Talk:Thiruvendran Vignarajah

A reminder that WP:BLP applies to living people other than the subject of the article

In particular, a contributor to this article persists in deleting the reasons to doubt the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Wikipedia should remain neutral with regard to Syed. You can say that he was convicted of murder, which he was. But you can't do so without explaining why the integrity of the conviction cannot be trusted. Otherwise, people reading the article may assume that, because he was convicted of the murder, he actually committed it. That's a violation of fundamental fairness, and the fact that the State of Maryland appears to be unable to grasp this basic point, or to investigate the plentiful public domain evidence pointing to the actual killer, is no reason for Wikipedia to fail to do so. I would only add that a truly neutral discussion of this issue would go into more detail about the conviction, not less.Adoring nanny (talk) 17:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you are right that Wikipedia should be neutral with regard to Syed, but that is best handled on the page for Syed. Much of the information on Vignarajah's page under the Syed case had to do with choices made at the trial level, which Vignarajah was not a party to. Further, there was one article cited from the Guardian regarding what hosts from Undisclosed uncovered, the article clearly states that the three hosts "have dug up a lot of interesting anecdotes and made several interesting hypotheses, but so far they have no facts." Therefore, the source did not support the text on the wiki page and was removed. --MummyHands (talk) 19:45, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

You still have to maintain fundamental fairness, as described above, at the level of each article.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:11, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I see that you added everything back in, which still conflates two separate topics and uses sources incorrectly, which does nothing to maintain fundamental fairness. MummyHands (talk) 11:56, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

"Different topics"? No, the article has to maintain fundamental fairness with regard to Syed. We can't write the article without saying that Syed was convicted of murder; therefore, we also can't write the article without giving the reasons the conviction cannot be trusted. Despite my sreversion of User:MummyHands, I am actually open to different ways of demonstrating this. Perhaps User:MummyHands would like to suggest one. The only requirement is that the reader needs to come away understanding the reasons the conviction can't be trusted.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

That is sufficiently handled by saying that Syed was granted a retrial by the appellate court. It requires a sentence, not multiple paragraphs about actions not taken by the subject of the wiki page. Those paragraphs are best served on the Syed page. MummyHands (talk) 20:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that would be sufficiently convincing to the reader. The problem here is that Vignaragah said, of Syed, "He did it, and the State proved it." The reader deserves to know whether or not that's true, especially the first part. But, as User:MummyHands confirmed above, that conviction was based on coached testimony. It is obviously of great interest to the reader whether Vignaragah is fighting to keep an actual murderer in prison, or fighting to preserve a wrongful conviction. It's especially interesting that Vignaragah has continued to fight to preserve the conviction, after the information proving its wrongfulness was public. That's something the reader would want to know, obviously biographical information, and critical character evidence regarding Vignaragah.

That said, I'm actually encouraged by the mention by User:MummyHands below of fundamental fairness. How could fundamental fairness be achieved for Syed, Lee, and the actual killer? [1]Adoring nanny (talk) 22:25, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

The line saying "He did it, and the State proved it." doesn't need to be there either. At the end of the day all it needs to say is: "Vignarajah is the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeal of Adnan Syed, who was granted a new trial in 2018." Everything else is extraneous both to this page and is meant as a knock to Vignarajah's credibility, even though many of the actions derided in the current section were not made by Vignarajah, but by attorneys handling the original trial.MummyHands (talk) 14:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

How so? I'd have thought it was an attempt to discredit Syed. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:51, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter why it was said. The point is that to make the page neutral for Vignarajah, Syed, and everyone else, can we agree to: "Vignarajah is the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeal of Adnan Syed, who was granted a new trial in 2018."? And just dump everything else?MummyHands (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The issue that doesn't grapple with is that there is public, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence that Syed didn't do it, and was at the time of both the 2016 hearing and the 2017-18 appeal. We can't leave the reader with a different impression. The above summary doesn't say that, and is therefore grossly unfair to Syed, and also sweeps Vignaragah's actions against the interests of justice under the rug.Adoring nanny (talk) 22:50, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

That isn't wikipedia's role, what you are talking about gets resolved in the courts. As far as the facts are concerned, the court overruled Syed's conviction because of ineffective assistance of Syed's counsel, not for any of the reasons you keep citing. Wikipedia should stay to the facts and not meander through theories and conjecture, which is what your added language does. Updated for the recent filing, the section should read: "Vignarajah is the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeal of Adnan Syed, who was granted a new trial in 2018. Vignarajah appealed to the state's highest court in May 2018."MummyHands (talk) 17:04, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, that's just not true, for reasons I already explained in my post of April 2.Adoring nanny (talk) 03:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Additionally, Wikipedia is reflecting the sources, from both the left and the right, which are united in giving detailed and specific descriptions of what Vignaragah has done.Adoring nanny (talk) 00:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Relitigating the details of the Hae Min Lee murder case does not belong in a lawyer's biography. It is enough to state that concerns about the conviction were raised and answered by the subject. If one wishes to go into the weeds on the case, there is a wikipedia page specifically about the murder.

