Roger Shuler, a veteran journalist and publisher of the Legal Schnauzer blog, was released yesterday afternoon from the Shelby County Jail, where he had spent more than five months from the fallout of a defamation lawsuit.
Alan Colmes, of Fox News Radio, conducted a jailhouse interview with Shuler just last week, via telephone.
“I am grateful to have my freedom restored,” Shuler says. “I also am grateful for the support of many readers, friends, and justice-focused citizens. This has been a traumatic experience for me and my wife, Carol, who has done a wonderful job of keeping our audience updated in my absence. Jail, of course, is not meant to be a pleasant experience, and I can provide first-hand testimony that it definitely is an unpleasant place to be, more so than probably many of us can imagine. It takes a tremendous physical, mental, and emotional toll.”
The Doc can also tell you that Alan is too modest to take any credit for his part in the development, but if you don’t think that there is any coincidence between the timing of the jailhouse interview and Shuler’s release, consider this: if you were a Republican politico in Shelby County or the Alabama statehouse, how would you feel about FOX News Radio picking up the story of a liberal blogger essentially being held hostage following one of the most incompetent and underhanded attempts to serve legal papers in the state’s history?
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Back story: Will we let Roger Shuler ("The Legal Schnauzer") suffer alone and forgotten? [Update]
You may not remember the diary from November, "Former Kossack Arrested on Bullsh*t Charges" (h/t Colorado is the Shiznit) or the earlier one from October "The Legal Schnauzer Caged" (h/t Murphoney). They told the story of former Kossack, Roger Shuler (AKA "The Legal Schnauzer") and his abuse at the hands of local Alabama authorities. Well, on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Andrew Krieg, an attorney with the Justice Integrity Project shares with the world a new "Letter from the Birmingham Jail." If you care about journalistic freedom, this one is every bit as distressing as the original.
Here's the opening paragraph:
Alabama commentator Roger Shuler's condition has sharply worsened during his nearly five months of jailing, as I learned by visiting him in Birmingham March 10.
Links to some of Roger Schuler's writings:
Did Judge in Alabama Immigration-Law Case Benefit from Organized Crime?
Obama Advisors Feared a Coup if the Administration Prosecuted War Crimes
How Should a Progressive Blogger React to a Possible Death Threat?