Well, that was interesting.
When addressing standing the Lady Judge said, I think of an ordinary citizen's ability to gain it, "Unfortunately, that's not the law." I'm not sure standing is actually law. I think it's more procedure and/or precedent which isn't quite the same thing. Perhaps someone who knows more about this than I would chime in, and whether it makes a difference in these cases. (I.e., how bound is the judge to follow the rules of standing?)
As to the question of before, during, or after, and what remedies can be sought, I wish someone would have used horse racing as an analogy. Every race has conditions of eligibility. (The simplest example is that the Derby is for three year-old horses only.) Beyond the conditions for a single race, there are rules that govern all races in a particular jurisdiction: the horse, owner, trainer and jockey all have to be registered, the horse may not be given certain medications for a set period of time before the race, etc.
Sometimes a horse is entered who isn't eligible; and the stewards reject the entry. Sometimes a horse fails a pre-race drug test and is scratched. And then the race is run, some horse wins, the winning bettors are paid, and the purse is distributed to the top finishers in the race. Maybe the winning owner gets a trophy or a julep cup. After that the winner comes under increased scrutiny for additional drugs or drugs that take a longer time to detect. If this winner is found, post hoc, to not have been eligible, he is declared to have been ineligible. Not everything can be set right after the fact, but the things that can be set right are. There is no way to recover the money from the winning bettors so they don't even try. But they do redistribute the purse money and the owner of the disgraced horse has to give back the julep cup if he got one. Sometimes the trainer or the jockey (who might have been found to have illegally stimulated the horse with an electrical device) are suspended or banned from racing entirely.
Orly Taitz has her rough edges, and I'll admit that I am predisposed to like her, but I thought her argument was the best. The judges, who asked pretty good questions I thought, had few questions for her.
And the government guy could have just presented the "birth certificate" Obama released last week. But for some reason he did not.
ML/NJ
I'm not sure if it would have been considered within the rules to present physical evidence at this hearing before the 9th Circuit. The appeal was supposed to be "on the law" as opposed to "on the facts."
And if the Court were to accept the purported "birth certificate" as evidence, the government ran the risk of that document providing an argument to the plaintiffs, or to other plaintiffs in other cases, that Obama was ineligible for POTUS because of his father's lack of citizenship.
Good comments.
Plain as the ugly nose on my face. :)
“Sometimes a horse is entered who isn’t eligible; and the stewards reject the entry. Sometimes a horse fails a pre-race drug test and is scratched. And then the race is run, some horse wins, the winning bettors are paid, and the purse is distributed to the top finishers in the race. Maybe the winning owner gets a trophy or a julep cup. After that the winner comes under increased scrutiny for additional drugs or drugs that take a longer time to detect. If this winner is found, post hoc, to not have been eligible, he is declared to have been ineligible. Not everything can be set right after the fact, but the things that can be set right are. There is no way to recover the money from the winning bettors so they don’t even try. But they do redistribute the purse money and the owner of the disgraced horse has to give back the julep cup if he got one. Sometimes the trainer or the jockey (who might have been found to have illegally stimulated the horse with an electrical device) are suspended or banned from racing entirely.”
I like this analogy of yours that reminds us all how we are all subject to the ‘rules’.
Orly Taitz should be congratulated for her courage to mention Lt. Col. Lakin in her argument.
Is standing actually "law"? Well, I don't think you'll find it in any federal statutes, but lawyers would say that it is part of "case law," because it is discussed in court decisions.