Sonics' lawyers don't want author Sherman Alexie testifyingPrize-winning author, poet and humorist Sherman Alexie shouldn't be allowed to testify at an upcoming trial to block the Seattle SuperSonics from moving to Oklahoma City because he has nothing relevant to say and is known for his "profanity-laced" columns for a weekly newspaper, the team argues.
Alexie, winner of a National Book Award and a PEN/Hemingway Award, also is a basketball fan who writes a column called "Sonics Death Watch" for the Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper. His column has been highly critical of plans by the Sonics' owners to move the team out of town and is described as profanity-laced in a court filing by the team.Comment: For more on the subject, see
All About Sherman Alexie.
I read the article, and it looks like Alexie has a place at such a trial.
ReplyDeleteIf we have such a trial. But why clutter the courts with such a matter in the first place? Why is any city in the basketball business to begin with?
Writerfella here --
ReplyDeleteAt first, writerfella thought Alexie would have as much meaning at such a trial as would any next nutcase superfan of the Sonics. But then writerfella remembered his own insertion into the 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson. writerfella's adopted youngest brother had just gone through three trials for capital murder, with DNA being the only evidence placing Tim at the scene of the crime. There had been two mistrials and writerfella then found and brought in a DNA expert from Rochester, NY, to testify for the defense. That third trial ended in acquittal and his brother went free. DNA evidence took a black eye that enraged the FBI.
At the time of the O.J. trial, writerfella and brother David heard about the O.J. Hotline, called, and volunteered the trial transcripts, plus the names of Tim's court-appointed attorney and the DNA expert. O.J.'s law team snapped up the transcripts, hired the attorney and the DNA expert and, almost three years to the day Tim was freed, O.J. Simpson also was acquitted.
It is to be hoped that Sonics trial is held at a wide open Seattle wharf so the USS Sherman Alexie both can dock and testify...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'