Public attention has begun to grow regarding the Alabama proceedings in a libel suit against blogger Roger Shuler. Court actions so far violate well-settled national law on free speech and the free press, as well as the kind of due process that any litigant deserves in a court.

Those were points I emphasized in a video interview Nov. 1 on HuffPost Live! and on The Alan Colmes Show, distributed by the Fox Radio News.

Alyona Minkovski, host of the daily Freedom Watch Zone broadcast over the Huffington Post, asked in the segment "Journalist Beaten & Arrested" why the media have not provided more coverage to such a remarkable attack on the free press. Shuler faces charges of contempt of court and resisting arrest in a case that has been sealed from public view.

Update: Shuler remained jailed and without an attorney, as of Nov. 14. His friends have started a Facebook support page. Please join here for news and comment. The state circuit court judge presiding in his libel case has set 10 a.m. Nov. 14 as hearing date for a preliminary injunction in his case. It is not clear whether Shuler will be permitted to attend, according to the defendant's wife and co-defendant, Carol Shuler.

After congratulating my interviewer and her team for covering the case, I gave three reasons why the prosecution remains so little reported elsewhere.

First, relatively few people even know about it because Shuler was swept into jail after a politically powerful attorney filed a libel suit. Shuler has been held in jail without bond and without an attorney. His wife, Carol Shuler, also interviewed on the show, is barricaded in her home in fear that she will be arrested on a contempt of court charge in the libel case. Financially strapped and without Internet service until Nov. 2, she and her jailed husband are not in a position to alert the media.

Further, some mainstream journalists or former journalists regard attacks on bloggers, legal or otherwise, as not newsworthy or otherwise important. In October 2010, for example, private security guards for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller in Alaska "arrested" -- in extremely aggressive fashion captured on video -- the editor of the Alaska Dispatch website as the editor attempted to interview Miller at the end of a public event in an Anchorage school.

I urged a regional leader of a professional journalism group that I have long supported as a member to a protest. He responded that the victim was probably "just a blogger" unworthy of attention.

Finally, I noted on the HuffPost interview that many mainstream organizations face continuing financial pressures that have been reducing staff. That keeps remaining employees fearful of the kind of controversy involved in reporting adversely on public officials. Job dangers are especially great in well-defined beats -- such as coverage of the justice system or political figures -- where reporters fear loss of access if they are too aggressive in their reporting. That could easily lead to job loss.

In Alabama, three of the major newspapers have sharply reduced staff by moving to three-days-per-week print publication.

The interview is here.

It begins with a segment in which Carol Shuler, right, described how he was arrested, beaten and MACED in their garage. Her information is based on her husband's account based on telephone conversations with her husband in jail. Court records are sealed, one of several highly unusual aspects of the case. It begins with a segment in which Carol Shuler, right, described how he was arrested, beaten and MACED in their garage. Her information is based on her husband's account based on telephone conversations with her husband in jail. Court records are sealed, one of several highly unusual aspects of the case.

She said Shelby County deputy sheriffs did not formally describe their intentions in making the arrest on contempt of court charges arising out of a recent libel suit, thereby creating unnecessary confusion for her husband.

Colmes , below left and host of the nationally syndicated Fox News Talk show bearing his name, interviewed me Oct. 31. I noted that the court's high-handed, arbitrary decision to jail Shuler at the beginning of a civil lawsuit is the kind of judicial activism that jeopardizes any kind of litigant, not just a reporter at the start of a libel suit. That said, a Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 1966 that Birmingham police could jail on contempt charges top civil rights leaders who marched after being denied a parade permit.

Shuler's difficulties apparently stem from a coordinated campaign by politically powerful Republicans to fight back with multiple lawsuits and threats against a blogger who typically publishes columns five days per week with an unusually harsh and frequent combination of political, financial and sex scandal. The targets are usually, but not always, Republican politicians, judges and lawyers.

Shuler began his blog Legal Schnauzer in 2007 to cover government misconduct allegations arising from the long-running federal prosecution of Democratic former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges. Shuler began his blog Legal Schnauzer in 2007 to cover government misconduct allegations arising from the long-running federal prosecution of Democratic former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges.

The columns leading to his arrest alleged an affair between a lobbyist and Robert Riley Jr., son of former Gov. Bob Riley, Siegelman's two-term Republican successor as governor. The younger Riley and lobbyist Liberty Duke have denied an affair, and last summer filed a defamation suit against Shuler. He maintains he was never properly served (in part because he avoided sheriffs), and learned only recently the specifics of the suit's denials.

The younger Riley has long been a controversial and newsworthy figure in his own right. He is a rumored 2014 congressional candidate for a district in the state's central region near Birmingham.

