[AJFavish]

I was initially perplexed by the Supreme Court's granting of the government's petition for certiorari while the other two petitions (mine and Lisa Foster Moody's) were put on "pending" status. I was concerned that this might mean that I was only going to be defending the Ninth Circuit's order that 4 of the 10 Polaroids be released and that the withholding of the other 6 Polaroids would not be considered by the Supreme Court.

However, I am now certain that all 10 Polaroids are at issue before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in case no. 02-954. This is the government's petition. However, by granting this petition, the Court will review all of the issues necessary to decide whether the OIC has the right to withhold any of the ten Polaroids that are the subject of the dispute. This is because Supreme Court Rule 14 (1) (a) states, in part: "The statement of any question presented is deemed to comprise every subsidiary question fairly included therein. Only the questions set out in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court." The government's statement of the question presented in its petition is: "Whether the Office of Independent Counsel properly withheld, under Exemption 7(C), photographs relating to the death of former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster." This statement is broad enough to cover all of the issues that I raised in my petition as well as the issues raised in the other two petitions.

Regards,

Allan J. Favish
http://www.allanfavish.com

[Fred Mertz]

This sounds promising, Allan. Thanks for the update and sensing.

[thinden]

The attorney for the Foster family, James Hamilton, said the release of more photos would be damaging to the relatives, "invading their memory of a loved one, by subjecting them to harassment from any number of media outlets, and by leaving them vulnerable to the unwitting viewing of profoundly traumatic images."

the most "profoundly traumatic image" (to the gummit) might be the photograph of VWF's jaw showing the small calibre gunshot entry wound the mortician claims was there.

[nocuous]

bump