|
||||
|
Watching the argument There are several ways to watch the three hour argument tomorrow beginning at nine without hopping over to High Street and watching it in person. If you want to watch in your pajamas or from your office, the usual URL for live court broadcast on the court’s site already has a link [...]  The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted Gov. Barbour’s request to file an amicus brief and appear, and given him thirty minutes argument. Charles Griffin of Butler Snow signed Gov. Barbour’s brief. Here’s the remaining briefs: Kambule Brief Brown brief Howard brief Here’s the order granting Gov. Barbour’s amicus request: Order argument I’ve read all [...] Here are a number of the briefs. If I am reading the docket right, there may be as many as four more briefs from various combinations of parties. The brief by Robinson was signed by Fred Banks; also on the cover are Charles Pickering, Luther Munford, and John Collettte, among others. Fortner signs his [...] The Mississippi Supreme Court has scheduled an hour of argument to a side in the pardons case. There’s a long explanation of media and public access to the two hour argument scheduled for Thursday. Should we do a betting pool about how each side divides up their hour? So far we’ve got the following [...] Briefs are to be filed by February 7th, en banc argument (that is, before the entire court) on February 9th, and the lower court proceeding before Judge Green is stayed. I have never heard of an en banc argument set just over a week out! Tom Fortner seems to have got their attention. Update: [...] Another Justice Court judge came before the Mississippi Supreme Court for misconduct. This one had been previosuly sanctioned, and so this time out, gets a thirty day suspension for not following the law in a way that wasn’t just mistaken, ex parte contact with parties, and generally interfering with cases either not before him [...] Brian Holleman was convicted of murder in Columbus. During closing argument, the prosecutor Forrest Allgood* made a flagrant “Golden Rule” argument, with the trial court ignoring repeated objections. A Golden Rule argument asks the jury to put themselves in the position of one of the other parties, and is improper because of the way [...] Ratliff v. Beale, 20 So. 865 (1896), the Mississippi Supreme Court case quoted in my last post, is a case of breathtaking honesty. Not in a good way. There are two passages which are particularly striking that I want to post here. The lawsuit seems to have been a set-up. On the one side, you have J.A.P. Campbell working with the state AG. Campbell was a congressman during the Confederacy and served for years on the Mississippi Supreme Court; he was considered one of the better justices on the court in the late 19th Century. On the other side, you have S. S. Calhoon, J. Z. George, and Frank Johnston. That would be James Zachariah George, who became one of Mississippi’s US Senators at the end of reconstruction, and was as prominent as lawyers and politicians got. He was at the 1890 constitutional convention and involved in the legal defenses of that constitution. S.S. Calhoon was the president of the 1890 convention and was within a couple of years on the Mississippi Supreme Court, writing well enough to be quoted over a hundred years later. The dispute was over the seizure of a piece of furniture by the Hinds County tax collector. Seriously. The tax collector (represented by Campbell and the Attorney General) had seized ”an article of household furniture,” by law exempt from taxation, to cover payment of a tax due; the property owner, represented by George and Calhoon, sought and obtained a permanent injunction against proceeding against the property. They appealed on agreed facts.
What was all this legal talent doing in a fight over a chair or the like? When nothing really was in factual dispute?
Here’s the statement of facts, in full: In September 2007, Judge Bustin executed a felony arrest warrant for David C. Lema, charging him with kidnapping his own child. The warrant was based upon an affidavit filed by Lema’s ex-wife, who claimed primary physical custody of the child. Judge Bustin, who is a licensed attorney, [...] In January, the Fifth Circuit certified a legal question to the Mississippi Supreme Court in Sears v. Learmonth: We hereby certify, on Sears’ unopposed motion, the following determinative question of law to the Supreme Court of Mississippi: Is Section 11-1-60(2) of the Mississippi Code, which generally limits non-economic damages to $1 million in civil cases, [...] |
||||
|
Copyright © 2012 T. Freeland - All Rights Reserved
Technorati Profile 51 queries. 0.854 seconds. |
||||
Recent Comments