Thread by @questauthority, I know I said no more threads tonight, but I can't resist:GEORGIA [...]

I know I said no more threads tonight, but I can't resist:

GEORGIA KRAKEN UPDATE, Y'ALL!!!

And it's the dumbest one yet.

Every. Single. Time. - I MEAN EVERY SINGLE TIME - I think they've bottomed out the stupidity IT GETS WORSE.

Bottom line - everything that was scheduled to happen this week is now **STAYED** and I think the court is unhappy with Lin and Sidney.

Here's the deal:

When last we left our intrepid squidigation team, they had, as a result of a lengthy back and forth with the judge and defense, secured modest injunctive relief in the form of an order keeping machines in three counties in Georgia from being wiped.

That order, which was very modest, has been appealed, and the party filing that appeal announced to the judge, possibly VERY incorrectly, that the appeal divests the judge of jurisdiction to hear the case.

So the judge has taken that party at their word and stayed everything.

The order was appealed by the plaintiffs. Not the defense.

Yes, that's right. Sidney and Lin, dissatisfied with the TRO they secured, have filed a notice of appeal. Let's start there, and dig in:

Notice that they are claiming that this is an appeal "as of right."

This is wrong.

They are claiming that they have an "appeal of right" under the Terry Schiavo case. I'm about 90% sure this is not how that works, but I'm going to hop over to the case and take a quick look. Be right back.

OK. Long story short, under that case it would appear that the 11th *can* sometimes take a case when things are absolutely time critical - but calling this an appeal of right is a bit of a misnomer.

Anyway - long story short.
For the nonlawyers:
The judge gave Sidney and Lin a partial TRO. You usually can't appeal the grant or denial of a TRO. They're trying anyway.

This is very very dumb for uncountable reasons.

Here's a big one:
Technically, the TRO granted part, and only part, of their request. Thing is - and I just double-checked - that's all the TRO did. It didn't deny any of the request; the rest was set for hearing on Friday.

So, technically, the thing they are appealing is an order that was entirely in their favor and made no rulings against them. It just didn't do the other stuff fast enough for them.

But let's move on.

So they want an 11th Cir schedule that gives them until midnight tomorrow and defendants until midnight Thurs to file briefs.

But there's every - and I do mean EVERY - reason to think that the 11th is going to throw this out for want of jurisdiction.

And they just told the District Court that they can't hear the case anymore. So please stay the *hearing* set for Friday. (I'm going to explain the emphasis on what they asked for later.)

Because they want to know if they need to sue 600 more people, which the court will love.

Now, like I said, this is really damn stupid. Unbelievably so.

The appeal has zero chance - there's no way the 11th will take jurisdiction. But the 11th may take a few days figuring that out, because what's the rush, right?

Meanwhile, the hourglass is getting low. And they're just going to wind up back where they were - but it get's better.

Remember when I said they wanted the hearing stayed?

Whelp, Judge Batten has weighed in and he's not giving off happy judge vibes. At all.

I swear, by the way --

The plaintiffs appealing was so dumb that when I saw this - and I saw it first - I assumed "Plaintiffs" was a typo.

BECAUSE WHY WOULDN'T IT BE??? **HOW** COULDN'T IT BE?????

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.284055/gov.uscourts.gand.284055.37.0_3.pdf

And the judge doesn't pull punches in making his disagreement with what we will charitably call the "legal argument" the plaintiffs are using.

And, as the judge not-so-subtly points out, if the District Court lacks jurisdiction, EVERYTHING is stayed. Not just the hearing, everything.

Including the briefing schedule.

This is, from the plaintiff's perspective, suboptimal.

For the nonlawyers:
They were hoping to go to the 11th, then if they had to go back to the District, they wanted to basically go right to the hearing, with the rest of the briefing complete.

Now, if it goes back to the District, the judge is STRONGLY hinting that it'll be at least several days before a hearing, because briefing will need to be rescheduled.

And Judge Batten is making it clear that this will be ENTIRELY their own fault. And hinting that this will be very a "them" problem, not so much a "him" problem.

But if the plaintiffs say he lacks jurisdiction, far be it from him to argue. So he's staying the ENTIRE scheduling order, not just the hearing.

And - the docket for the 11th is 20-14480 - there's nothing, not even a scheduling order, there now.

So - bottom line:
They just shot themselves many many times. With a Gatling gun. Foot, both feet, everything below the waist, you name it, they shot themselves in it.

They started today with a judge who, if not sympathetic, was at least reasonably tolerant of their foibles. They had the defense having to brief multiple things by tomorrow. And they had a hearing set for Friday.

They ended today with a very pissed off judge - seriously, that order does not bode well for Batten's continued tolerance for any of their shenanigans - no briefing schedule in any court, no hearing, and an appeal all but certain to be dismissed.

So although not technically earth-shattering, this was literally so damn dumb I never could have predicted it.

/fin

Additional nonlawyer explanations:
I was so oxygen-deprived from laughter that I was using some lawyer terms and forgetting to explain a couple of important terms, which caused some confusion. My bad, let me fix that.

Most of the confusion seems to be jurisdiction.

There are lots of kinds of jurisdiction. The one in question here doesn't have to do with whether the courts are allowed to hear the case. It has to do with *which court* gets to hear the case.

Basically - and this is a massive simplification that will drive the other lawyers reading nuts but it's good enough for this one example - you can think of there being a kind of jurisdiction attached to the case file.

If the district court has the case file, the district court has jurisdiction. If the appeals court has it, the district court doesn't - unless/until it gets sent back.

Sometimes there are exceptions when an appeal happens mid-case like this. And maybe this should have been one. But Powell and Wood told Judge Batten this isn't one of those times, and he said "OK, if you say so."

So as far as he's concerned, he can do nothing.

This DOES leave the restraining order in place - that lasts 10 days and it's DONE. But the decision on whether to let them do inspections is on hold, and the hearing on the rest of their request for relief is gone.

Everything at the District Court is on pause.

Hope that helped.

/fin (again)

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