THE LEGACY OF JERRY L.

DOYLE

Jerry Doyle represented the true meaning and intent of the First Amendment more than anyone else I have ever known. I had the privilege and honor of representing Mr. Doyle in more circumstances than I can remember, and each time I came away richer for the experience, whether we won the actual case or whether we were shut down by the Court system, most particularly when Judge Richard S. Sheward took his wrongful termination case from the Jury and threatened to have us arrested in Doyle v. Oakfield Nursing Home. I will never forget the shocked and inquisitive Jury members who approached me in the hallway afterward as they asked us, what happened?

What happened was injustice, the very sort of injustice that Jerry fought against for much of his adult life. I am quite certain that he and I both paid the price for his vigorous advocacy but as Jerry and I both recognized, if you stand up straight and take it like a man they can never own you, so that is and was a conscious choice that I made in representing him when most other lawyers scorned him like so much social pariah.

I met Jerry shortly after I left the Ohio AGs office and he, along with people like Loretta Heard (RIP), Bill Moss (RIP), Bob Cross, Michael Isreal, Sherrie Mustafa, Revieta Lampley and James Whitaker on the video led the charge that would eventually cause Columbus to shut down video at School Board and City Council, ostensibly because people were just coming in to hear themselves talk. Jerry spoke quite eloquently about Justice and the lack of vigorous representation for fringe people like himself before the Ohio Supreme Court disciplinary panel as you can see in my American Lawyer video at KingCast.net. To this day I count two of my most important victories as those two cases that returned Jerrys right to speak before City Council after months of unlawful, content-based bans and the four-day criminal trespass trial acquittal at the hands of the Columbus Public Schools and Police, some of which I preserved on YouTube, yes I have much of the whole thing here at home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J8yXxV50DU Today, some thirteen years later, I know for fact that the Executive Office of the President is on my main journal page, reading about No Child Left Behind financial scandals of the sort that Jerry cautioned about in the mid 1990s. Perhaps some good will come of that in the long run. As I told his wife Rita, Nary a day goes by when I don't think about Jerry Doyle for one reason or another. When you deal with the right to speak almost daily, and when you have cut your First Amendment Trial teeth defending someone like Jerry Doyle that's how it's going to be, and frankly I am grateful for the opportunity and for the memories and I am saddened not to be there for his final services today. When I heard of his passing earlier this week I just had to go out for a run and a workout to try to clear my head but when I was finished I reached the same result: I kept thinking how medieval Columbus and Judge Pollitt was to put an ailing 50something year-old man in the hole because he opened his mouth on WTVN about political, social and prison abuse. And they knew he was ailing, to boot. It is infuriating. It is disgusting. It is purportedly Un-American, but from what I see in States like New Hampshire, it is all too American. And here some of us sit in judgment of so many so-called third World societies for their human rights abuses.

I have an online chronology of many of Jerry Doyles achievements and battles there were given short shrift in the Columbus Dispatch and you may find them by simply visiting this link or by running a Google search for Jerry Doyle + KingCast. http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2011/10/kingcast-says-goodnight-jerry-doyleyou.html

It is the least that I can do to stay true to The Cause for which Jerry championed with so much fervor in all of his adult life. It is a badge of honor, and not a detriment to know that I was your favorite attorney. Rest in Peace Jerry Doyle, your Spirit is safe here, and I will never forget you. I love you man. Sincerely, Christopher King, J.D.