Lawyer argues Call of Duty maker can't be held responsible for actions of Uvalde, Texas, shooter
Activision lawyer Bethany Kristovich told Superior Court Judge William Highberger that the First Amendment bars their claims. 'The issues of gun violence are incredibly difficult,' Kristovich said. 'The evidence in this case is not.' She argued that the case has little chance of prevailing if it continues because courts have repeatedly held that creators of artistic works, whether they be books, music, movies, TV, or video games, cannot be held legally liable for the acts of their audience.
The lawsuit, one of many involving Uvalde families, was filed last year on the second anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in US history. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers finally confronted and shot him after waiting more than an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom. At the hearing, the families' attorney, Josh Koskoff, showed contracts and correspondence between executives at Activison and gun makers whose products he said are clearly and exactly depicted in the game, despite brand names not appearing. He said the shooter experienced 'the absorption and the loss of self' in Call of Duty.
Koskoff said that immersion was so deep that the shooter searched online for how to obtain an armored suit that he didn't know only exists in the game. Koskoff played a Call of Duty clip with a first-person shooter gunning down opponents. The shots echoed loudly in the courtroom, and several people in the audience slowly shook their heads. Family lawyers are expected to argue the First Amendment issues of the Activision case later Friday. Highberger told the lawyers he wasn't leaning in either direction before the hearing, and it is unlikely he will issue a ruling immediately. Meta was not involved in this hearing or the motion being argued.
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Request to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts likely to disappoint, ex-prosecutors say
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That's just not what this is,' he said, estimating that the transcripts, at most, probably amount to a few hundred pages. 'It's not going to be much,' Krissoff said, estimating the length at as little as 60 pages 'because the Southern District of New York's practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.' 'They basically spoon feed the indictment to the grand jury. That's what we're going to see,' she said. 'I just think it's not going to be that interesting. ... I don't think it's going to be anything new.' Ex-prosecutors say grand jury transcript unlikely to be long Both ex-prosecutors said that grand jury witnesses in Manhattan are usually federal agents summarizing their witness interviews. That practice might conflict with the public perception of some state and federal grand jury proceedings, where witnesses likely to testify at a trial are brought before grand juries during lengthy proceedings prior to indictments or when grand juries are used as an investigatory tool. In Manhattan, federal prosecutors 'are trying to get a particular result so they present the case very narrowly and inform the grand jury what they want them to do,' Krissoff said. Krissoff predicted that judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases will reject the government's request. With Maxwell, a petition is before the US Supreme Court so appeals have not been exhausted. With Epstein, the charges are related to the Maxwell case and the anonymity of scores of victims who have not gone public is at stake, although Blanche requested that victim identities be protected. 'This is not a 50-, 60-, 80-year-old case,' Krissoff noted. 'There's still someone in custody.' Appeals court's 1997 ruling might matter She said citing 'public intrigue, interest and excitement' about a case was likely not enough to convince a judge to release the transcripts despite a 1997 ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals that said judges have wide discretion and that public interest alone can justify releasing grand jury information. Krissoff called it 'mind-blowingly strange' that Washington Justice Department officials are increasingly directly filing requests and arguments in the Southern District of New York, where the prosecutor's office has long been labeled the 'Sovereign District of New York' for its independence from outside influence. 'To have the attorney general and deputy attorney general meddling in an SDNY case is unheard of,' she said. Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor and Fordham Law School criminal law professor, said judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases may take weeks or months to rule. 'Especially here where the case involved witnesses or victims of sexual abuse, many of which are underage, the judge is going to be very cautious about what the judge releases,' she said. Tradition of grand jury secrecy might block release of transcripts Bader said she didn't see the government's quest aimed at satisfying the public's desire to explore conspiracy theories 'trumping — pardon the pun — the well-established notions of protecting the secrecy of the grand jury process.' 'I'm sure that all the line prosecutors who really sort of appreciate the secrecy and special relationship they have with the grand jury are not happy that DOJ is asking the court to release these transcripts,' she added. Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, called Trump's comments and influence in the Epstein matter 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinarily unusual' because he is a sitting president. He said it was not surprising that some former prosecutors are alarmed that the request to unseal the grand jury materials came two days after the firing of Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey, who worked on the Epstein and Maxwell cases. 'If federal prosecutors have to worry about the professional consequences of refusing to go along with the political or personal agenda of powerful people, then we are in a very different place than I've understood the federal Department of Justice to be in over the last 30 years of my career,' he said. Krissoff said the uncertain environment that has current prosecutors feeling unsettled is shared by government employees she speaks with at other agencies as part of her work in private practice. 'The thing I hear most often is this is a strange time. Things aren't working the way we're used to them working,' she said.
