From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 07:13:08 +0800
To: "Declan B. McCullagh" <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: (legal) Re: CDA Dispatch #10: Last Day in Court
Message-ID: <9605141430.AA20216@rpcp.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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[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
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