What is it about Andrew Thomas that causes arbiters to wax poetic? How powerful must his creative aura be that it extends beyond his own case, and lends its suggestive ability to those who encounter cases merely related to his own?

Andrew Thomas

The songs of the former county attorney were melodic enough to lure some of his deputies onto the rocky beach alongside him. But the tuneful prosecutor has planted the poesy plant in those now charged with reviewing the evidence of matters arising from his administration.

I wrote before about Harold Merkow, the man condemned to serve who served as the hearing officer in the Lisa Aubuchon merit commission matter. As he took testimony and reviewed evidence regarding Andrew Thomas’s chief deputy, he weathered a very long and contentious hearing. But when it came time to write his report, he definitely got jiggy with it.

The events of the Thomas matter had driven Merkow to levels of rhetoric typically reserved for battlefield proclamations and Bible-thumping church services.

Now, it’s Judge Bill O’Neil’s turn to put the blush on the rose. Ah, poetic justice!

O’Neil, the state’s Presiding Disciplinary Judge, released a series of orders yesterday pertaining to the disciplinary charges filed against Thomas, Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander.

They are all worth reading, but the one in which he deconstructs the respondents’ arguments demanding that electronic media not be permitted to cover their trial—that’s a keeper.

Below is a PDF of the order (as named by the court). Settle in and enjoy some reading.

JudgeO’Neil’sRulingonMedia’sRequestedCameraCoveragefiled5-02-2011

But in case you can’t get to it right away, a few snippets:

“Respondents speculate that the media may frame or prejudge the public through its power of an editorial disguised as reporting. If members of the press choose to wrongly prejudge, however, they will likely one day discover they cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. Biased reporting assures a tree without bloom or fruit and tragically assures a public’s lack of trust in the very institution of a free press. But this judge does not believe that will occur beyond a few.

“… The refusal to report pertinent news and the preclusion of an ability to report pertinent news are thorns of similar thistles.

“Despairing of the few who may be irresponsible cannot be a reason for drawing a shade on these proceedings.

“Few things are more certain to trigger an increase in public distrust than the removal of proceedings from public scrutiny. The best clarification to dark allegations is not more darkness but rather the light of informed reasoning.”

Here comes the light.