LV Now (along with 90% of our commenters yesterday) reported that Attorney Noel Gage pled (pleaded?) guilty in federal court to obstruction of justice. A copy of the plea agreement is available, here. According to the agreement, Gage is facing a maximum of 20 years (he won't get anywhere near that, and likely will receive no prison time at all), and will pay a mandatory restitution of $702,600 to his former client, Melodie Simon.We wonder if our State Bar will take the same action our State Medical Board is taking against Mark Kabins ... is that wishful thinking?
Gage's plea is pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, meaning he is admitting the government has enough evidence to convict him were he to go to trial, but he is not admitting that he is actually guilty. Fun Fact: Besides high-profile white collar criminals, Alford pleas are most commonly used by (alleged) pedophiles. Don't be a pussy - just plead guilty.
Now to our grammatical question: "Pled" or "Pleaded" ... which is the proper past tense?
Oh, and we received a fun story (and accompanying photo) from a helpful tipster who was present at yesterday's festivities:
Today at Fed court, Noel Gage, American Hero and defender of your rights, pled guilty for obstruction of justice (felony). On his way out, strangely enough, a familiar figure started approaching my camera, attempting to block my shot of Gage. It reminded me of a certain march of attorneys from 2009 during the indictment of now guilty, Mark Kabins. It’s really too bad for Gage, as the Personal Injury Parade has now dwindled to a Posse of One.
Why does the guy in the pic attached, who happens to work for Mainor, Eglet Cottle according to my sources, feel the need to protect someone so stridently, who has says he’s done nothing wrong. Why would MEC have such a great interest in having this guy at EVERY hearing dealing with Vannah? Either way, he’s fooling himself if he thinks he’s doing much more than digging a deeper hole for his bosses.
Please feel free to share this with your readers.
And share we shall ...
Five WWL points to the first commenter to identify the man in the foreground. One Point each for the men in the background. Bonus five points for identifying the red book the woman on the right is holding (looks like our law school criminal law text ... *shudder*).
(LV Now; Thanks to our on-the-ball commenters and tipsters!)
Pled. No question. Unless you are a newspaper reporter (who is not a lawyer and is stuck with the AP stylebook, reality be hanged). Merriam-Webster says you can use either, but it also gives both pronunciations of "Nevada" - use the wong one and you prove that you are either (1) not from Nevada, or (2) not someone who practices criminal law (a client who entered a plea in the past always "pled guilty").
ReplyDeletePleaded! See Garner, Modern Legal Usage ("pleaded is the best past-tense form").
ReplyDeleteLet's see what the pussies at the State Bar do with this. The over-under is a private reprimand.
ReplyDelete"We wonder if our State Bar will take the same action our State Medical Board is taking against Mark Kabins ... is that wishful thinking?"
ReplyDeleteYes. Bar counsel doesn't go after anyone who might possibly push back. Admit it, you knew that.
"Don't be a pussy - just plead guilty"
ReplyDeleteAlford is a fancy way of saying "no contest" and can't be used in a civil case.
David Creasy from Gage's office on the left. The book is "How to Become a Millionaire Without Being Ethical."
ReplyDeleteThe guy in front does not work for MEC. His name is Adolfo he is Noel Gage’s personal lap dog.
ReplyDeleteHe has worked for Gage for years!
The lady next to lady with book is Ivy Gage...Noel's wonderful wife.
ReplyDeleteDoes Adolfo only have one arm, or is that just the way the picture looks?
ReplyDeleteNevermind, I see the other hand. It is reaching into his pocket to pull out the wads of ca$h Gage pays Adolfo to be his biotch.
ReplyDeleteFrom my AP Stylebook:
ReplyDeleteplead, pleaded, pleading: Do not you the colloquial past tense form, pled.
One of the few things I learned from my time at ATMS generally, and from Matt Hoffmann specifically,....PLEADED.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but Hoffman also made you write "timeline" even though it should be two words!
ReplyDeleteIf you look at opinions from the Supreme Court of Nevada, they mostly use "pleaded" and not "pled."
ReplyDeleteYou can be sure the State Bar of Nevada is not better than the State Bars of Michigan and Texas. Gage has sealed discipline records in each state. I guess he will now move to another state.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to belong to a profession where accountability is for suckers. Let's just make him State Bar President. Heck, Allf already held the position, Gage is the logical next step....he is, afterall, a talented attorney.
920
ReplyDeleteDont necessarily paint David Creasy with the same brush because he was at the hearing with his boss. Creasy is an amazing lawyer and as stand up a guy as I have ever met.
The pen in the shirt makes me, uh, excited.
ReplyDelete1:56 p.m. is correct. The Nevada Supreme Court's law clerk handbook specifically states that clerks/attorneys should "[u]se 'pleaded' as the past tense, not 'pled' or 'plead.'"
ReplyDeleteAnd we all know that the NSC law clerks handbook, written by the staff attorneys not bright enough to make law review or get a clerkship, is always correct.
ReplyDeletePleaded is only correct if an actual pleading was used in the past. if someone enters a plea on the record, they pled. If he filed a pleading, the subject was pleaded.
and this is why I always use "entered a plea of guilty"
ReplyDeleteA brief note is warranted about the English pronunciation controversy over the use of irregular verbs with the ending "ed" in past tense verbs and past participles. Most of the controversy, but not all of it centers on the usage of the past participle.
ReplyDeleteAlthough fewer than 500 verbs are classified as irregular, these include some of the most common words in English. Irregular verbs have some linguistic relationship to the German strong verbs, but many are principally of pre-industrial Scottish-English usage. Contrary to some opinion, the usage of such verbs is centuries old.
While many contemporary sources decry the use of irregular verbs, they retain several arguments in their favor. As increasingly archaic forms they have a certain historical elegance to them. They have the distinct advantage of being far more melodious to the ear than their Newspeak regular cousins. And they stand as bastions against a desire to suck the individuality out of the language and impose an increasingly dry and dusty uniformity upon it.
A sampling of irregular verbs:
pled vs. pleaded
hung vs. hanged
mown vs. mowed
sewn vs. sewed
knit vs. knitted
sped vs. speeded
swollen vs. swelled
woke vs. waked
snuck vs. sneaked
lept vs. leaped
awoke vs. awakened
clad vs. clothed
dreamt vs. dreamed
dove vs. dive
dwelt vs. dwelled
fit vs. fitted
hewn vs. hewed
knelt vs. kneeled
leant vs. leaned
learnt vs. learned
lit vs. lighted
missplelt vs. misspelled
outshone vs. outshined
spilt vs. spilled
proven vs. proved
broadcast vs. broadcasted
woven vs. weaved
shaven vs. shaved
shorn vs. sheared
shown vs. showed
slain vs. slayed
slunk vs. slinked
smelt vs. smelled
strewn vs. strewed
strove (past tense) and striven (past participle) vs. strived
wed vs. wedded
hung vs. hanged
ReplyDeleteSo, should I say "Glen Lerner is well hanged?"
Hey yo! Thanks for the compliment- see ya this weekend when I visit Pahrump- good thing I shorn my pubes- it made it a hefty 4 inches- and it helped get rid of the odor- it smelt bad down there- Glen
ReplyDeletesmelt or smelled?
ReplyDelete10:30 a.m.: couldn't pass up a thread without reminding everyone that you're a dick, huh? I accept your plea of douche.
ReplyDeleteMy statement regarding the law clerk handbook was only intended to affirm 1:56 p.m.'s observations.
And for the record, I was on law review and clerked after graduation. Your ignorance of the NSC staff is amusing.