I was trying to have a relaxing Sunday, then someone sent me this. I don’t look at Twitter anymore, so when you tag me, I’m not seeing it unless someone specifically tells me about it:
https://x.com/ClaytonsJustice/status/2045586027125838054
Some comments:
First, accusing me of lying in an affidavit is defamatory per se. Lying in an affidavit is a crime, as we know, and if anyone ever had easily provable actual malice, that’s JFC.
Second, I didn’t lie. I said I created a single PDF file of all pleadings from the case up until that point (100% true). I said a word search of that PDF showed zero results for “Sunday” (also 100% true).
JFC claims I must have created a document with 899 blank pages, and then one cover sheet that was shown in the affidavit. Since actual malice is still a thing, let me just share ALL the cards.
Here is the actual document I created so you can check it for yourself: ALL ECR Docs.pdf
Every page of that is from ECR, so there’s nothing non-public or new in there. And that is the original PDF file taken directly from my file.
Hopefully the document properties won’t be affected by uploading it, but this is what I see when I view the file properties on my PC. I know a lot about Windows, but I don’t know why the “Modified” property data is actually the date the file was created, while the “Created” property data is something else. In any case, this proves the document was created in July 2024, exactly when I said it was.
Also, in case anyone asks – how did I create this, and why are the pleadings out of order?
The answer is – I use software called NitroPDF. If you have a folder that contains a ton of individual PDF files that you want to combine into a single PDF, all you have to do is highlight them all, then right-click and choose “Combine files using NitroPDF”. This will combine all the individual PDF files into a single large file.
When this happens, the software orders them according to the filenames which may or may not put them into chronological order (it just depends on the file names).
You can change the order if you want, but when I created this file in July 2024, the date order wasn’t important. I didn’t care about having the pleadings in sequential order. I only cared about having a single PDF file that I could word-search. That is what the 900-page document was.
Now, is JFC lying about everything? Yes and no.
In my affidavit filed with the bar judge, I tried to explain everything I did to confirm that Mata’s finding about “Planned Parenthood is close on Sundays” MUST have come from an improper source (meaning her dad or social media posts Mata reviewed on her own). The point is to show that I did not act with “reckless disregard” for the truth….bearing in mind Jim Lee thinks truth is not relevant.
Nothing in the ethical rules said I had to create a word-searchable PDF file of all the pleadings in the case. I just did that for the reasons I explained in my affidavit — the case existed for MONTHS before I got involved, and I wanted to check and see if someone had mentioned Planned Parenthood’s business hours on Sunday before my time.
In my affidavit, I explained I created a 900-page PDF of all pleadings, and then I ran a word search for “Sunday” which returned zero results. I then said, under oath, “That proved the topic of Planned Parenthood being closed on Sunday was never discussed in any pleading filed between August 1, 2023 and June 10, 2024.”
Now JFC claims they found evidence proving I lied. But what exactly did they find? And did I lie?
Well, a sad person with no life spent time digging through the file and found ONE instance of someone using the word “Sunday” — and YES, PRAISE BE TO ALLAH, there it is! On page 747 of the 900 page PDF is an email from Laura (turned sideways) that says: “I am attaching a screenshot of my chart after my visit on Sunday to Planned Parenthood in Orange County ….” This was attached as Exhibit 5 to Woodnick’s Amended Response to Petition to Establish Paternity (filed January 26, 2024 — two months before I entered the case).
Does this prove I lied in my affidavit to the bar? Of course not.
For one thing, it appears Woodnick doesn’t know how to print emails to a native PDF (which makes the email text searchable). Instead, for whatever reason, that email was either scanned or Woodnick attached a screenshot of it for his exhibit (looking at other things he filed, it’s clear he was using screenshots for most of his exhibits).
Either way, the text in scanned/screenshotted documents isn’t word-searchable. So if you run the same query I did, you will see the same results — ZERO instances of Sunday appear in the searchable text of the PDF. I just re-pulled that document from ECR, and sure enough — ZERO results for Sunday.
Obviously I had no idea that Woodnick attached a screenshot rather than a native PDF. Not my fault the guy has the IT skills of a grandparent.
Ultimately, this does nothing to help JFC, nor Jim Lee. The point of my affidavit was to show I went to EXTREME lengths trying to NOT accuse Mata of something without first having a reasonable basis for it. Nothing in Laura’s email to Clayton’s parents says anything about Planned Parenthood being closed on Sundays.
So even if Woodnick had printed that correctly and it was word-searchable, and even if that had showed up in my search back in July 2024, it wouldn’t have done anything to change my conclusion about what happened here. And it certainly doesn’t prove anything I said about Mata was false.
Mata’s false statement claiming Dr. Deans testified “Planned Parenthood was closed on Sunday” isn’t harmlessly explained away by Laura’s use of the word “Sunday” on page 747 of the 900 page PDF. Sorry JFC, that duck don’t quack. Laura’s email doesn’t say PP is closed on Sunday so that couldn’t have given Mata grounds to make the false statement about that point, as she clearly did.
Also, none of this changes the fact that I was not, as a matter of law, “reckless” in any way. Lawyers are allowed to make good faith mistakes without being punished (not that this was a mistake on my part, but still).
Consider this quote from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Yagman:
[A]n objective malice standard strikes a constitutionally permissible balance between an attorney’s right to criticize the judiciary and the public’s interest in preserving confidence in the judicial system: Lawyers may freely voice criticisms supported by a reasonable factual basis even if they turn out to be mistaken.
Standing Committee v. Yagman, 55 F.3d 1430, 1438 (9th Cir. 1995).
Here, it is clear I was mistaken about just one thing — in the 900 page PDF, a single page does contain the word “Sunday”. This was not a pleading, and it says nothing about PP being closed on Sunday, so my affidavit was and still is accurate. Imagine that.
In the future, can someone get Woodnick a gift card to IT training classes at Geek Squad or something?
ALL ECR Docs