one will be willing to admit it. I think we are there already. The sobering thought is, it will get worse.

[Boot Hill]

"[Privacy,] That is really what this case is about." Maybe to you, but to me, I was more interested in whether Quigley's charge of defamation against the ADL was factual or not. From my reading of the evidence presented here, Quigley was not defamed and was rightly called an anti-Semite.

--Boot Hill

[Publius6961]

That's the impression that this particular article leaves. I'll hunt up a fuller one, which leaves a very different impression.

Exactly. I won't ever buy the concept of "hate speech or hate thought". Ever.
People must be punished for what they do which is also proveable in court. "He said she said" is a flimsy basis for court action.

[nathanbedford]

Both the prosecutor and the ADL took action without even hearing the tapes first


In the collapse of the system which administers justice in America, the clever have long ago caught on to the fact that the Constitution and STARE DECESIS count for nothing against public relations. If you can make your cause the flavor of the week (ie gay rights), you will prevail in the courts even against those who have the Constitution on their side. It appears that the ADL and the prosecutor just went a bridge too far.

[American_Centurion]

Thank you.

It is customary to give a concession speech when it is obvious you have lost, but I'll forgive you for it.

[mdmathis6]

No, the crack house arson analogy hits it right between the eyes. If a fire martial heard any conversation regarding an arson, even in jest, he would at minimum want to talk to the offending ones about the seriousness of what they were talking about, he couldn't afford not to. Conspiracy to commit arson is also illegal!

[Publius6961]

Thank you for a concise and thorough summary of reality.
Actions which have a real palpable and demonstrable negative effect on others should be punishable. Playing the victim and invoking their "semitism" as a weapon in a neighborhood war is demonstrably a risky tactic.

[Publius6961]

Then let's say that the crack dealer's union got into it, called a press conference, told our neighbors that we were anti-crack arsonists, and we lost our jobs over it.

Good comparison, but you neglected the most inflammatory element. The crack dealer could play the racism card, obscuring all other arguments.

[mdmathis6]

If they had acted on those thoughts....yes call them anti-semitic.

Now tell me something sir if you dare...have you ever had conversations or thoughts that could get you into trouble or publically villified if they were..."let out publically"?
The arson analogy arises here to, am I an arsonist if it got out that I "talked" about torching some-ones house I didn't like...(especially a certain one in Chappequa,NY)?

Am I a MURDERER if in my private conversation I wished a detractor dead and had my conversations recorded and put out on public display?

For that matter, if we could record Jews privately and get away with it, I'm sure we'd hear a fair amount of anti-gentile sentiment...I would be one of those "other kinds of men", that Tevvye in "Fiddler on The Roof" warned his daughter about!

[cid89]

Actually there is nothing in the article that positively identifies them as anit-semitic. Maybe in this feud with their neighbors (there appears to be an ongoing feud) they couldn't stand the neighbors so they began to fantasize about what they could do to get the neighbors to move. Meanwhile they had other jewish friends or acquaintances that they had no problem with. When you are truly mad at someone you go after what will hurt them for example you might call someone a fat pig but that doesn't mean you hate all fat people. Anti-semitic says they hate all jews but nowhere is that proved. Definitly they couldn't stand maybe hated their neighbors but that doesn't make them anti-semitic. I could easily imagine that if there was a different race or nationalitly living next to them they would have said something else. So your whole argument now lies destroyed. A few comments about a specific person doesn not define a whole person's being. For example when I was in college, I knew some people that took to calling a jew, "lampshade". It was not right and looking back I wish I had spoken up about it but these same people had other friends who were jewish. This particular guy was just a jerk. Did that make them anti-semitic? No just rude.

[petitfour]

Sounds like the Aronsons were as much of a problem as the venting neighbors. What kinds of neighbors were they that the Quigleys would dislike them so? They were obviously nosey neighbors. What kinds of people have police scanners and listen to their neighbors' phone conversations?

I had no problem with Linda Tripp recording a phone conversation in which she was taking part. But this is another thing entirely. And I am totally separating the content of the conversations because we are only privy to a small part. If a jury decided that the comments were made in jest, then they probably were. How many conversations did the Aronsons record?