The jury believed Johnny Depp. After a six-week defamation trial that pitted Depp against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, a Virginia jury delivered a rare verdict: They awarded Depp $15 million in damages. The jury also said Depp's lawyer defamed Heard.

As the closing credits rolled on the courtroom lovers spat, a few things about this small screen drama are now clear. First, the vicious vitriol spewed between divorced spouses is wince-worthy enough when observed on a small scale, but it becomes downright detestable when played out on a world stage. Second, and perhaps less obvious, the trial drew back the curtain on the insecurities, vacuousness, and even nihilism that co-stars with many red-carpet celebrities.

As an on-air legal analyst for the Law and Crime Network, I've watched more of this trial than most Americans, but the trial was popular on social media with people reacting, choosing sides, and creating memes from the various courtroom antics. A car crash beckons rubberneckers, but so, too, does the collision of competing celebrity narratives.

From sordid accusations of infidelity to accounts of drug use that would make most libertines blush, the witness stand throbbed with tales of embarrassing excess and personal lives racked with dysfunction. (Who will ever forget Depp's accusation that Heard left feces in the marital bed?) The judge, ever calm and professional, did her best to keep the spectacle suitable to the setting, but she could only do so much amid six weeks of clashing over nearly every charge and countercharge. I've prosecuted rape cases with less contentiousness.

While there wasn't quite an army of attorneys on each side, there was a small platoon, some of whom will now metamorphose into that oddest of species, the celebrity lawyer. Little good can come of that; the enticing buzz of celebrity acclaim was the dark undercurrent enveloping the entire affair.

The English poet Lord Byron reminded us that "fame is the thirst of youth." After years of seeking to quench their respective yearnings by gulping deep of this well, Depp and Heard approached the litigation hungover from that bender. Their endeavor was equal parts tabloid saga and cautionary tale.

I imagine even these two might quietly acknowledge that the celebrity culture that has captured and consumed our country demeans people on both ends of the obsession. All too often, luminaries genuinely believe they're brilliant, which makes their lives ever darker when the reality of their own mediocrity becomes obvious.

This phenomenon isn't unique to the entertainment world. It also happens in both political parties. Choosing leaders of the world's greatest republic based on whoever ranks highest on the celebrity meter is enough to vex a founding father. We can do better.

Improving on this score starts with recognizing that, whether or not the TV camera adds pounds, it certainly subtracts context. In both politics and show business, those nearest to the famous see the flaws most clearly. And unless they're called into court to testify, they keep it to themselves. After all, the closer one gets to a star, the more obvious it becomes that celebrity is nothing more than a chaotic ball of gas.

It would be reductive to describe this trial as a verdict on domestic violence. While that's a loathsome crime that brings about physical injuries, this was a civil trial over alleged reputational injuries. Money damages were the only possible remedy. But, although Depp essentially won the day, a judicially enforced eight figure Venmo transfer wasn't the ultimate goal here. Depp sought to impeach the credibility of his accuser, and he seems to have succeeded.

Despite the smorgasbord of sordidness on display in this case, I still find myself asking for grace for both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. We're all far from perfect, but we can accurately call these two famously broken. Even megalomaniac multi-millionaires suffering the predictable woes of a dissolute lifestyle are worthy of some scant measure of sympathy. Most Americans lead lives with less drama and more happiness. We can spare a little compassion.

In the end, this trial reminds us that, like entering the "eat the most wings with nuclear hot sauce challenge," notoriety is much sought after and, once achieved, much lamented. We don't need a director to yell "cut" to see that this chaotic scene is over.

Today’s examples of actual censorship – Twitter blocking accounts, Facebook suspending pages, or Amazon removing an entire platform, Parler, from its cloud hosting servers – portends grave danger on our societal horizon. That people applaud these constrictions of speech in the name of their personal political ideology is at least disappointing in its ignorance, and at worst dangerous in its short-sightedness.

The First Amendment protects citizens from government infringement upon their free speech rights. It’s up to the rest of us to stand up and call out other breaches of free speech, so let me do just that: Limiting speech and allowing any entity – from the government, a private company, or a neighbor – to decide what speech is acceptable and what should be censored is Soviet-style culture. 