Also, his active legal and business ventures including winning a $500 million fraud judgment as co-lead counsel in a civil class action suit against former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, Siegelman's co-defendant in a 2006 trial that ended with criminal convictions for both Siegelman and Scrushy on much-disputed corruption charges. Shuler has repeatedly criticized the civil case award on various grounds. It is not part of the recent lawsuit allegations.

In the defamation suit, Riley and Duke obtained an order last month from Circuit Judge Claud Neilson requiring Shuler to remove from his website columns alleging an affair and abortion, and not to publish others. Neilson, who the state's chief justice recruited from retirement just to hear the Riley/Duke suits, issued an injunction against both of the Shulers and added findings of contempt. A judge can hold a defendant in jail for months or even years on a contempt charge, especially if a defendant has no lawyer or other outside advocate.

Regarding "prior restraint" in a libel case involving the media, the Supreme Court has long banned that kind ruling except in the most extraordinary circumstances and after full argument. So, the injunction by Neilson is one of several developments that make the case highly unusual. Among others are the delivery of formal service and the short period between the contempt finding and what has is becoming a lengthy jail experience without a hearing or medical treatment.

Shuler, at right in a family photo, has published many other controversial columns, including several recently gaining high national attention for linking alleged sex scandals with public policy issues. One series portrayed U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor as having posed stark naked in college-age photos later published on a gay porn website. Pryor has denied he was the subject of the photos. Shuler has argued that both Pryor and the photo subject look alike, including with a distinctive cross-eye condition. Shuler, at right in a family photo, has published many other controversial columns, including several recently gaining high national attention for linking alleged sex scandals with public policy issues. One series portrayed U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor as having posed stark naked in college-age photos later published on a gay porn website. Pryor has denied he was the subject of the photos. Shuler has argued that both Pryor and the photo subject look alike, including with a distinctive cross-eye condition.

Pryor, one of the nation's most conservative judges, built his early career as pro-business and family values Republican who complained about gays. As Attorney General, he launched in 1999 the state-federal probe of Siegelman that resulted in Siegelman's 2006 federal conviction and 78-month prison sentence. Many conflicts and irregularities in the case have prompted years of unresolved protests nationwide from legal experts and others.

A number of Shuler's other columns have claimed that prominent Alabama residents have been involved in sex scandals that have important implications for the public, usually because of claims of overlapping legal and political issues.

This has infuriated many of his targets, whose comments, denials or refusal to comments he typically reports with this allegations to protect himself from legal action. The leading Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, held by a 9-0 vote in 1964 that reporting about public figures is subject to libel damages only if a reporter makes a false claim with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of its truth.

Despite that difficult legal standard for plaintiffs, Shuler's opponents have sought to generate lots of momentum against him by strategic use of the courts and media campaign against him. The Riley-Duke suits are just two of several defamation suits reportedly in the pipeline against him.

Regarding the media, an ultra-conservative group called the National Bloggers Club has targeted Shuler as deserving his fate. Ali Akbar, founder of the group, is among those mocking Shuler for his troubles. Those associated with the club often engage in harsh back-and-forth disputes with liberal bloggers in which sex, financial and other scandals are alleged by both sides.

Settled law suggests that Shuler is being singled out by a judge for unusually vindicative, unlawful treatment at the behest of the state's most powerful political family.

Furthermore, my reporting since 2007 on Alabama political scandals persuades me that sex scandal is a vital part of the state's political culture that might not be suspected without digging because of family values rhetoric. Yet documentation arises in situations too many to summarize here. For example, a recent former lieutenant governor who was married had to respond to claims of numerous unwed children. He said the situations arose because he felt sorry for childless women and wanted to help them.

That said, I do not claim to know anything about the allegations that Riley and Duke had an affair. Those kinds of allegations, however, are supposed to be settled by a much different legal process than that unfolding in Alabama.

For such reasons, the Justice Integrity Project has contributed $200 to his defense. Also, we encourage readers to consider a donation via the Paypal button he recently installed for donations to his website, Legal Schnauzer . He has been writing investigative stories for years without ads, subscriptions or fund-drives until installation of the button.



Also, I have sought to persuade more journalism and legal/civil rights organizations to get involved, with mixed results. One of my groups responded that they "have bigger fish to fry."

But other individuals have undertaken effective outreach. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press wrote a column about this early on for its website.

The American Civil Liberties Union has requested leave from Shuler's judge to file a friend of the court brief arguing that the injunction violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Alabama Constitution's Article I, § 4. In addition, the ACLU protests that a sealed court record violates the public’s constitutional right of access to judicial records and proceedings. The ACLU filing came in response to a request from a concerned reader. There are many more such groups that are supposed to be involved in such battles, according to their mission statements and fund-raising appeals.

Those of us who are members or contributors should try especially hard to make these groups live up to their rhetoric.

Contact the author Andrew Kreig or comment