Cynistrategus (talk) 05:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Plenty of WP:RS have gone into detail about the article's subject in relation to the case.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

This is an article about the attorney, not a case that he tried. Cynistrategus (talk) 06:58, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Please see my comments below. Grayfell (talk) 07:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

What is "contentious" or "poorly sourced"

"Contentious" or "poorly sourced" does not merely refer to material that one doesn't like. In this case, there are four sources for the undercover video, including a national source (the Daily Caller), which obviously is not poor sourcing. And the DC says, right up in its headline, "Maryland Deputy AG Spills Secrets in meeting with undercover O'Keefe Reporter." The fact that one may not like this doesn't change the reality of it -- see WP:IDONTLIKEIT. And Wikipedia needs WP:RS for a fact, not an administrative proceeding. If there were an admin proceeding, we could in addition say that "Vignaragah was found by Maryland to have . . ." But there is no such proceeding, so we say exactly what the source says.Adoring nanny (talk) 23:59, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

In looking at the Wikipedia Reliable Sources Noticeboard, the Daily Caller is not considered a reliable source, both for its hyper partisanship (contentious), reliability on anonymous sources and it's willingness to pay people to make accusations (poorly sourced). Therefore, I don't see how this source can be used and maintain the neutrality of the page.MummyHands (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

You may be confusing the opinions of individual editors with that of the noticeboard.Adoring nanny (talk) 13:12, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Wiki rules on BLP: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." It goes on to say that, "Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy." None of the discussion using O'Keefe, Veritas or Daily Caller meet these standards. Further, many of the claims in the Syed section also transgress these rules and values of a BLP page. MummyHands (talk) 11:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, you are wrong. See WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

This is not based on a personal belief as described on the I Don't Like It page. That page does state "In Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Veritas and O'Keefe and the Daily Caller have all been discredited and deemed unreliable by either being misleading, selective editing that makes a subject say something they didn't, made things up, and paid people to lie as sources for partisan reasons. At the same time, the things sourced from WBAL have been kept in because they are from an actual news organization. MummyHands (talk) 20:42, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

So, we agree? These three sources are not reliable?MummyHands (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The source here is the DC. And it's WP:RS. It's the same with Media Matters. Obviously partisan, but also an RS. That's the way it is, Wikipedia-wide.Adoring nanny (talk) 22:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

While I disagree, even if you are correct and these are reliable sources, they propose information that includes libel and slander. That is undeniably against wiki rules, especially regarding living persons.MummyHands (talk) 17:04, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I have no personal connection to, or knowledge of, anything the sources say. I assume the Daily Caller, which has a policy of issuing corrections when it makes a mistake, has it right. If your situation is different, you might try asking them to make one. At that point, the article could reflect it.Adoring nanny (talk) 04:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Oh wow. This whole thing is a train-wreck. This is the place to discuss Thiruvendran Vignarajah not Adnan Syed. This is not the place to re-litigate facts of this one murder case. Nowhere on Wikipedia is the place to litigate facts of a case. This isn't the court of public opinion, this is a Wikipedia article about one lawyer who was involved in a high profile case.

I... Don't even know where to start. Just one basic, important rule of thumb is that every source should mention Thiruvendran Vignarajah by name, and all content derived from those sources should explain why this relates to Thiruvendran Vignarajah. A passing mention should not be used as an excuse to subtly imply facts which are not obviously related to this specific biography. Does that make sense? This is not the place to right great wrongs.

For the record, the Daily Caller is not a high-quality reliable source. It has a poor reputation for accuracy and fact checking among its pears, which include other right wing (or far-right) outlets. It has a documented history of publishing factually incorrect information and of conflating opinions with journalism. It sometimes issues retractions and corrections, but not often enough compared to how many questionable articles it has published.

Again, it's hard to know where to start, but perhaps WP:BLPN would be the next step. Grayfell (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Thiruvendran Vignarajah .jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:52, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Thiruvendran Vignarajah .jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:36, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Need more eyes at Murder of Hae Min Lee

Widely-read page desperately needs more watchers.Adoring nanny (talk) 11:33, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 April 2022

In short description:

Thiruvendran (commonly Thiru) Vignarajah (born December 18, 1976) is an American lawyer, CEO, and politician.

He was previously the Deputy Attorney General of Maryland. He is currently the CEO of a community development financial institution and was previously a litigation partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Baltimore, President of the Harvard Law Review, and a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer. He was also the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeals of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of the high-profile 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee.

