Well in the first place, this isn't going to go to court. If McConnell carries out his threat then when Moore gets sworn in he'll go straight to the ethics committee. Criminal proceedings don't come into play there. Put these women before the committee, under oath, repeating their stories and unless Moore has something to refute their testimony then who do you think the committee will believe? And Moore doesn't have evidence, other than possibly against that wack-doodle and her year book that Allred dredged up.
Like I said, no evidence for and no evidence against. Just testimony.
Au contraire. Judge (in this scenario, Senator) Moore cant afford to just drop the civil suits he has against some of these people. Hell have the yearbook placed in evidence, for one thing.Once discredit that first case, the rest of them mostly are tacky but were not illegal at the time and place (Alabama in 1978) alleged. Put the statute of limitations on top of that, and the gruel becomes exceedingly thin for a case to overturn the result of an election campaign in which these charges were public knowledge.
There is one groping allegation which was piled on later, by a woman of dubious credibility. IMHO Judge (or Senator, whichever he is after the election) Moore should sue the media not only for actual malice but also for monopoly. The media, however, is not the term to use. The actual defendant should be The Associated Press and its membership, joint and several liability. The AP actually was found to be in violation of Sherman in 1945, and now that its mission in conserving scarce and expensive bandwidth in the transmission of news is laughable (I put it to you that FR alone likely uses as much bandwidth as the AP did in 1945), it should be possible to put the AP in a real bind in court.
The fact of the 17th AmendmentThe Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.with its democratic emphasis, raises a strong question what business the Senate has unseating a senator (and if he wins election he will be a senator at that moment) over anything in that senators past, especially distant past, which was known to the voters of Alabama when the election was held. There being essentially no reason to consider the past to be prologue when so much water (including a long and uncontentious marriage) has gone under the bridge since 1978.When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
I even wonder if Democrats have that much hypocrisy in them. And exactly why would the Democrats prefer a do-over when the governor would name another Republican anyway - and the prospects of a Democrat running against the Republican would be pretty thin after so much contention if they couldnt win against Moore with the propaganda headwind Moore has been subjected to.
Of course it might depend some on the margin of victory; a 10% blowout would probably moot everything.