Virtual Grub Street: Post-Debate Analysis: the Unassailable Evidence of the Oxfraudian Case.

Last week’s debate with the Oxfraud legal team involved few surprises. Nevertheless, actually diving in and exchanging comments at length taught me enough to make it worth the effort.

The topic was the vaunted Oxfraud Prima Facie brief for the Stratford man as the author of the plays of Shakespeare. I pointed out that — if they genuinely wanted to adhere to the forms of law — Item #9 of their brief was not admissible as evidence by the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Item #9 of the Prima Facie case reads as follows:

John Heminges and Henry Condell state that the works in the First Folio were written by “so worthy a friend and fellow...as was our Shakespeare”.

It must be dropped from the brief or replaced with another description/claim that does satisfy those rules.

Foremost among the lessons is that ceaselessly throwing comments at a problem is in itself a favored debating tactic. What the comments said barely mattered. The key was that they come fast and furious and wield official sounding terminology and be sufficiently vague that there could be no definitive reply. A vague cloud of words cannot be answered. To try is to reply in kind.

If I may quote:

I claim that the item of evidence is a Dedication which appears over the names of Heminges and Condell. The document speaks for itself.

You are trying to introduce parol evidence (Ben Jonson wrote the Dedication) in an attempt to exclude the evidence, but you have yet to explain how such a fact would serve to de-authenticate a document which is exactly what it purports to be -- a Dedication over the names of Heminges and Condell.

Mark Johnson

Centuries of the finest Shakespeare scholars have agreed that Ben Jonson wrote some or all of the letters beneath which the names of Heminges and Condell are printed in typeface. This is consensus expert opinion. It cannot be said that “John Heminges and Henry Condell state” any particular thing in the letter, if anything at all. This disqualifies item #9 of the Oxfraudian Prima Facie case from being authenticated, thus from being admissible.

Furthermore, the phrase “The document speaks for itself.” is, at best, a rhetorical trope. It has no rational meaning. Worse still, “the document” is only inferred in item #9. The existence of the document(s) is not in question. Who wrote them is.

Number 9 states that H&C wrote a specific line in one of the letters. All we know, however, is that their names are printed in typeface at the bottom. The line could have been written by Jonson, or, given the fact that H&C are not the only authors (if they are authors of it at all), by some other third party.

The Evidence About Ancient Documents or Data Compilations section of the Federal Rules of Evidence requires the evidence to be “in a condition that creates no suspicion about its authenticity” in order to be admitted. Not only is there suspicion but there is, according to expert consensus, clear and strong evidence in the text of the letters that some considerable parts (at least) were written by Jonson.

This being said, Mr. Johnson goes to one of his signature moves.

No, actually, I have already used the Statute itself to show that your reading of it is incorrect. You are attempting to add in parol evidence and then contending that the parole evidence serves to exclude the item of evidence.

Mark Johnson

It may be a wider Oxfraudian trait as Mr. Buchan joined him in the attempt to wield the legal concept of “parol evidence”. Under no circumstances is expert opinion in a field (literary history, here) any kind of parol evidence. More damaging still, to Johnson and Buchan’s arguments, “parol evidence” is a specialized concept of contract and probate law only.

Elsewhere Johnson has picked-up on the phrase “extrinsic evidence” toward the same end. Again, it is solely a concept of contract and probate law. Again, expert opinion is not “extrinsic evidence”. As for his love of the argument that one thing or another is not “strictly within the four corners of the document”... again... solely a concept of contract and probate law.

Another more subtle legal misconception appears a little later.

The item of evidence purports to be a Dedication over the names of Heminges and Condell. How does Jonson being the author serve to de-authenticate it as evidence.

Mark Johnson

While the “item of evidence” described here is very different from Item #9 described in the Prima Facie brief, what disqualifies Mr. Johnson’s assertion far more is that the Respondent(s) are not at all required to “de-authenticate” an item presented as Prima Facie evidence. The Plaintiff is required to authenticate it. The onus is entirely on the Plaintiff.

What is least surprising of all, here, is the ultimate source of Oxfraudian certainty. Their confidence that the judge confirms their position comes not from their solid understanding of Prima Facie evidence and/or the law in general. Their perfect confidence here comes from fact that they have mastered the art of “judge shopping”. They have filed their brief in the District Court of Oxfraud! They are both plaintiff and judge! The judge’s decisions are final! The plaintiff's evidence and arguments, it turns out, are unassailable!

By-the-bye, should one attempt to avoid a certain fate by choosing a jury trial, they are also the jury. Their verdicts are unfailingly “guilty” and unfailingly unanimous.