Remember that the the phrase, "politically correct" started as an unironic description of how a resident in post-revolutionary Russia could survive under the regime. And what of those who found it difficult to be politically correct? They and their families were simply disappeared.

Limiting speech, even that which one might find particularly offensive, moves us towards totalitarianism. Its advocates will be very surprised when the figurative cannon of censorship is turned upon them, followed quickly behind by the literal cannons of dictatorship.

With Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon taking action against conservatives, it’s liberals who are quick to point out that these are corporations who get to make their own rules. That’s debatable given both their status as publicly-traded companies and their fundamental role as publishers of content on the internet. What if FedEx or UPS (Or Amazon!) decided to stop delivering to homes with those "this house believes" signs? Under that scenario, we’ll see liberals quickly adding free speech to their list of things about which to be "woke."

You might argue that social media is frivolous compared to the tangible service of delivering packages, but you’d probably do your arguing on Facebook or Twitter, which indicates these platform’s important places in our lives (whether we like it or not). Furthermore, let’s not forget that the liberal’s current mantra, "private companies can serve who they want," also served as a 1960s rallying cry for segregated lunch counters.

The giddiness shown by some about such censorship illustrates a certain lack of vision. I’m reminded of Democratic Sen. Harry Reid doing away with the 60-vote threshold on presidential nominations before the U.S. Senate. Reid’s followers were thrilled by that in the moment, but they weren’t so happy when Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell used it to affirm three U.S. Supreme Court justices and nearly 250 total judges.

It can happen to you.

Here’s the worst part: censorship cannot achieve the goals of those seeking it. Stopping someone from expressing an opinion, doesn’t stop them from holding that opinion. It does make them angrier and more entrenched in their belief. It pushes people to the fringes, makes them more extreme, and causes them to seek out disruptive leaders. Disruptors like Donald Trump. 

An open and free expression of ideas is the very thing that leads us to solutions acceptable to the largest number of people. That’s not just true during debates in the halls of Congress, it’s true even on Twitter, Facebook and Parler. Limiting speech and giving voice to only one side causes suspicion and dug-in opposition.

Allowing companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon to decide what ideas they’ll allow isn’t a solution. And the genie won’t be put back inside its bottle after Trump leaves office. In fact, like toddlers learning to walk and talk, the Technocrats are just starting to test their boundaries. That the road to sharing ideas goes through the Silicon Valley campuses of our tech overlords should scare you to death.

As we lament society becoming more and more fragmented, some are staring the leading cause of fragmentation in the face and actively cheering it on. Parler built a platform because of liberal-approved Twitter and Facebook censorship. Fox News exists because the press was seen as not giving conservative ideas a fair shake. This didn’t start in 2016, but it has certainly accelerated exponentially since.

Here’s the thing: free speech is either free or it isn’t. Seems simple enough, but people’s action today proves the need for a reminder. There’s no middle ground. It’s not "speech my segment of society agrees with is free." Speech isn’t subject to that great democratic principle of majority rule. Fifty-one percent of the people don’t get to decide that some speech isn’t free. All speech is free speech, 100% of the time. That’s the only way it can work – speech must be immune to cultural attack. 

The solution is what we did for 240 years. If one disagrees or deems something hateful, don’t invite those people into your house. Change the channel. Express your own view about how wrong the offender is. Cancel your subscription. And, as it relates specifically here, unfollow, unlike, or delete your account. Your account. Not theirs.

Celebrate free speech, don’t limit it. One path may lead to uncomfortable disagreement, but the other path leads to Soviet-style despotism. We must all be on the same path. If Big Tech companies want to act like toddlers pushing boundaries, we must respond in kind – sticks and stones may break my bones, but free speech will never hurt me.

Speaking to crisis communications expert and political consultant Mark Weaver, Hannah News asked, "Is it a matter of choosing the right words, or is it expressing them in a smooth and confident manner?"

"I would say resonance, right? That's probably the word I would look for," he replied.

Having previously worked as a political advisor in 28 states, a prosecuting attorney, and a professor at the University of Akron and the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, Weaver now dedicates the majority of his time to leading his crisis communications firm Communications Counsel, where he offers advice to legal teams, businesses, politicians and organizations on how to defend themselves in the public sphere when they are facing potential damage to their reputations.

"Almost all of our work in crisis communications involves an individual or an organization who has a reputational risk like a lawsuit, like a workplace incident, or like some government action that's about to undermine their success as an organization. …

"I tell all my clients that if you lose in the court of law, you have a few appeals, but if you lose in the court of public opinion, there are probably no appeals, and there's a lot more judges. Yeah, there are a lot more judges."

He continued, "Sometimes it's false allegations against a person. That was the case with this client I dealt with yesterday and essentially wrapped up the work for them, where somebody had falsely accused a business owner of saying something racist on the Internet. That did not happen, but the Internet said it did, so we had to help that professional, it was a medical professional, through his work of convincing his patients and others that he was not involved with this.

"Other times it might be a corporation or an organization that's been sued, and the other side is out in the press saying things about the lawsuit, and our client might not know what to say. … They need someone who understands the court of public opinion, and that's us. So there's several law firms in Ohio that will bring us in to advise them not on how to try the case in the court of law -- that's what they're doing -- but on how to defend the matter in the court of public opinion," he said.

Weaver's clients as a campaign consultant in Ohio have included Gov. Mike DeWine, during DeWine's 2010 run for attorney general, as well as U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), and former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery.

"Betty Montgomery, I helped win that race as the first woman attorney general in Ohio," Weaver said.

After working on Montgomery's campaign, she asked Weaver to move to Ohio to work as deputy attorney general for the state.

"So we did. We moved to Ohio. We became Ohioans, and I served as the deputy attorney general for five years helping manage the office, helping manage communications. I did some litigation in the area of public records, the death penalty, a wide variety of things, but mostly helping her with the running of the office."

Other clients have included Mount Carmel Health Systems, where Weaver spearheaded communications for the hospital in its handling of a doctor who in 2019 was charged with killing more than 30 people with overdoses of fentanyl. "He's now on trial for the biggest mass murder case in Central Ohio history," Weaver said.

Growing up outside Philadelphia, Weaver was involved with high-profile, high-stakes communications from the beginning of his career, with one of his first jobs being communications director for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives while attending graduate school at night at Kutztown University. While later studying at the Delaware Law School of Widener University, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, where he said he briefed the national press corps on a variety of national justice department matters daily. This led to a career in political consulting in Washington D.C., where he advised U.S. senators and representatives on media issues, produced television commercials for them, wrote speeches, and helped with crisis communications.

Though Weaver indicated he has no intentions of running for office himself, he said he enjoys helping people through high-profile crises.

"I've always had a lot of energy," he said.

Over the past several months, Weaver has focused his work on crisis communications, both with his firm and in a virtual speaking tour, where he's been conducting webinars on effective crisis communications amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as crisis communications surrounding recent protests following the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of police.

He outlined four key factors on how to craft a message in a crisis, saying, "The first one is to listen, because you won't be able to compose your message unless you know what your stakeholders are thinking. The second one is to act quickly, because in a crisis, things are moving so fast, the information is going to be put out there so quickly, and you need to keep up with that information flow. The third one is to tell the truth, because we always want to be truthful and give our facts. And then the fourth one is to do the right thing. Doing the right thing differs depending on the situation. But the reason I stress that as the fourth one is, you could have the best messaging in the world, but if the information you're providing is the wrong thing to do, it will not resonate with your stakeholders. So having a well-worded statement or perfectly produced video, and choosing the right list for distribution, and having the right messenger give the message -- those things can all be right on target. But if what you're saying and doing is not the right thing for your stakeholders, then your crisis communications effort will fail."

Regarding recent protests, Weaver said that the most effective messaging is tailored with an organization's stakeholders in mind.

"People who are not nuanced or particularly knowledgeable about the area of crisis communications might think, well, 'Whatever the protestors are asking for is what you should say you should do.' … An organization needs to discern who its stakeholders are, what the best thing for the largest part of those stakeholders is, and then start messaging behind that initiative. And sometimes that will be what the protestors are asking for, and sometimes that won't be what the protestors are asking for, because it depends on who's protesting and whether they represent the interests and the concerns of the majority of the stakeholders."

Earlier in his career as a campaign manager, Weaver produced television and radio ads for candidates and advised candidates on messaging, speaking and effective social media communications.

"When we did Mike DeWine's race for attorney general in 2010, Mike DeWine was a brand name in Ohio politics; people knew who he was," Weaver said. "He had been defeated for the Senate in 2006 by Sherrod Brown. And so messaging for Mike DeWine involved reacquainting Ohioans with the legal background of Mike DeWine. He had started his career as a prosecutor in Greene County, but most Ohioans remembered him from his service in Congress. So in that case, it wasn't getting Mike DeWine known, it was reacquainting Ohioans with his work as a prosecutor, which helped him get elected attorney general."

Weaver acknowledged a heightened level of vitriol in the political sphere in recent years, but he said the best political messaging is not nasty.

 As an example of his style of messaging, Weaver pointed toward a radio ad he wrote for Westrup's primary race in 2012 against incumbent Jean Schmidt, who is now running for Ohio House District 65, that Weaver said helped secure Wenstrup's congressional seat, which he still holds today.

He said the ad highlighted Schmidt's sitting on the edge of the aisle of the House of Representatives prior to the 2010 State of the Union address and kissing the cheek of President Barack Obama, who in 2010 was extremely unpopular among Republicans.

"So we made a radio ad that was kind of lighthearted about it -- that she'd given this little kiss on the cheek as a way of indicating that she was sort of friendly to his agenda. And that was our major political media expenditure in 2012. We did very little else. We had almost no money, and we defeated her. Largely because Brad's a great candidate and had a great set of credentials, but that particular ad cut through the clutter, and people understood that she had gone Washington, that she had lost her way. She was no longer really fighting in the trenches for Southwest Ohio; she'd become part of the beltway. And that ad was not unethical, it was not illegal, it was funny, it was appropriate, it was true, and it resonated with Republican primary voters in Southwest Ohio. They elected Brad Wenstrup in her place, and he's been there ever since."

When asked whether current divides within political parties present challenges, Weaver acknowledged that both parties have fissures.

"Our friends the Democrats are torn by hard-left radicals who hate America on the far edge of their party and more mainstream Democrats who are more traditionally liberal. That's their fissure. Our fissure right now is really surrounding the president. You know, 90 percent of our party supports this president, and 10 percent doesn't, and the 10 percent that doesn't is very vocal, and our former Gov. John Kasich would be in that camp."

When asked about how effective policymaking can be accomplished with intra- and inter-party divides, Weaver urged the rejection of a "win-at-any-cost" mentality.

"There is a professional way of doing things. I've mentored a lot of political operatives in my career, and what I tell younger operatives is: your reputation matters, and you will run into the same people over and over again throughout your career. So, starting out on the wrong foot, where you're going to do something unethical or illegal, or maybe go too hard against somebody who doesn't deserve that hard of a hit against them, that will come back and undermine your ability to be effective later.

"If we started with that premise, we get some progress in the tenor of politics in modern America. Sadly, each party is so driven by its extremes, that when they come together to legislate, neither side is willing to compromise much, and this has been building for years. This is not unique to the last few years."

He went on to comment on the declining power of political parties in favor of increasingly self-driven legislators.

"Party leaders of days gone by often spoke to one another, and had great backchannel working relationships with one another, and could find a way to get things done. With the party's influence on the downtrend, we're seeing each candidate work independently of any party and win, and that often lends itself to legislatures full of people who feel they don't have an allegiance to anybody except whatever their personal political agenda is. …

"Our founders designed our American political system so that we can only get things done if we are willing to compromise. When someone criticizes legislative gridlock as if that's a problem, that person fails to recognize that gridlock is a feature of the system built in on purpose. The only legislation that should get passed is that which can garner broad support. So if legislators, whether we're talking in the state legislature or in Congress, want to get something done, they're going to have to reach across the aisle and get enough votes to pass something with votes from both sides. And if you simply wait on getting the majority and only do what your party wants, that works for a short while until the other party gets the majority and does the same thing. So legislative gridlock is actually a reminder to us that the legislation offered needs to have broad support in order to get policy done."

On national politics, Weaver said the nation's current state of crisis lends support to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, despite Biden's being a "weak" candidate on several fronts.

"Someone who's been in and around federal government since 1972 is not a particularly strong voice for change in a country that wants change. And his abilities as a candidate have diminished over the decades. As somebody who has watched Joe Biden from afar throughout my career, there was a time when he was a skilled orator and could make a strong political message. He has lost that ability. If and when the spotlight moves to Biden's diminished capacity as a political messenger and his very dubious record on a variety of issues, then we will see advantage Trump. Right now, because America is torn apart by pandemic and protests, the focus is squarely on the president, which means, until things change, it's advantage Biden."

He emphasized that he is not an advisor for President Trump, but he said White House press corps coverage of Trump has been extremely critical.

"I've never seen anything quite like it. It's not to say he doesn't deserve scrutiny, of course he does, and it's not to say he hasn't made mistakes, he certainly has. It's -- some of the media coverage out of Washington about this president is so breathless and over-the-top that it feels like it was written by the Democratic National Committee. And although that in the short run is a problem for Donald Trump, the curtain has been drawn back for many voters as to the biases of the press in a way that has sadly made the media not trustworthy to folks. And so their ability to bring to their readers and viewers a story about this president has been hamstrung by their eagerness to trip him up. As a result, people are seeking information elsewhere. That's one of the reasons why social media is such an important force in modern politics."

But Trump has meanwhile been assisting his critics by not being careful with his messaging, Weaver said.

"We call this 'lack of message discipline.' We prefer our candidates to have message discipline, which means you identify which messages are the most important ones for your target voters to hear about and you try to talk about those messages. I don't know that Joe Biden is any better at that, but we'll see. Right now the president needs to get back on message and be disciplined about how he's on message, and that will be important if he wants to win reelection."

At the time of this interview, Weaver was on a writing retreat in New Zealand, where he was working on his second book, a novel. When asked what's next for him, he said he would continue speaking about crisis communications and about his first book, "A Wordsmith's Work," a guide for persuasive writing. And he will continue working with Communications Counsel, where, despite lauding his staff, he says he still plays an active role.

"The ones that are the most difficult puzzles to solve tend to come to me. And so, we plan on doing this. We have fun doing it, we work with good people, and we enjoy helping folks who are trying to defend their reputation in the court of public opinion."

Story originally published in The Hannah Report on August 24, 2020.  Copyright 2020 Hannah News Service, Inc. 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — City Hall is “all a Twitter” about tweets from Columbus Police Deputy Chief Ken Kuebler. In fact, they are spending big bucks on a law firm to investigate the officer.

The City of Columbus allocated up to $500,000 for law firm Baker-Hostetler to investigate police actions during the riots.

Now there is a new $50,000 contract for the same law firm to investigate Kuebler, whose personal Twitter account is @kenkeebs.

We asked the safety department, since they have lawyers on staff, why they don’t use them to determine if Kuebler has violated any policies. We did not get an answer so we sought the counsel of Columbus-based attorney Mark Weaver. Weaver has a statewide reputation in media law, social media, and First Amendment practice.

“It seems like a lot of money for what should not be such a big task," said Weaver. "These are fair questions for taxpayers to ask. Government employees do have First Amendment rights and the ability of the employer, the government, in this case, to reach out and discipline an employee for what he or she does on their own time is very seriously limited.”

Kuebler tweeted “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”

He also wrote, “It has come to my attention that some people got a case of the hurt feels because of the things I’ve said on Twitter.”

Kuebler tackled controversial topics like COVID-19 and masks, back to school in the pandemic, and is critical of mayors, city council, and governors.

“You don’t check your entire First Amendment rights at the door when you go work for government,” said Weaver. “I tell elected officials to be very careful about how you try to quash the First Amendment rights of critics. There is a strong history of law that says that people have the right to criticize city government and in many cases that includes city employees."

Kuebler declined an on-camera comment. In a statement released by CPD he said, “my social media and my employment are not connected.”

Weaver said the laws around these topics are still developing, but he thinks an old concept applies.

“The speech that most aggravates us deserves the greatest amount of First Amendment protection.”

On Sundays, in churches across the United States, people turn their focus to ministers of the gospel, whom they trust to do what's right. On other days, in the local courthouse, county residents have similar expectations of a different kind of minister—the district attorney.

