You have to give Robert Halderman credit for trying. The former CBS producer who attempted to extort David Letterman was last seen putting forth a novel defense: Tiger Woods paid his mistresses to keep quiet about their affairs, so it shouldn’t be illegal for Halderman to ask Letterman for money to keep quiet about his affairs. Anyway, Halderman says, he wasn’t blackmailing Letterman, he was simply trying to sell him a screenplay. Judge Charles Solomon was having none of it, saying, “Since the defendant is not being prosecuted for authoring either a book or a screenplay, his constitutional right to free speech has not been impacted.†So on we go to a trial and Halderman gets to make his movie, even if it’s from a jail cell.