The Unhinged Polemic Filed by Jens Söring's Lawyers in their Failed Lawsuit Against Me

And these are just the highlights!

My Hero, Jackie Chiles

[Google-Übersetzung hier.]

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1914

“Söring manipulates. When he cannot dispute the facts, then he manipulates by moving the focus away from the facts and concentrating fully on discrediting the person who said something against him publicly.” — Annabel H., “Das System Söring” (“The Söring System”), Episode 1 (g).

On 2 June 2022, my lawyer and I received an astounding document from Jens Söring’s lawyers, the Hamburg firm of Beutler Grulert Brandt Rechtsanwälte, who call themselves, in English, “The Entertainment Lawyers”. I’ll call them the BGB Law Firm from now on. The document was filed by an associate of the firm, whose license is about 5 years old, and whom they don’t identify on the firm website, which only profiles the partners.

I will decline to name this lawyer on compassionate grounds, but will refer to him as “The Associate”. Notably, The Associate also signed the cease and desist letter (i.e., the lawsuit threat) that Stephan Grulert sent to me a few weeks ago. The Associate will thus be representing his own boss in the forthcoming lawsuit (if Grulert chooses to file it) — just weeks after The Associate lost publicly in court, with Stephan Grulert there watching. I sure wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

But back to the Söring lawsuit. Here’s the background: On May 5, 2022, The Associate filed an Application for an Injunction against me. The purpose of this Application was to force me to delete parts of a blog post entitled: “Is Jens Söring Dangerous? A Pro and Contra”. In that post, I reviewed the evidence and concluded that Jens Söring poses a “very, very low” but “not zero” risk of danger to the general community. You can read that post here or here. In the Application for an Injunction, Söring’s lawyers said statements in the post defamed Söring and invaded his privacy, and that I should be required to remove them.

I believed that my blog post was fully protected by German law, so I filed a “Motion for Protection” (Schutzschrift). In that Motion, I argued that everything I said in the blog post was opinion or commentary, and even if it was a factual claim, it was well-founded. On June 3, 2022, I won the lawsuit, with the help of an excellent lawyer named David Ziegelmayer. He’s busy, but if you can convince him to take your case, do it. He’s good. Doctors say the worst client to have is another doctor, and David had to represent a lawyer. A tall order, but he mastered it.

The case came up for a court hearing before the Frankfurt Regional Court last Friday, 3 June 2022. Several reporters showed up to watch the proceedings. The Associate showed up in court to represent Jens Söring, who decided he had better things to do than appear for his own lawsuit. Also present was the BGB Law Firm firm partner Stephan Grulert, who is Jens Söring’s personal friend. After it became clear the three judges on the panel seemed unconvinced by Söring’s claims, The Associate and Stephan Grulert withdrew their Application. This ended the lawsuit. Jens Söring will personally have to pay my lawyers’ fees and court costs.

But let’s go back to the evening before the court hearing, June 2, 2022. In my Motion for Protection (filed weeks ago), which is nearly 40 pages long, I outlined just some of the evidence on which I based my claims. Among many other sources, I cited Annabel H (a former supporter who eventually concluded Söring was guilty and his innocence campaign was deceptive), Terry Wright, and Dr. Robert Showalter, who testified at Elizabeth Haysom’s 1987 trial for being an accessory before the fact to murder. I provided citations to dozens of documents backing up our claims.

Apparently my Motion struck a nerve. In fact, it didn’t just strike a nerve, it seems to have driven the opposing side into a state of…well, read this post and judge for yourself.

Söring’s lawyers filed a “Statement” (Stellungnahme) on June 2, 2022. This Statement is something to behold. It does make legal arguments, but much of is is devoted to attacking anyone who has ever said anything critical about Jens Söring in the harshest terms imaginable. The Statement was so over-the-top that I burst out laughing several times as I read it.

