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Parker case: stay of mandate
DC petitioned the Circuit to stay the mandate until August 7, deadline for their filing a petition for cert. in the Supreme Court. The Circuit granted the stay (small pdf file). Judge Silberman appends a comment to the effect that DC has only said it "may" file a petition, but that he would view their filing this motion, and then not filing for cert., as an abuse of the system. An interesting comment, quite true, but also has a "bring it on" quality to it.
Note on procedure: when a higher court issues a ruling, that is followed by a mandate. The opinion says who won and why. The mandate is the actual order to the lower court to carry out the higher court's decision. It's delayed a bit, since someone may file for rehearing, etc..
Comments
I smell a rat.
What will(can) the court do if they decide this was a ploy?
Can DC give up and then rewrite the offending law in a way that changes nothing?
tg
Posted by: tom gunn at May 25, 2007 07:53 PM
All the talk after Parker has been whether the District will seek certiorari or not. There were 5 plaintiffs who were dismissed for lack of standing (under a standard which the appellate court said did NOT comport with Supreme Court pronouncements on the issue.)
Is there any reason the dismissed plaintiffs couldn't file for cert, regardless of what the District does?
Posted by: wrangler5 at May 25, 2007 08:00 PM
If the dismissed plaintiffs do file for cert, can they do so for the entire case of just the standing issue?
Posted by: Jim at May 25, 2007 11:05 PM
I can't imagine the SC would take the case if only the dismissed plaintiffs petitioned for cert, while the city of Washington, DC did not. If the court did take such a case, the only live issue for review would be the standing issue, and given the outcome of the underlying case, even that would appear to be moot.
Posted by: Xrlq at May 26, 2007 11:36 AM
Wranglers wrote:
"If the dismissed plaintiffs do file for cert, can they do so for the entire case of just the standing issue?"
I'm 99% sure that they are allowed to raise other issues also and that's about as sure as I ever get about anything. They raise issues like evidence that was suppressed by the trial court, arguments the trial court refused to allow, any motions they made that were denied, any new evidence since the trial - it's an open book for them.
Posted by: CA_Police_State at May 26, 2007 01:24 PM
EDIT - Maybe I attributed the quote to the wrong person and misread his post. I didn't notice that you said "dismissed plaintiffs" and I haven't read the case yet. I'm not sure who the "dismissed plaintiffs" are but I think they would be able to contest the trial court's ruling that dismissed them from the lawsuit if it's a civil suit.
Posted by: CA_Police_State at May 26, 2007 01:41 PM