Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: OldTCS
To us non-lawyer types, this is progress, right?

I am an appellate lawyer, and I can translate this into English:

The district court dismissed Berg's case. He asked the Supreme Court to hear his appeal immediately (instead of first going to the regional Court of Appeals, which is the usual procedure), and they said no. Berg then filed a brief with the Court of Appeals asking that court to reverse the trial court's dismissal.

At this point, the normal procedure would be for the defendants to file their brief, and the case would then go to a "merits panel" (a randomly-selected group of 3 judges of the Court of Appeals) which would read the briefs, hear oral argument from the lawyers if the judges wanted to (they can decide without argument if they want) and then render a decision (either affirming or reversing the trial court's order of dismissal).

But that didn't happen: instead, the FEC (one of the defendants) filed a motion for "summary affirmance." That is a request to the Court to immediately throw out the appeal because, in essence, the district court's dismissal is so obviously right that there's no point in even talking about it any more.

The docket sheet shows that the motion (and Berg's response to the motion) have been sent to a merits panel.

One of 2 things will now happen: either the panel will grant the motion, which means that Berg's case is over (although he could still ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider or ask the Supreme Court, again, to take the case up, though either of those things is discretionary with the courts); or the merits panel will deny the motion (which means that the defendants will file a brief and the case will go forward in the Court of Appeals as per the normal procedure.

87 posted on 02/03/2009 11:04:31 AM PST by Lurking Libertarian (Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]


To: Lurking Libertarian

Nice translation! Thanks :)


248 posted on 02/04/2009 1:39:29 AM PST by OldTCS (Confirmed, we now live in interesting times.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson