Talk:John Henry Browne

Please remove speedy deletion tag

This article did not meet the Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion at the time it was tagged, and certainly does not now.

Wikipedia policy only allows speedy deletion on grounds of notability if the article "does not assert the importance of the subject." It is simply not true that the article makes no claims that Mr. Brown is important. It has from the beginning claimed that Mr. Browne is a "prominent" attorney, that he works on "high profile" cases, and that he gained "notoriety" due to recent events (a term I subsequently changed to "nationwide attention" to avoid being pejorative).

If an article does claim its subject's notability but there is a good faith dispute, the proper course is a there is a valid good faith dispute as to a subject's notability, the proper course is the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion process.

Argument for notability

Just in case, and to avoid any unnecessary dispute resolution time, here is why I believe the subject is notable.

• Mr. Browne is a well-known lawyer to begin with. Browne's work on criminal defense, and particular earprint forensics, is notable itself and already deserving of a Wikipedia article. Earprints are older than fingerprints and there is an active debate about whether these and other body prints should be allowed as evidence in criminal law trials. This was widely reported. Recently Browne came to national attention for suing a user review and ratings site that ranks lawyers. This is a very active field that generates a lot of attention, both within the legal community (with respect to the legal profession and standards for advertising and publicizing lawyers) and the tech and media community (with respect to free speech, and the field of Web 2.0 companies that provide user review and feedback for products, services, etc). Some of the articles mention that if Browne were to prevail in his suit it could be the end of user review websites, not just for lawyers but for everything. Though not dispositive on the issue, a google search can often be a good reality check over whether someone is widely known or not. There are more than 12,000 pages for Mr. Browne, which is unusually high even among famous lawyers -- Melvin Belli, one of the most famous of all time, has 27,000 hits; Johnnie Cochran, perhaps the most famous, has 240,000.
• The actual notability guidelines require "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." There are three articles cited from Seattle, Washington's main newspaper and main business paper that are specifically about Browne and/or his case against avvo, as well as a chapter in a reference work about earprints, a major portion of which is devoted to Mr. Browne's work on the subject. Nobody can say that these papers are not reliable or independent "secondary sources" as these terms are used on Wikipedia. As for significance of coverage, the guideline says that the term means that the articles address the subject directly and in detail, which they do. If anyone thinks these articles are not sufficient there are hundreds and hundreds of others about the man on the web; the article contains a link to the "news" page of his website that liss a dozen and a half of them.
• With respect to notability of people specifically, an article is legitimate if the person meets any of the following criteria: ** subject of published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject -- multiple independent sources Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and CourtTV, so yes.; ** widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field: earprint evidence may not be used in criminal trials so, yes. Wikidemo 04:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you don't mess around. The references in the article alone are enough to convince me that we can write an adequate article on the fellow, so I have removed the speedy deletion request. Although I'd expect otherwise, if the original tagger still feels this article doesn't meet our standards, community discusstion at WP:AFD would be the next step. William Pietri 04:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Potential benzodiazepine induced fugue state / disinhibition / disorientation / amnesia in Staff Sergeant Robert Bales Case ?

Many soldiers are prescribed benzodiazepines ("No Go Pills") to treat anxiety and insomnia. (It is also sometimes used (off-label) for symptom management in PTSD). Staff Sergeant Robert Bales may have suffered from an Adverse Drug Reaction to high dose benzodiazepines used to treat Anxiety/Insomnia - potentially resulting in a a fugue state / disinhibition / disorientation / amnesia if he were taking high doses of these medications and/or if he combined them with other medications or alcohol.

In such a state, he would not have necessarily known who or where he was, who he was shooting at or what he was doing. His ability to inhibit automatic (heavily trained) behavior might have been severely impaired. His ability to recognize his circumstances and even to assess the reality of the events around him might have been severely impaired. His memory and comprehension of the events around him and his understanding of his actions within them may have been substantially impaired. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.116.128.55 (talk) 20:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

More info on Browne:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/for-lawyer-in-afghan-killings-the-latest-in-a-series-of-challenging-defenses.html?_r=1&hp 151.204.190.111 (talk) 15:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Admonishment

There is a dilemma regarding the admonishment. I've done the research on this. The Washington Bar has a publication called "Bar News". The reference was about the March 06 edition. The website only archives the most recent five years online. I emailed the Bar asking if there was an admonishment in that issue and they responded there there was indeed and and quoted to me exactly what it said. I confirms what was written here. Let me say, I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm not arguing personally one way or the other about the guy. My problem is that the reader of a wiki article should expect to be able to see the source material and decide for themselves issues of credibility and accuracy. A "404 not found" is not acceptable. Maybe someone can dig up a news article or some other credible source and put the information back. Dead links are becoming a major problem for the credibility of Wikipedia. Most are because the source material has been removed or moved and editors here need to research them again or remove the material. The other issue is malicious intent. A person can attempt to make a biased statement credible by using a reference that people can not verify. I'm not accusing BarrelProof of anything but I'll use him/her as an example. If they indeed wanted that part there because they don't like the guy, using a dead link, and then a link to something that had nothing to do with the admonishment as support for their assertion. Again, I'm not saying BarrelProof was doing that.

The dilemma in this case is I have conformation that the material is true in an email but that email is not something I can use. I'm not going to put it up on my blog and claim I'm a journalist and link to it. I have too much respect for journalism to even dream of doing that. Now, if someone knows a real journalist and puts a bug in there ear and they write it up that's a different story.

For now, I'll just keep removing it unless someone with some clout convinces me otherwise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackhammer111 (talk • contribs) 17:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I found a reference that was already in use on the page. I verifies the admonishment but not the fine amounts.

There are positive things I found about Browne too that I'll add when I have time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackhammer111 (talk • contribs) 22:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC)