Several sex worker rights groups and supporters liveblogged Deborah Palfrey's appearance on 20/20 last night. One of the big topics was the so-called DC Madame's reliance on the media and bloggers to help her case. Her motives are simple: Palfrey doesn't think she should go down for the crimes of many hundreds of men, some of them quite rich and powerful. Without a pile of cash to fund the kind of legal discovery process required to make her case, she's chosen to release reams of her phone records (see clip above), asking ABC News and other investigators (like last night's liveblogging crew, perhaps?) to help find some men who can testify at her trial. What would they testify? That Palfrey sold only lawful "fantasy sex," not intercourse or oral sex.
It's a novel situation. Palfrey may spearhead the Web's first open source research on a criminal case. A good parallel example might be SCO case, which has had research support from the open source lawyer/developer community for years via Groklaw.
