Wednesday, July 03, 2019

When You Have a Bad Client


The last time I heard this kind of statement in court, it was a lawyer asking to withdraw from a case before the court, and using that statement as part of his evidence to do so.  Make of that what you will.

And if you think the trial court is not tired of these shenanigans:

"Gardner" is the lawyer for the DOJ.


MR. DUKE: Your Honor, this is Ben Duke for the Kravitz plaintiffs. Could we ask what happened to the Government's repeated representations, including to the United States Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court relied on, that June 30th was an absolute deadline and that they needed to have this finalized and to move forward as of that date? Because what we've now heard from the defendants is that that wasn't true, that they now think that they can even dither over the July 4th weekend and ask for more time to examine this and possibly make a further motion to the Supreme Court for instructions on how to eventually undercut what the Supreme Court has already decided. It is completely inconsistent with the positions that they've been taking.
The DOJ does NOT want to be defending against that argument.  By the way:

If, in the case of the scheduling order, the parties are not able to come to an agreement as to what it should look like, you can submit to me competing options, and we'll have a call that afternoon. I'll be here Friday. We'll have a call that afternoon where the Court will mike a final decision on how we're proceeding. But we will, if this is not resolved by Friday at 2 p.m., the equal protection claim in this case is moving forward.

That does not speed the case to a conclusion.  Gardner asks to postpone that deadline until Monday, because of the Thursday holiday:

THE COURT: No. Because timing is an issue. Timing is an issue, and we've lost a week at this point. And this isn't anything against anybody on this call. I've been told different things, and it's becoming increasingly frustrating.

If you were Facebook and an attorney for Facebook told me one thing, and then I read a press release from Mark Zuckerberg telling me something else, I would be demanding that Mark Zuckerberg appear in court with you the next time because I would be saying I don't think you speak for your client anymore. 

I think I'm actually being really reasonable here and just saying I need a final answer by Friday at 2 p.m. or we're going forward. That's where we are. Because we've wasted a week. The Fourth Circuit sent this back to me with a promise from me that I would get it done, the discovery done in 45 days, a hearing, and then a decision, and they sent it back to me with that promise having been made. And we've lost seven days already with the back and forth, which, again, I don't blame anybody on this call for, but that's where we are.

So Friday, 2 p.m., we're going forward or we're resolving it.  That's where we are.

That 45 days does not play to the case now being made by the DOJ.  That's further hearings, further evidence, a new record that the Supreme Court has to review, v. the motion that DOJ wants to take to the Supreme Court to direct the trial court to enter the ruling the DOJ now wants.  But that ruling lost, and without new evidence, the DOJ doesn't really have anything to take to the Supremes.  And the Court is not inclined to give the DOJ what it wants now.

So back to the real deadline:  when does the Census start?
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