jeebling wrote:So much to be said about this but I’ll keep it narrowed to one observation. It seems like when the judicial system doesn’t respond to the Democrats demands, then the court is accused of colluding with Trump. The judiciary doesn’t owe any explanations for operating within the bounds of the law and precedent, IMHO. Any defendant preparing to brief SCOTUS should be afforded all the allotted time that any other defendant has, regardless of how many times they have given the brief before other courts or in other circumstances. That is how the justice system works, without favoritism or bias, and every defendant gets the same treatment regardless of election schedules or grand political schemes. I wish this was over and forgotten but going before SCOTUS to determine one man’s personal fate and the rights of the people to choose who they vote for are at stake is a big deal, to put it clumsily. That is just an observation I have and I’m open to hearing any reasonable criticism.
I read the trial Order, appellate Opinion and the parties' Briefs. I also listened to the entire SCOTUS Hearing. Despite disagreeing with your political assessment: Yes, it is a big deal. But, we need it over with- promptly- no matter what the outcome. Closure is what is important here.
Appeal on an issue from a trial court is limited solely to the issue(s) ruled on by the trial court- nothing else or new. The same applies to an appeal from appellate court(s). So, basically, there is a limited number of documents and arguments from the trial court and appellate court(s) and Orders and Opinion(s) to read. Nothing else. No new issues; no new evidence or matters.
This is almost completely, a very narrow, issue of law- without precedent. That makes writing an appeal brief much, much simpler. That makes preparing for oral argument much, much easier. That makes ruling by an intermediate appellate court much, much easier. Exactly the same for SCOTUS.
In this day and age of word processing ,one secretary and one lawyer should be able to turn the trial filings into an appellate brief very easily. After the appellate court(s) Opine(s), you are only limited to what you filed/argued in trial court and on appeal. The record from the trial court(s) limit(s) what you can argue before SCOTUS. Again, this makes things much, much easier. Here, both Trump, the U.S. and SCOTUS, have at least a half-dozen lawyers each working on this. Turn-around time on any documents should be negligible. They are probably the smartest of the smartest.
As to SCOTUS, each member has already read everything multiple times over and has a staff of attorneys and secretaries to handle support and everything else promptly. There is no shortage of brainpower or workers in this case. Even more so, the smartest of the smartest are the only one's involved. Trump and the U.S. probably have 5-10 lawyers each working on this. Plenty of brain power and resources. SCOTUS can simply affirm it in whole or part or reject it in whole or part. That's it. Not very difficult, IMO.
And, don't kid yourself. Almost every one of the SCOTUS Justices already knew how they would vote ahead of time in this particular case- and just used the oral argument questioning to solidify or reject what they already know or to teach/argue with other SCOTUS Justices through the answers from both sides' lawyers. I bet they have already by now voted internally, and have decided the outcome. The Opinions just need to be written up and concluded. It could be as simple as stating that the ruling of the trial court and intermediary trial court are simply Affirmed. That would end the SCOTUS case immediately. Or, they could simply overturn the trial and appellate court just as easily. Finally, they could "split the baby from the bathwater" and make a prompt, but mixed ruling of assents, dissents and concurrences. Not difficult at all in such a national/ election important matter.
In
Bush v. Gore, they ruled very fast because of its importance. I hope they will do so here too. Should be relatively easy-peasy for them IMO...