In Legal Career:

After law school, Vignarajah clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi, a federal appellate judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and for Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2006 to 2007.[9]

Following his clerkships, Vignarajah practiced at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., before serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, under Rod J. Rosenstein, and then as Chief of the Major Investigations Unit at the State's Attorney's Office for Baltimore City.[6] In 2015, Vignarajah was named Deputy Attorney General for the State of Maryland.[1][17]

As Deputy Attorney General, Vignarajah was the lead author of statewide guidelines issued by the Maryland Attorney General to end discriminatory profiling by police, making Maryland the first state to answer former Attorney General Eric Holder’s call for states to issue guidelines on profiling.[18][19][20]

As a prosecutor, Vignarajah handled a number of notable cases in Maryland [21][22] and in February 2022, he was appointed as the Special Prosecutor to handle a murder case in Dorchester County, Maryland. (https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/baltimore-attorney-appointed-special-prosecutor-in-murder-case-in-dorchester-county)

Vignarajah has taught constitutional law, administrative law, and law and education as a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Law[7]; he has also taught courses on crime policy at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland.[27]

Create new section: Notable cases

Murder of Hae Min Lee

Main article: Murder of Hae Min Lee The first season of the podcast Serial focused attention on the 1999 murder of Baltimore teen Hae Min Lee. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was convicted of her murder in 2000. As Maryland’s deputy attorney general, Vignarajah handled the post-conviction litigation and successfully defended the conviction. On March 8, 2019, Maryland’s highest court rejected Syed’s legal challenges and upheld his conviction. [31]

Murder of Sean Johnson

Vignarajah was responsible for prosecuting two alleged members of the Black Guerrilla Family who killed a 12-year-old boy and shot three other teenagers.[25][26] Both men were convicted of murder and sentenced to life sentences. The murder and triple shooting got widespread media attention because of the age of the victims who were unconnected to the feud that led to the crime (https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-sean-johnson-trial-20140316-story.html)

Murder of Constantine “Dino” Frank

Vignarajah prosecuted in federal court the alleged mastermind of a series of armed robberies that resulted in the murder of Constantine “Dino” Frank, a Greek businessman in Baltimore.[23] The crew led by Nikolaos Mamalis allegedly targeted business owners, often at their home or place of business. During the first robbery, Frank was left bound and later found dead in what was ruled a homicide. In two subsequent robberies, the victims were restrained at gunpoint but survived. Mamalis was convicted of federal charges and sentenced to 77 years in prison. Four other conspirators pleaded guilty in the case. (https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-mamalis-sentencing-20110617-story.html)

Prosecution of Arsonist

Vignarajah was responsible for prosecuting a former nonprofit board director who allegedly set a row home on fire with his mistress and her five-year-old son sleeping inside.[24] The defendant Randall Martin was a Baltimore County businessman who allegedly placed the victim and her son in apartments owned by the nonprofit, moving them to avoid suspicion.( http://data.baltimoresun.com/lifeline/) Martin was convicted at trial of ten counts including first degree arson and sentenced in 2013 to 50 years in prison.( https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-xpm-2012-11-08-bs-md-ci-fire-conviction-20121108-story.html)

The case reentered the spotlight in 2022 because of the contrast with another defendant, Luther Trent, who was charged in a similar case after allegedly setting fire to his ex-girlfriend’s home with her and two roommmates sleeping inside. Trent was charged with arson and three counts of attempted murder but less than six months later was given a plea deal that sent him home over the victims’ objections. Vignarajah represented the victims and convinced the trial court to throw out the plea deal because of a violation of the victims’ rights. (https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/victims-to-seek-25-years-in-prison-for-arsonist-after-plea-deal-tossed-out-during-hearing) Trent was taken into custody and is pending trial, with prosecutors now offering him a sentence of more than 20 years in prison. (https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-luther-trent-plea-20220218-jrlwaoxfyralvdvjy4jxomigtu-story.html)

Create new section "Controversies" and remove section "Police stop": Controversies [section heading]

Project Veritas video [subheading]

While serving as Deputy Attorney General of Maryland, Vignarajah was covertly filmed by conservative political activist James O'Keefe for his organization, Project Veritas. Project Veritas falsely claimed Vignarajah had shared confidential information with one of their undercover reporters. The Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh refuted the claim and said that “No protected or confidential information was revealed in any discussions.”[32][33]

Police Stop [subheading]

In September 2019, Vignarajah was pulled over and learned he had suspended tags because of a failure to mail in receipt of a repair order for a broken taillight. Opponents criticized his conduct during the traffic stop, including a request at the end of the hour-long traffic stop to turn off one officer’s body camera, as well as the decision by police to let Vignarajah drive home after confirming that the taillight had in fact been repaired. (https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-luther-trent-plea-20220218-jrlwaoxfyralvdvjy4jxomigtu-story.html) Wcedmonds (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

This request is excessive in length. Split into more concise requests if you want someone to review at it substantively. Keep in mind WP:VOLUNTARY. Folks are unlikely to review requests that amount to a WP:TEXTWALL which combines a host of proposed additions. El_C 12:45, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 December 2022

Change “He has also been the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeals of Adnan Syed, who was controversially convicted of murder in the high-profile 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee.[2][3][4][5]” to “He has also been the lead attorney for the State of Maryland in the post-conviction appeals of Adnan Syed, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in the high-profile 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee.[2][3][4][5].” A source that can be added is: https://innocenceproject.org/statement-adnan-syeds-conviction-is-vacated/“ Thank you very much! Anoosha24 (talk) 01:41, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done, but with a different ref, to avoid WP:SYNTH. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:02, 14 December 2022 (UTC)