I’m waiting for the night to fall
I know that it will save us all
When everything’s dark
Keeps us from the stark reality
-Depeche Mode, “Waiting For the Night”
Waiting was the theme in the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker trial today.
It took about two hours after the normal 9:00 a.m. start time before jurors were let in due to arguments between the lawyers on both sides. Even the media and other observers had to wait, as while the cameras were on, the arguments were all conducted at Judge Pamela Campbell’s bench, which is off-mic (and the live stream is muted for good measure). After that, Gawker presented portions of Hogan’s various depositions in the case, mostly to establish the idea of him being publicity-hungry and fueled the fire about the tape more than just posting the clips and article did.
The jury was then let out to wait again, this time until tomorrow morning, when they’ll hear closing arguments. For the rest of the afternoon, there were some arguments between both sides. Gawker tried and failed to get the full length video admitted into evidence and it’s not clear why they tried now. The edited version they put online will be available to the jury but not presented in open court. Hogan attorney Kenneth Turkel also demanded that Gawker somehow keep track of if anything had been done with regards to “Gawker’s stream” of the trial during Gawker head of sales Mia Libby’s testimony on Tuesday. Libby, when asked if Gawker ran ads on the pages with the streams, wasn’t sure but said she didn’t think so.
It turned out there were, and Turkel went off about Gawker pulling the ads and/or the stream during her testimony. There’s no proof they did either, though LiveStream, the host of the stream they embedded (which was provided by third party website Wild About Trial anyway), was down for an extended period that day. Gawker attorney Michael Berry had no clue what he was talking about, and seemingly, neither did Judge Pamela Campbell, but she still granted the motion to preserve whatever is relevant pending a written technological explanation. It was bizarre to watch.
Reporters also waited all day for a ruling from the appellate court with authority over the case to release a new decision on the case’s sealed records, which came late in the afternoon. They’re gonna wait another day for more, as tomorrow, at 4:00 p.m. ET, the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeals will release the previously sealed filings in the case. Hogan’s emergency motion for clarification was granted…sort of. From today’s new DCA order:
The petitioners’ petition filed under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.100(d) is granted. The orders of October 28, 2015, as amended by the nine-page November 18, 2015, order, as well as the two-page November 18, 2015, order are quashed, and the trial court is directed to unseal the records. By 4 p.m. Friday, March 18, 2016, in compliance with Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.425, Respondent Terry Gene Bollea shall file a redacted version of the appendices, which will then be released to the public docket.
Ruke 2.425 appears to indicate that only things that legitimately should be redacted, like social security numbers, bank account numbers, and so on will be removed. The appendices of various documents are believed to be around 2,000 pages that Hogan has fought desperately to keep under lock and key. This does NOT include the sex videos (and thus recordings of Hogan’s racist comments), so nobody outside of the involved parties know exactly what’s in there. It does include a number of exhibits gathered from the FBI investigation into the sex tapes, but what those show…we don’t know.
It’s going to be a long weekend, as not only will we have the 2,000 pages of documents to sort through, but everyone will be waiting (there’s that word again) on the jury for the verdict.
