[Regarding ACLU v. Reno] At 11:08 PM 5/13/96 -0400, Declan B. McCullagh wrote:
The Philadelphia court is expected to issue a decision by mid-June. Both the plaintiffs and the Department of Justice have said they will appeal to the Supreme Court, which may decide to hear the case after it reconvenes in early October. Assuming the Justice Department loses, will they really appeal to the Supreme Court? If so, I object to my tax money being wasted on this crap.
Perhaps someone with a better legal understanding of court cases could help me out. I understood from a law course I took that appeals could only be filed with respect to process rather than result. One cannot appeal a decision, rather one has to appeal the manner in which it was reached (if witnesses were biased, important evidence was suppressed, etc.) I was rather surprised by this, but obviously this doesn't prevent people from appealing willy-nilly because they just fabricate some reason why the process was corrupted. However, in a venue such as this, what basis can one appeal on? On the ACLU side I can actually see an appeal with respect to the constitutionality (but I'm not quite sure what) and on the Reno side I don't see what they could appeal. Was some evidence poorly presented? It isn't like there are any witnesses to lead. _______________________ Regards, Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words. -Spinoza Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html reagle@mit.edu E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E