Pompano Mike
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2020
So, there seems to be some confusion in this thread about some of the legal dimensions of this election contest and I figure it might help to discuss some of them. To begin with, it really should be understood that SCOTUS and the intermediate appellate courts are courts of review. That means that they consider the record of lower court rulings, and where there are points of error that have been properly preserved, review those rulings and issue orders that either affirm or reverse them while stating their reasoning in doing so. This reasoning, as articulated in the opinions they publish, forms precedent, which is cited in future cases and referred to by other branches of the government when creating and enforcing laws. They are not courts where the parties present evidence like witness testimony, documents, pictures, and soforth. That stuff happens at the trial court level, such as a federal district court.
The “stage’ we’re currently in is at this first layer, and in the instance of one of the PA lawsuits, the US court of appeal for the third circuit (though I believe the only issues presented relate to standing and not the constitutional merits of the claims). Probably the most important aspect of pursuing a successful appeal to either SCOTUS or a state high court (and thereby gaining a favorable ruling that sets precedent) is creating a comprehensive record that contains all the evidence that supports your legal position. That involves filing a properly-pled lawsuit, submitting well-articulated motions at the right time that cites past precedent, setting hearings (or a trial) where all of your evidence is submitted into the record, and correctly preserving all of the points of legal error that you need for the higher courts to review. All of this is tedious, painstaking work that requires a lot of attention to detail and professional competence. This is why it all takes time and costs a lot of money in legal fees.
Trump’s post-election challenges are on a timeframe that is not conducive to litigating tidy gift-wrapped cases for SCOTUS to review. He’s limited to requesting equitable relief in the form of injunctions ordering particular states to, for example, not certify results or not consider a certain number of ballots due to errors so that he can develop more comprehensive cases that overturn the official election calls. Requests for such relief have to be supported by evidence that convinces a judge of their merit, and I hope that all of you can appreciate how difficult it is to gather such evidence and actually put it to use in the hectic environment we’re in right now. I’m talking about difficulty that extends beyond just gathering good evidence and getting it submitted into a court’s record, which is hard enough. You have baked-in reluctance of the judiciary at the state and federal level to interfere in any aspect of a political process, docketing schedules that don’t conform to your timeline, procedural bullshit of every kind, corruption, and so on. Simply put, these challenges are pretty much the heaviest legal lift imaginable and unless Trump has truly rockstar lawyers as well as ironclad evidence of fraud with the most credible of proponents, he has little chance of success.
All of the above isn’t even delving into the intricacies of SCOTUS itself, which occupies a unique position in all of this both procedurally and politically. I don’t want to get into those because it’s a lot of work and I’ve autistically written enough about this already. The takeaway here is this: as things stand now, there hasn’t been a legal case presented that I think has much likelihood of overturning the election of Joe Biden to the presidency. That could change with additional filings in the near future with evidence that I haven’t seen, but those lawsuits face all of the difficulties I just described. I’m not writing any of this to demoralize anyone, I’m just doing so to give people a decent foundation to interpret what they read in the news for the next few weeks. We will know if one of these lawsuits is an actual big deal, but I don’t think that’s already happening. I could be wrong, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
The “stage’ we’re currently in is at this first layer, and in the instance of one of the PA lawsuits, the US court of appeal for the third circuit (though I believe the only issues presented relate to standing and not the constitutional merits of the claims). Probably the most important aspect of pursuing a successful appeal to either SCOTUS or a state high court (and thereby gaining a favorable ruling that sets precedent) is creating a comprehensive record that contains all the evidence that supports your legal position. That involves filing a properly-pled lawsuit, submitting well-articulated motions at the right time that cites past precedent, setting hearings (or a trial) where all of your evidence is submitted into the record, and correctly preserving all of the points of legal error that you need for the higher courts to review. All of this is tedious, painstaking work that requires a lot of attention to detail and professional competence. This is why it all takes time and costs a lot of money in legal fees.
Trump’s post-election challenges are on a timeframe that is not conducive to litigating tidy gift-wrapped cases for SCOTUS to review. He’s limited to requesting equitable relief in the form of injunctions ordering particular states to, for example, not certify results or not consider a certain number of ballots due to errors so that he can develop more comprehensive cases that overturn the official election calls. Requests for such relief have to be supported by evidence that convinces a judge of their merit, and I hope that all of you can appreciate how difficult it is to gather such evidence and actually put it to use in the hectic environment we’re in right now. I’m talking about difficulty that extends beyond just gathering good evidence and getting it submitted into a court’s record, which is hard enough. You have baked-in reluctance of the judiciary at the state and federal level to interfere in any aspect of a political process, docketing schedules that don’t conform to your timeline, procedural bullshit of every kind, corruption, and so on. Simply put, these challenges are pretty much the heaviest legal lift imaginable and unless Trump has truly rockstar lawyers as well as ironclad evidence of fraud with the most credible of proponents, he has little chance of success.
All of the above isn’t even delving into the intricacies of SCOTUS itself, which occupies a unique position in all of this both procedurally and politically. I don’t want to get into those because it’s a lot of work and I’ve autistically written enough about this already. The takeaway here is this: as things stand now, there hasn’t been a legal case presented that I think has much likelihood of overturning the election of Joe Biden to the presidency. That could change with additional filings in the near future with evidence that I haven’t seen, but those lawsuits face all of the difficulties I just described. I’m not writing any of this to demoralize anyone, I’m just doing so to give people a decent foundation to interpret what they read in the news for the next few weeks. We will know if one of these lawsuits is an actual big deal, but I don’t think that’s already happening. I could be wrong, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
