James

Aram B. James, an attorney employed by a county public defender’s office, sued a newspaper and one of its employees for libel. The employee, acting as a bylined columnist for the newspaper, had written, and the newspaper had printed, a column which named James in the context of a discussion of asserted violations of law by defense attorneys in criminal cases involving child victims. The defendants moved for summary judgment. The motion was granted and judgment was entered for the defendants. James appeals. We shall affirm the judgment.

The basic facts are not disputed.

James had been assigned to defend an individual accused of felonies, including attempted sexual molestation, allegedly committed against, three children.

In the course of trial preparation James asked a public defender’s investigator to subpoena the school records of the victims. His subsequently stated purpose was “[t]o determine whether there was any support for the theory that the children were fabricating the versions of the different incidents that they described to the police.” It appears that James authorized the investigator to sign, in James’s name, both the subpoenas duces tecum and affidavits…