"You have been mean and vicious in this court," Cave told Thomas at one point. "I warn you, and I warn you again--don't you raise your voice. I'm telling you. I mean what I say. There will be no more mean talk. You will behave."
Thomas, who can't find an attorney and has no legal right to a court-appointed one, appeared to have no clue what was happening, which makes the situation even worse, according to Venable, who can't advise him lest he be accused--as the district is arguing--that he's acting as a lawyer.
Thomas managed to avoid jail, but Cave granted the district's motion to temporarily enjoin Thomas from making any contact with district officials and ordered him not to set foot on district property. The judge is expected to rule on the district's motion to remove Venable from the case next month.
Whatever Venable's role in the case will be, Cave has a big question to answer in determining whether Thomas' use of the state's open-records law constitutes harassment. It is a question no one in Texas has ever been able to answer, says state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a Republican from San Antonio who led the Senate Interim Committee on Public Information, which examined the issue during several community forums that took place across the state last year.
"We haven't yet tried to define in the public information act what is and what isn't harassment," says Wentworth, who adds that there are too many possible scenarios of harassment for legislators to weigh. "We can't write legislation to try to anticipate them all. The judicial branch of government is where we as a society have decided those disputes should be resolved."
That puts the issue back to Cave and leaves him without much guidance. Rob Wiley, a Houston attorney and president of the Freedom of Information Foundation, says any "strict constructionist" Texas judge would be hard-pressed to justify ruling in the district's favor under state law.
"So many of these things become judgment calls, because what may be harassment to one person is somebody else's due diligence," Wiley says. "In a contest between a difficult requester and the public's right to know, the public's right to know ought to win."
Although Wiley has spoken with Thomas about his case, the foundation has not taken a position. Although he agrees that the district's suit could set a dangerous precedent, Wiley says the foundation usually does not get involved in a case until it reaches the appellate process.
In the meantime, Thomas says he has no desire to overburden the district. The problem, he says, is not that he's asking for too much information, but that the information he's asking for is too sensitive. "I'm just an average citizen who is trying to use the open-records act and is getting screwed in the process."
Additional reporting for this story was provided by Mark Donald.
