The following opinion piece reflects the views of the author and no one else. It was dusk on Thursday, Nov. 16 as the five Backpage defendants and their attorneys filed out of the steel-and-glass doors of the Sandra Day O’Connor…
This post repurposes recent Twitter/X reports from the #BackpageTrial in Phoenix’s Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse. For regular updates, please follow the writer @stephenlemons. Fear the Red Pumps Joy Bertrand, attorney for ex-Backpage.com employee Joye Vaught, gave a brilliant closing statement…
This post repurposes recent Twitter/X reports from the #BackpageTrial in Phoenix’s Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse. For regular updates, please follow the writer @stephenlemons. Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023: Mehlman-Orozco Kicks Prosecutorial Tuchis The last defense witness in the #BackpageTrial testified…
After a half-day of trial on Friday, Sept. 15 in Phoenix, wherein federal proecutors made numerous references to children and child sex trafficking in the Backpage case, Joy Bertrand, attorney for Joye Vaught, a former Backpage employee, renewed the defense’s…
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich stunned prosecutors on Tuesday morning when she declared a mistrial in the government’s case against lifelong journalists Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, whom the prosecution aims to imprison for the rest of their lives…
Defense attorneys for journalists Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin moved for mistrial in federal court in Phoenix on Monday, following the testimony of government witness Dr. Sharon Cooper, an anti-porn, anti-sex work crusader, whom prosecutors presented to the court as…
Update 9/07/2021: Monday night, the defense filed a Motion for Acquittal and Mistrial, arguing that the prosecution’s disingenuous, inaccurate and needlessly pornographic opening statement on Sep. 3 was so riddled with error that the jury has been “irretrievably tainted” by…
