Posted on 10/14/2005 7:05:23 PM PDT by jwalsh07
Harriet Miers opposition in Jones v. Bush was Sanford Levinson (BA-Duke, PhD-Harvard, JD-Stanford), the "W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law" at the University of Texas School of Law, author of over 200 articles in professional and more popular journals, co-author of a leading constitutional law casebook, who's also been a visiting law prof at Harvard, Yale, NYU, and BU." (info on Levinson courtesy of Beldar)
Perhaps Sander Levinson, a high powered legal beagle with all the right pedigree who got his butt kicked in trail court, the appeals court and at the SCOTUS where they denied cert:
"This is a person who has almost no experience doing constitutional law, and the one case she is involved with is on a subject almost no one has talked about, at a time of extraordinary partisan interest," he said. "The only thing to infer from this is that she's a good lawyer."
I'd say that Mr. Levinson was a bit understated. :-}
The link is a pdf file.
You mean the count that was based on a law not in effect when the action was committed? That one? I didn't know Earle has dumped it, but I didn't know that little faclet at the time either.
As I understand it Ms. Miers represented Governor Bush.
Thanks. It's a good brief, and does establish that she argued one case on Constitutional law in a federal appeals court. I wish we had more hard information to establish facts about her.
The trial court easily and properly rejected the plaintiffs' claim. First, the three Texas residents lacked Article III standing to sue:I'm itching to see some of her work besides the editorial pieces in Texas.
Because plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a specific and individualized injury from the impending alleged violation of the Twelfth Amendment and are unable to show personal injury through harm done to non-defendant candidates, the court holds that they do not have standing under Article III to bring this suit.Second, Cheney was an inhabitant of Wyoming, not Texas:
The record shows that Secretary Cheney has both a physical presence within the state of Wyoming and the intent that Wyoming be his place of habitation. It is undisputed that he was born, raised, educated, and married in Wyoming and represented the state as a Member of Congress for six terms. After additional public service, he eventually moved to Dallas, Texas to become the Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Corporation ("Halliburton").The Fifth Circuit then heard a very quick appeal. The district court decision had come out on December 1, 2000, and the Fifth Circuit heard argument and entered a one-line affirmance on December 7th: "All requested relief is DENIED." The plaintiffs filed an emergency petition asking for more time to file a cert petition just a few days before the Texas electors were to meet, but the Supreme Court denied it. A cert petition was eventually filed -- I'm not sure exactly when -- but it was denied after the electors had met on December 18th.On or about July 21, 2000 Secretary Cheney declared his intent to return to his home state of Wyoming. On or after that date, and before today, he traveled to Wyoming and registered to vote there, requested withdrawal of his Texas voter registration, voted in Wyoming in two elections, obtained a Wyoming driver's license (which, in turn, resulted in the voiding of his Texas license), and sold his Texas house. He advised the United States Secret Service that his primary residence is his home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and he retired from employment with Halliburton.
Perhaps Beldar intends his post to be tongue-in-cheek, so maybe I'm just not getting the joke by looking at the merits. If so, my apologies. But I don't think the opinions in this case provide a lot of insight into Miers' skills in constitutional law.
Neither did I, and I didn't base my conclusion on the law (the conspiracy angle) not being in effect. I didn't look up the conspiracy part of the case, just the underlying part. Anyway, DeLay has been charged with the underlying part - now under the ssame cloud the two co-conspirators were charged with back in April.
One of those two cases will be useful to more clearly see whether the statutry elements we bantered about have in fact been violated. Keep in touch if you learn anything on it - it'll be fun to see how it turns out.
It appears both counts are still in play, both based on the same facts. The one count, seems rather dead, if the law was not in effect then (which was the subject of the Delay motion, which motion I don't know the status of at present), and the other is being attacked by Delay right now, not on the merits, but on Earle misconduct in ramming it home right before the statute of limitations ran to the forum shopped grand jury, deprived of some of the facts, maybe.
Dan
Go to post #34 and click on it. You can download and read her brief. That way you can form your own opinion on her capabilities.
Yup, that's my understanding as well.
Thanks for that - I found it before your post, based on your message to gpapa. Have also scanned, but not carefully, the 5th Circuit briefs, but not the Cert. one.
ANother copy of the link, in case others want to grab this stuff ...
http://rapidshare.de/files/6012929/Jones_v_Bush_-_Bush_and_Cheney_5th_Cir_Brief.zip.html
I'd rather see the argument on the merits than on the rush to get an indictment "as the statute of limitations ran." Some good inside hardball being played, for sure.
"On this one, Miers had the inside lane. It was not a close case, for both legal and policy reasons. Again, one needs to read her brief to get a sense of her mind at work, and her writing style, organizational abilities, sense of what to highlight and what to downplay, etc."
I see your point, but for those of us less legal, could you please offer your own speculations about what you see in her style? Even though it may have been an 'easy win' it still was of merit in its solidarity, no?
I'm with you.
1. Jones v. Bush, 122 F. Supp. 2d 713 (N. D. Tex. 2000), relief denied, 244 F.3d 144 (5th Cir. 2000) (unpublished), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1062 (2001).
"I served as lead counsel for then-Governor George W. Bush in this case involving the 2000 presidential election. The litigation concerned a clause of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution that provides: “The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.” U.S. Const. amend. XII. This clause bars a member of the Electoral College from voting for inhabitants of the same state as him or herself for both President and Vice-President. Texas voters brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, arguing that George Bush and Richard Cheney were both inhabitants of Texas, which barred Texas Electors from voting for both candidates. The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the Texas Electors from casting their votes for both then-Governor Bush and Mr. Cheney."
"The case turned primarily on two legal issues: first, whether the plaintiffs had standing under Article III of the Constitution to pursue their action, and second, whether Mr. Cheney was an inhabitant of Texas or Wyoming. As counsel for then-Governor Bush, I defended the action on his behalf in the district court, filing, along with counsel for Mr. Cheney, a Motion to Dismiss and a Brief and Appendix in Opposition to the Application for Preliminary Injunction. In these filings, I argued on behalf of then-Governor Bush that the plaintiffs lacked constitutional standing to sue under the relevant clause of the Twelfth Amendment, and in the alternative that Mr. Cheney was an inhabitant of Wyoming rather than Texas within the meaning of the Twelfth Amendment. The district court granted the motion to dismiss on the basis that the plaintiffs lacked standing; it also denied the plaintiffs’ application for a preliminary injunction, holding that the plaintiffs had failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on their contention that Mr. Cheney was an inhabitant of Texas. Jones, 122 F. Supp. 2d at 715.
"The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. I, together with counsel for Mr. Cheney, filed the brief on behalf of appellees. The brief defended the district court’s holdings regarding standing and Mr. Cheney’s inhabitance. The day after the brief was filed, and the same day as the oral argument, the Fifth Circuit denied the appellants all requested relief. See 244 F.3d 144 (5th Cir. 2000) (unpublished). When appellants petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case, respondents waived response to the petition, which petition the Court denied. See 531 U.S. 1062 (2001)."
We already knew that. She had the signature line.
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