Rudolph Has a Problem With Rules
Friday, September 19, 2003

Eric seems to feel that rules and laws don’t apply to him. Military regulations were not his concern. Instead of facing criminal charges like a man, he hid in the woods for over five years. He can just ignore civil lawsuits.

Mr. Rudolph seems to be a slow learner. He was kicked out of the military. He was arrested and now enjoys three hots and a cot instead of thinking about how good a bear looks after going without a woman for a while. (The bear looking good was one of his statements. I am not making this stuff up.) Sticking his head in the sand about the suit resulted in a judgment of $115,000,000.00.

Instead of this being a learning experience, he has decided that he should be given a second opportunity to fight the civil suit. Well, he had his chance. He knew about the suit and decided not to defend. And yes, it is fair to assume the reason he didn’t answer was because he was guilty. Now, he wants to once again avoid the rules and change his mind after the time has passed for his reply.

The motion to set the judgment aside was full of conflicting arguments. For example:

        He said that he had a defense, but wanted to assert his 5^th Amendment rights. He wants his day in court so he can get up and refuse to say anything.

        He said that he did not have access to a lawyer. Yet the jail visitor’s log was three pages long for the dates between receiving notice of the suit and the judgment.

        His attorney said that we should have served him by publication three years ago. If we had published the suit, then we would have received exactly the same default judgment. (This assumes that Eric would not have shown up just for the civil suit and then gone back into hiding. I feel this to be a safe assumption)

        Regarding the suit, his attorney said that Eric had bigger problems then and still does. Eric made the decision, with the advise of counsel, to ignore the suit. After the time for his reply passed, he suddenly feels that it is important and that the courts should set the rules aside just for him.

        His attorney cited a case where a default judgment was set aside. However, the judgment was set aside because of service by publication, not the lack of it. In other words, his lawyer presented a case that proved our side of this. Duh!

        The idea of service by publication means that we just print notice of the suit in a paper and assume that Eric happened to subscribe to and read the paper in the woods. His lawyer felt that publication was fairer than waiting until his capture and then serving the papers on him in person. We made sure that Eric knew about the suit and had time to respond. His lawyer said we should have just printed a notice in a paper. Which sounds more fair: to serve the papers in person to make sure he knows about the suit or just to print the notice in a newspaper somewhere? His lawyer is arguing for the newspaper route. Perhaps we should we have tacked the suit to a tree in the woods and hoped that he happened to come by and get the daily news from that tree?

        His attorney failed to mention that service by publication on a non-resident of Alabama isn’t legal. That method of service can only be used on Alabama residents.

        In addition to service by publication being restricted to Alabama residents, we had to prove that Eric intentionally avoided service. This means that we would have had to prove that Eric knew about the suit and was intentionally avoiding service. If we didn’t know where he was, how could we have proved that he knew about the suit?

        Because he felt that having a sheriff serve him the papers in jail was improper, his lawyer said that we should go to trial instead of the default judgment. He feels that our form of service was good enough for a trial but not good enough for a default judgment. Service is either ok or it isn’t. He admitted that it was ok for a trial, so why shouldn’t the rest of the proceedings be acceptable?

There was one statement by his attorney that I felt offensive. He kept making statements about innocent until proven guilty, implying that were had been unfair to Rudolph. PLEASE! We have tried very hard to make it clear that Eric is accused of this crime. We have been more than willing to listen to his side of the story, though he has to tell it in accordance with court rules. There is a different level of proof required between a civil trial and a criminal trial. As far as the civil trial goes, we can and do legally say that he did it. Even so, I hope that Eric receives a fair criminal trial. If he wants to say something in his defense, he will have the opportunity to do so. I will listen to his story with an open mind and I expect the jury to as well. If he elects not to speak, I don’t want to hear him whine afterwards about not being allowed to talk.

Eric, if you have something to say, then say it. If you don’t, then do not complain about the legal proceedings not going your way.

