Celebrities, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Lawsuit of the Day, Lunacy, Madonna, Music, Pro Se Litigants

Lawsuit of the Day: Aisha v. Madonna

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In addition to handing down some big opinions, yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a number of cases. As noted by SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston, the Court denied certiorari in a significant antitrust case, as well as a pair of test cases raising constitutional issues in the immigration context.
But the most important cert denial was surely Aisha v. Madonna, No. 06-1389. A blurb about this battle of the mono-monikered musicians, from a reader:

Why nothing about this crazy diva? Her case is discussed by Marty Lederman over at SCOTUSblog.

Aisha Goodison seems right up your alley. She’s more than a little nutty, “strong,” fearless, and with a bad attitude. (Gotta love the pictures of Madonna and Gwen Stefani on her website).

I glanced over her cert petition and she’s pro se. Does that mean she wrote her own complaint? If not, who is helping her out? Just how crazy is she?

Plenty crazy. More discussion, after the jump.


Let’s start with the Questions Presented section of her petition. Conventional wisdom says to keep the QPs concise, as short and punchy as possible. Here’s question #1 from Aisha:

1. What Judicial and Constitutional powers has a judge, Marcia Cooke, to summarily throw out a voluminous case (60 page complaint and 200 plus pages of evidence and CD-ROMs) on the SAME DAY of signing for and receiving it, December 21, 2005, which means she could not have read very much, if any of it and manage her other cases like Jose Padilla.

A federal lawsuit, whose main claim is for copyright infringement, multiple, willful violations of Title 17 of the U.S. Code, filed in the right venue, under the correction jurisdiction, where indisputable evidence was submitted that unquestionably shows the Respondents willfully and criminally stole millions of dollars of released and unreleased copyrighted works belonging to the Petitioner, years after they were authored and registered with the Library of Congress and via other means to establish their unique dates of authorship.

A pattern is emerging in copyright cases of judges denying litigants the right to trial in case against corporations with substantial evidence illustrating copyright infringement, opting to throw them out on opinion rather than the evidence, which is the subject of a forthcoming documentary film and soundtrack by the Petitioner. What Constitutional and judicial powers does a judge have to do so? Are the public not entitled to a fair, impartial, well read and thought out review of their cases, rather than a cursory look, if any at all and rush to judgment based on personal opinion of fame and not the facts and evidence.

WOW. And that’s just the first of three questions presented.
Now, with pro se litigants, you never can tell whether their allegations are true, since their grip on reality is often tenuous. But assuming Aisha’s claims are true, her naivete is charming.
Does she actually expect a federal judge to read the entire record, page by page, by herself? What are law clerks for?
From question #2 (an excerpt; the full “question” is much longer):

[The evidence submitted by Aisha was] quickly thrown out on the same day of receipt by Judge Marcia Cooke of the Southern District of Florida, citing a legally deficient premise that amounts to her opinion of a “pop culture icon” who went to her alma mater and not the observance of U.S. Copyright law, (Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. 101), the Lanham Act (The Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. 1051), The Universal Copyright Act of 1952, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, The Berne Treaty of 1967, among others….

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Aisha just dropped the Berne Treaty bomb. Madonna is SO busted.
Still on the second question presented:

[Judge Cooke] showed blatant partiality in throwing out the case the same day she received it and by all appearances, did not even read the case, as it is not the human norm to ingest 60 pages of a complaint, 200 plus pages of evidence exhibits and hundreds of MB of data in less than one work day and tend to the rest of a judge’s caseload during the middle of the week. This was a great miscarriage of justice. As a taxpaying law-abiding citizen, the Petitioner deserved more than that.

No, that isn’t the “human norm” at all to ingest a sixty-page complaint. One might get indigestion.
(Yes, we realize that Goodison is invoking the secondary meaning of “ingest.” But we still think it sounds funny.)
From question #3 of the Questions Presented:

Judge Cooke opted to refer to the case where millions of dollars of the Petitioner’s copyrights were willfully violated, her computers hacked, her email accounts hacked, her web site hacked, her telephone wiretapped, her mail illegally intercepted, she was harassed, assaulted, defamed and libeled, all violations of United Nations human rights laws, as “amusing.”

Whoa Nelly (Furtado). Our head is spinning from Aisha’s crazy claims!
We proceed into the argument section:

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From the start this case has been fraught with serious errors of every conceivable kind that were not of the Petitioner’s making. From the clerical misspelling of main Defendant-Respondent Madonna’s name via a clerk entering it into the local court system’s computers and consequently the national court system, Pacer, as “Madoona” rather than “Madonna,” which is not how the Petitioner typed it in the lawsuit, which would hamper the public and legal community from finding the case for citation, but thankfully it was placed online at www.aishamusic.com/lawsuit_main.htm by the Petitioner, receiving millions of reads, to the judge tossing it out the same day she supposedly read it, citing law that does not remotely apply to the.

Yes, “thankfully” placed online — the readers of ATL are grateful.
Ok, this is where the allegations get REALLY bizarre:

When Judge Marcia Cooke summarily tossed out the case in the space of one day of having it, it was clearly interpreted as a green light by the Respondents-Defendants [Madonna et al.] to break the law to an even greater degree at the Petitioner’s expense. Their behavior grew worse. They commissioned more break-ins to the Petitioner’s home, at more frequent intervals, to steal newer copyrighted works she had authored that were not placed on her computer that connects to the internet, making it difficult to hack.

And Aisha apparently thinks she has been choked by Madonna (or the Material Girl’s goons):

[Petitioner Aisha Goodison] was assaulted (choked) on the same street as the courthouse in downtown Miami, while a man spewed back at her the contents of her private phone calls, albeit wiretapped as many people witnessed, and information about a missing letter. Lo and behold the Petitioner then went into Court minutes after for a pre-scheduled hearing in a civil matter, only to find out from a judge and his clerk that a critical letter was sent out to her via mail about her home, that never arrived to her in the mail. She then remembered what the man who choked her earlier in the morning spouted off about a missing letter.

It is important to note, the Respondent Madonna has been sued for choking a 10 year old child in New York, Keith Serrantino, a case which she quietly settled out of court and was also separately formally accused in a book about the Oscar’s of choking entertainment industry veteran Dick Clark’s son Rac. Respondent Madonna has displayed a penchant for choking that is very unhealthy and bares the signs of mental illness. Her conduct in public life, this case and numerous other lawsuits that have been filed against her, none of which she has won, scores very high on Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist.

Like much of the federal judiciary, we’ve lost patience with Aisha Goodison. We’ll conclude with this excerpt, from near the end of the lengthy cert petition:

Socialite Paris Hilton of leaked pornographic video fame, in conjunction with Warner Bros and Madonna infringed the Petitioner’s copyrights again this summer stealing a video treatment that was copyrighted years ago and a bass line as well for the same song, via illegally using more items from the Petitioner’s already copyrighted catalog they gained criminal access to, as mentioned above.

Paris Hilton is a member of the Kabbalah cult, which is now being run by Madonna. This month, Spoofcard terminated Paris Hilton’s account for hacking into rival actress Lindsay Lohan’s account.

Watch out, Aisha — Paris Hilton is a free woman once again. And she’s coming to get you.
AishaMusic.com [Aisha Music – official website]
Supreme Court Filing [AishaMusic.com]
Pop Music Mystery of the Morning [SCOTUSblog]

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