Let’s have a look at some excerpts. Now, before we do this, I have to make a few things clear, since the fine folks at BGB Law monitor this blog carefully:

1. As in most legal systems, lawyers in Germany are permitted to say things in court, and in legal briefs, which would be unlawful if spoken out of court. Example: A lawyer tells the Court that John Smith, not his client Andreas, committed the crime Andreas is charged with. If the lawyer accused John Smith of a crime out of court, John Smith can sue him for libel. If he says it in court, he’s doing his job as a lawyer, trying to prove Andreas’ innocence. Because the statements below were made in court briefs, Söring’s lawyers can’t be sued for them — and that’s a good thing.

2. I do not personally endorse any of the allegations made in the parts of the “Statement” quoted below. In fact, as you’ll see, I reject most of them. I am reproducing them merely to show the kind of rhetoric BGB Law Firm is prepared to use against its opponents.

3. The copyright for the Statement remains with BGB Law Firm. I am merely reproducing short quotations from a very long document (over 5000 words). The purpose is to contribute to an active public debate (g) about Jens Söring’s media campaign and the role of his lawyers in helping to shape it — in this case, the fact that his lawyers (1) filed a meritless lawsuit against me they later withdrew; and (2) went to great lengths to harshly attack people who disputed Söring’s claims or even said anything that reflected badly on him. I have provided quotations because the specific word choice of Söring’s lawyers is crucial to my point. Paraphrases just don’t capture the naked hostility of this legal brief.

OK, enough disclaimers for you? Good, let’s get to the quotations.¹

First up is Terry Wright:

The credibility of [Terry Wright] is also clearly limited. The content of the statements made by this person - which were also only reported by third parties - is not relevant to the accusations that are the subject of this lawsuit. The Motion for Protection already ignores the fact that Terry Wright - as an investigator at that time - obviously (also) had a professional interest in incriminating the applicant (and obviously still has).

Call me a hard-liner, but I personally don’t see a problem with professional detectives having an interest in “incriminating” murder suspects. That’s sort of what we pay them for, isn’t it? As for Wright trying to “rescue” his reputation from the damage the Söring case did to it (a claim Söring frequently makes, but his lawyers don’t quite go there here in this quote) — well, both Wright and Beever were decorated for their stellar detective work in this case, and both justly regard it as one of the high points of their careers, which it is. For Söring to claim Terry Wright is desperate to save his reputation is like claiming Jonas Salk desperately tried to recover from the shame of having invented the polio vaccine.

Are you beginning to see why BGB Law withdrew its lawsuit?

I also cited Elizabeth Haysom in my Motion for Protection. That, of course, was a red flag for Jens Söring, who still hates her. Söring’s lawyers let that hate shine through:

The poor state of the defendant's sources is also shown by the use of the person of Elizabeth Haysom as “proof”. The fact that this person, who severely incriminated the applicant more than 30 years ago out of self-interest, represents probably the classic case of an untrustworthy witness requires no further explanation as a fact known to the court.

The italics are in the original. The lawyers from BGB Law apparently expected a panel of German judges to share Jens Söring’s outrage that I would dare to quote Elizabeth Haysom — Elizabeth Haysom! — in my briefs, We’ll never know what the judges would have concluded about Haysom’s statements, since BGB Law folded.

However, I imagine the judges might have would have come to similar conclusions as most people: Elizabeth Haysom has credibility problems, but they are no more severe, and in fact much less severe, than those of Jens Söring, who has lied under oath twice. And wait, a further question: Why is The Associate of the BGB Law Firm himself so upset that I mentioned Elizabeth Haysom? Why did he, who’s never met her, feel such a need to single out her name with italics?

Next up on the chopping-block: Dr. Robert Showalter. You can read generous excerpts of his testimony in the 1987 trial of Elizabeth Haysom here on this Substack:

These inadequacies of Hammel’s “research” continued in the content and person of the then expert witness Robert Showalter offered as "proof." Hammel conceals the fact, well known to him, that this is an extremely shady person who has in the meantime had his license to practice withdrawn due to alleged professional sexual offenses. Robert Showalter's credibility is thus also massively limited.

First of all, I don’t “know” any such thing about Dr. Robert Showalter. BGB Law provided no proof of this accusation. You can find articles about a psychiatrist named “Carl Robert Showalter” online, but they show his license was revoked — long after Elizabeth Haysom’s trial — for medical billing fraud, not “sexual offenses”. But who cares? Even if any of this is true, it hardly indicates that his sworn testimony during Elizabeth Haysom’s 1987 murder trial was unreliable.

But wait, you’re asking — what about me? That is, what about good old Andrew Hammel? Of course, they saved the best for last. It just goes on and on:

The irrelevance of Hammel’s presentation finally culminates in the statement, which can hardly be surpassed in its irrelevance, that "people who are familiar with the personality of the Applicant still describe him as "dangerous" and are "afraid of him"…. Hammel neither make a prima facie case as to the existence of these third parties, nor to the subject matter of their alleged third-party fears.

This applies all the more to Hammel - who is obviously playing at being an expert on mental illnesses and who has an excessive thirst for recognition - who worked as a nurse in a provincial hospital² three decades ago without any apparent medical, let alone psychiatric, training.

If this were true, the defendant should know very well that terse remote diagnoses without any personal contact - regardless of their accuracy - cause massive psychological stress for those affected by such accusations, especially when this happens - as here - in public, under the auspices of sensationalist gloating and disguised as a "scientific analysis".

As shown, the blog entry in question is merely part of a smear campaign systematically initiated by Hammel against Söring. Hammel elsewhere even boasts of systematically contacting any of the Applicant’s contractual partners in order to impose his view of things on them and to dissuade them from cooperating with Söring. For example, Hammel recently boasted of sending boycott calls³ to the Applicant’s speakers/discussion partners with persistent regularity in order to dissuade them from cooperating with the petitioner unless the Applicant, with his alleged expertise, was also invited to these events:

To accuse Söring of narcissism in writing is not without a certain irony in view of Hammel’s own self-overestimation. Hammel’s behavior with regard to the applicant has nothing in common with legitimate journalistic, let alone scientific, work.

The persons consulted are all those who are in declared opposition to Söring. As an "expert" on the penal system, Hammel, who claims to be a criminal law scholar⁴, has not even managed to consider the central idea of rehabilitation in the penal system.

Ultimately, the Respondent is not concerned with a factual reappraisal, but with the satisfaction of personal vendettas and a pure sensational interest. For entertainment purposes, Söring has been publicly pilloried, made out to be an incorrigible murderer and, what's more, mentally ill; all supposedly in the service of enlightening the public. Söring - furthermore without being personally contacted for comment beforehand - has been degraded by Hammel to a mere object of a pseudo-scientific analysis and portrayed “for all time” as a guilt-ridden, mentally-disturbed person incapable of any social rehabilitation. Apparently, Hammel, who works in remarkable “personal union” as both a private scholar and amateur psychologist, has not yet come to terms with the fact that none of his breathtaking "careers" has put him in a position to be perceived and taken seriously as an expert in public and to be invited as to appear in events with the Applicant.

The fact that Hammel is by no means interested in a factual debate is also documented by his current behavior during the proceedings. At present, the respondent seems to be taking personal pleasure in ridiculing the present proceedings, the Applicant, and his counsel. The Respondent has published disparaging slurs purposefully directed to injure of the professional honor of the attorney Grulert.

If this is the quality of the lawyering I will face in Stephan Grulert’s lawsuit against me, I like my chances.

1. Upon request, I’ve edited the original post to remove BGB Law’s comments about one critic.

2. In my Motion, I pointed out that after getting my undergraduate degree in English, I worked full-time for almost four years at Austin State Hospital as an orderly. Austin State Hospital is the leading public mental health facility in the State of Texas. For four years, I was in daily contact with people who had every kind of mental illness imaginable.

As for Austin being “provincial”, I’d just point out that the city of Austin, Texas is larger than all but four cities in all of Germany (easily beating Frankfurt), and that the population of Texas is 1/3 that of the entire nation of Germany.

3. I have never called on any organization to boycott Jens Söring.

4. Hmmm…