$115,000,000.00 Judgment Against Rudolph

Friday, August 15, 2003

Wednesday night, someone called and asked how our day had gone. I said that we were awarded $115,000,000.00 in our lawsuit, one of the local TV stations was in our living room interviewing Emily, and I had just got off the phone with CNN wanting us to appear live on one of their Friday night segments. All in all, it was just another ordinary day at the Lyons household. I don’t know what they will put on my tombstone, but I know it will NOT say that my life was boring. Even if we never see a penny (and we don’t expect too,) it isn’t everybody with an accounts receivable of $115 Million. From Rudolph’s side, he and Donald Trump are the only two people I can think of who have owed that large a sum. My accountant said that it was a good thing that individuals are on a cash basis. If we were on accrual, we would have to pay taxes on it.

If it sounds like I am joking about the judgment, it is only because the entire ordeal still seems so unreal. Perhaps some might even find our humor offensive. All I can say is that Emily fought so very hard to keep January 29^th, 1998 from being the final date on her tombstone that we intend to enjoy the time we have together and will laugh when we can. However, the lawsuit was not a joke, and our reasons for doing this were not taken lightly. We wanted to accomplish two things. First, we wanted to make sure that Mr. Rudolph did not profit from his actions. Secondly, we wanted to send a message to those who think Eric is a hero and may wish to follow in his footsteps. I think the amount of the judgment overwhelmingly accomplished our goals.

We understood going into this that it was unlikely that we would ever collect any money. We are not trying to profit from Emily’s injuries. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with financially taking a lemon and making lemonade. Emily and I have suffered a great financial loss because of her disability, and I would not see anything wrong with trying to recover some of that loss. It is just that financial gain wasn’t our objective. We don’t want to make money from the ordeal, but we wanted to make absolutely sure that he doesn’t.

This lawsuit does not keep him from selling his rights for a book or movie. A civil judgment is not an injunction keeping a person from doing something. This means that if there ever is any money from selling his story, he won’t be able to keep it.

People have asked if we know of a book or movie deal with Eric. We do not. The only current event that triggered us being in court is his arrest. This suit was filed in 2000 because we were concerned about the statute of limitations. We were unable to obtain a verdict because he could not be served until his capture. When he was apprehended, the suit became active again and moved forward.

Secondly, people have heard from us what it is like to survive a bomb. The court’s judgment clearly says that more than just the Lyons family feels that the act was terrorism and should strongly be condemned. People often use the phrase send a message. I think that this judgment sent a very clear message. Someone who does such a thing should expect to lose everything including their freedom and all of their possessions. Indeed, Judge Lee set the judgment at $5,000,000.00 more than our attorney asked for. To me, this was a clear indication that the legal system is serious about defending our citizens against terrorism, regardless of if the attack came from a foreign or a domestic threat.

Birmingham, like all cities, has endured its share of violence. One of the things that this lawsuit did was to confirm that there is a balance between the bad and the good. Emily was hurt because of an act of hate. Emily survived because of the incredible medical resources available in Birmingham. Our city has some of the best medical facilities in the world. Emily and I are both proud to have graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

Our attorney looked past the unlikelihood of collecting the judgment against Mr. Rudolph. In his own words, he took our case because it was the right thing to do. Scott Powell is a large part of what is right with Birmingham. He handled this case with amazing professionalism, and made me proud to live in the same city where he practices law.

I would also like to complement Mr. Jaffee. He played down the significance of this suit by saying that Eric couldn’t afford an attorney to defend himself. This was a brilliant way to minimize the impact on his client.

While I understand that the burden of proof is different between civil and criminal cases, and I understand that this suit has no legal impact on his criminal charges, I feel that the fact that Eric did not deny the allegations is significant. There are legal clinics that could have defended him for free. Eric has access to law books inside the jail, so he could have represented himself. I don’t know why he chose not to deny the charges, but the most obvious guess is that it was because he was guilty.

Perhaps some would allow their anger from the crime to be directed toward the defendant’s attorney. I want Mr. Rudolph to have a fair trial. If he is convicted, I want it to be because he was clearly guilty, not because he didn’t have the money to defend himself, didn’t have competent legal representation, or any other excuse. While I do not know Mr. Jaffee personally, I understand that he is a very skilled attorney. He is doing his job and doing it well. I expect him to do his best for his client, and I don’t hold his efforts against him. If anything, I am grateful for his appointment as it removes a potential major reason for an appeal down the road. Birmingham is fortunate to have both medical and legal resources that are clearly above average.