blueblanketblogmy not-so-temporary blog, i guess saturday, december 8I think I've got a handle on this, and the handle is that this case is so not certworthy. (That, by the way, is not the legal argument I'll be making, but it's all I can say right now.) Thank god for the hedging of judges. Yes. This is what I'm doing on a Saturday. But really, seeing the bad guys on the other side[*] gave me extra impetus to do a good job on this. I'll be going out with Ed and Wayne and Edna later though, so my day won't be entirely pathetic. [*] These aforementioned bad guys are a certain conservative legal think tank whose name I shouldn't mention seeing that this is pending litigation but if you're in the legal field you know who they are. Think region name, then two nondescript words. Yeah, them.[**] [**] This, by the way, is how those of us on the left rationalize working for the Department of Justice in this time of Bossman John. Do we like the Bossman? No. (I can't even think of anyone I work with who agrees with what he's been doing in regards to the terrorism stuff.) But that doesn't mean everything we do in the department is wrong. In the environment division, we still get these cases against the really bad guys. And even in this time, we're still suing polluters and endangered species killers, though yes, fewer of them. But someone has to be here to do it. So here we are.[***] [***] You can argue that citizens' groups can pick up the slack, and, in an ideal world, I'd agree. But courts have been heavily cutting back on suits by environmental groups and private citizens. And without someone to appoint judges with different interpretations, it's not gonna change really soon. So it's nice having government litigators do some of the needed environmental enforcement as well. .: 6:26 PM .:Okay, so I'm writing my first opposition for a petition for cert -- a cert opp, for short. Basically, the deal is that if someone loses before a court of appeals (or a state supreme court) below, then they can petition the Supreme Court to hear their case. But the deal with the Supreme Court is that it doesn't take everything, just the things it thinks are important. And that means legally important, not factually important. So a case with a billion dollar judgement might not be important to the Court, but a case clarifying, say, what facts must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt, in the context of increased criminal penalties might be. So what a good petitioner has to do is mostly argue why his or her or its case is legally important, all the while adding little bits about what the earlier court did wrong below. But the party who won below gets to write in with his or her side, too, and that's where the cert opp comes in. The point of a cert opp is to make sure the Supreme Court *doesn't* want to hear the case, so that the decision below sticks, as is. So in a cert opp, one of the things you have to argue is why the case isn't all that important legally. This is weird, because most lawyers spend time arguing that their side is right, rather than about how their position isn't really all that legally important. So writing a cert opp is almost the opposite of what lawyers usually do. Which makes this whole cert opp project a bit weird for me. Anyway, that's my little geeky exposition. Now back to your regularly scheduled angst. You know you're a law geek, by the way, when you start thinking Dahlia Lithwick is the funniest thing ever. .: 12:24 PM .:friday, december 7I'm still at work!!! I can't believe I volunteered to do this thing I know nothing about! Oh, the power of guilt. I'm leaving in minutes, though, really. Ocean's Eleven. Good thing Ed's around to drag me away from work every once in awhile. Like Gina's, Ed's tastes aren't exactly the same as mine, but we have a good time hanging out. .: 9:27 PM .:Working on my first opposition to a petition for a grant of certiorari. Scary, my first real Supreme Court filing. Do I know what I'm doing? Hell, no. Fortunately, I'm expecting the Solicitor General's office to edit everything I write into some reasonable shape. The gist of this, anyway, is that I'm now suddenly busy till Wednesday evening. .: 5:42 PM .:two really sexy things about this is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about * the low "yeah"s in the "hell yeah"s of Breakthrough .: 5:34 PM .:You have to check out this week's I Saw You ads in the Washington City Paper. There are at least two pairs of ads that match up, if not more (I didn't go through them that carefully.) This cannot be for real, I keep telling myself. .: 3:09 PM .:If you read this page, and you notice that, in turn, someone from usdoj.gov has been browsing *your* site, don't get all paranoid about government spies. It's probably just me, being distracted. And I'm no spy. Honest. It's creepy, I know. Sorry. .: 2:31 PM .:I just woke up from a dream in which no less than three exes played major roles. That's a record for me. .: 7:51 AM .:wednesday, december 5some apropos song lyrics that are terribly fitting for my week of whininess, because, really, everything can't be as bad as i'm making it out to be talking shit about a pretty sunset, by modest mouse oh noose tied myself in, tied myself too tight .: 7:26 PM .:Ann E. Carlson, Recycling Norms, 89 CAL. L. REV. 1231 (I really have no idea what this is about, I just like the title. It'd be nice if it were about recycling, though. Maybe it even is (see below)). Ward Farnsworth, "To Do a Great Right, Do a Little Wrong": A User's Guide to Judicial Lawlessness, 86 MINN. L. REV. 227 (I don't know what this one is about, exactly, either, though I can at least guess). Ann E. Carlson & Daniel Pollak, Takings on the Ground: How the Supreme Court's Takings Jurisprudence Affects Local Land Use Decisions, 35 U.C. DAVIS LAW REVIEW 103 (I have a pretty good idea what this is about, I just tend to like this stuff. And oh yeah, man, is Ann Carlson on a roll) .: 3:56 PM .:tuesday, december 4other things i like about life (again, trying to keep myself off this big whiny streak) * Books, because words on paper are the best things ever. .: 8:05 AM .:monday, december 3(to try to pull myself off this big whiny streak) * My apartment, which is big and bright and not in a gentrified (yet) neighborhood. .: 6:01 PM .:sunday, december 2(a long-distance conversation with my friend Andy, who's working for a Boston law firm) Me: I miss Boston. I suppose I should be grateful to at least have the time to walk around a city I don't love. .: 5:27 PM .: |
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