In Georgia and every other state, district attorneys are governed by ethics rules that identify them as "ministers of justice." While their enterprise is secular, we still rely on them to walk their talk. When they fail to do so, our faith in the legal system is shaken.

These ethics rules apply in the Rayshard Brooks shooting case. Some may cheer the speed with which District Attorney Paul Howard brought charges. Others may wonder why he didn't wait for the results of the independent investigators at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or bring the matter in front of the citizens who comprise the grand jury.

No matter which of these positions one holds, we can all agree that the district attorney ought to take great care to do his work properly. Yet, in at least three instances, Mr. Howard appears to have already violated state ethics rules.

One ethical rule requires prosecutors to refrain from making public statements that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the person accused. This doesn't mean prosecutors can't announce and describe criminal charges, but it does mean they must be particularly cautious, in outlining the facts, to avoid igniting animus against the defendants with the public and potential jurors. By showing crime scene photos and detailing alleged admissions from the officers—before any judge has ruled such evidence allowable in court—Mr. Howard violated this rule at his news conference.

Similarly, legal ethics regulations require prosecutors announcing charges to specify in their press statements that all defendants are presumed innocent. The rule literally prohibits public announcement of criminal charges "unless there is included therein a statement explaining that the charge is merely an accusation and that the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty."

For two decades, I taught a law school course on what lawyers and prosecutors can ethically say to the press. We covered this basic concept in the first few weeks. But the full video of Mr. Howard's news conference shows that he didn't comply with this rule.

The district attorney also claimed that officer Devin Brosnan will testify against former officer Garrett Rolfe. Even when confronted by a reporter with a denial by Brosnan's attorney, Mr. Howard doubled down. Telling potential jurors watching at home that one defendant is about to cooperate and testify against another defendant is almost a textbook violation of the rule that lawyers can't make press statements that have a substantial likelihood of material prejudice. Imagine if officer Brosnan doesn't testify, either at his trial or the Rolfe trial. Jurors who heard Mr. Howard's declaration will understandably wonder what happened, and such confusion could undermine their deliberations.

District attorneys are elected, so the substructure of politics is constantly underneath them. This is why prosecution decisions made just weeks away from an election must be undertaken with prudence. This case could have been handled by an outside special prosecutor, who would act without the taint of political calculus. Such judiciousness would enhance the credibility of the prosecution effort and send a message of gravitas to the 12 jurors in the court of law—as well as the millions of judges in the court of public opinion.

I've served as special prosecutor in several cases, and my work was aided by the fact that I didn't have to worry about voters or campaign donors questioning my judgment. Given that Mr. Howard is embroiled in a runoff campaign against an aggressive challenger, it's fair to inquire if his haste in bringing charges was fueled by politics rather than justice.

In 2006, a prosecutor in Durham, North Carolina faced a similar debacle. Fearing a looming election defeat, he acted impulsively and violated ethics rules in charging Duke University lacrosse players with rape. His overblown press conference and subsequent media circus ran afoul of the legal rules. All charges were later dismissed.

As a prosecutor, I've spoken to the press on many occasions. And early in my career, when I was the spokesman for federal prosecutors who were bringing police brutality charges, I briefed countless media outlets. Yet, in each press encounter, I reminded myself of the special duty prosecutors have to be circumspect in commenting.

These rules aren't optional. Violations can lead to disbarment. In fact, the prosecutor who acted unethically in the Duke lacrosse case was both disbarred and sent to jail.

The charges in the Brooks shooting are serious. Yet, in order to ensure justice for the defendants and the Brooks family, prosecutors have an obligation to bring their case properly. Indeed, those who want to see these officers convicted ought to insist that Mr. Howard scrupulously avoid missteps at the beginning of his prosecution, lest they lead to a dismissal, mistrial or overturned verdict.

We trust our ministers of faith to meet a higher standard and be guided by higher principles. They must be held accountable when they fall short. District Attorney Howard, a minister of justice, should be held to that same high standard.

Mark R. Weaver is a prosecutor in Ohio and communications consultant who previously served as spokesman for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. He is the author of the book A Wordsmith's Work. Twitter: @MarkRWeaver.