Have I mentioned that this is a really busy month for big ticket courtroom action?
Conservative opponents suing the city over its equal rights ordinance are pushing, along with several City Council members, for the upcoming case to go before a jury, a move the administration said is unprecedented and would defy election law.
After a City Council meeting Wednesday, members Michael Kubosh, Oliver Pennington and C.O. Bradford, who voted in favor of the ordinance last spring, all argued the case should go to a jury trial rather than before a judge as originally scheduled. A state district judge will hold a hearing Friday on the request for a jury trial and the city’s response asking for a such a trial to be barred.
“The city may be deploying a demonstrative legal strategy,” Bradford said. “But I believe it will be a loser in the public opinion arena. We simply should not be trying to remove the people from the process.”
Just as a reminder, this is all about whether or not The People get to vote on the civil rights of some other people. We simply should not be conceding that point.
“There never has been a jury trial in an election contest in the state of Texas,” [former City Attorney David] Feldman said.
Plaintiff Jared Woodfill disputed that claim, saying the case is not an “election contest” because it does not pertain to the results of an election.
“What they’re really saying is they don’t think the people are smart enough to make that decision,” Woodfill said. “Whether it’s been having the voters vote or now allowing a jury to decide, (Parker) has been consistent on that.”
Election law attorney Doug Ray, who had not seen the court filings, said the case sounded like a “ballot access” issue – whether or not a candidate or a measure qualifies for a ballot. In those cases, granting a jury trial is rare, he said.
“It’s not clear-cut,” Ray said as to whether or not the plaintiffs are entitled to a jury trail. “As they say, the devil is always in the details.”
Feldman agreed that the case is a “ballot acccess” issue, saying that both “ballot access” and “election contest” cases fall under the state’s election code. Under the election code, only a district judge, not a jury, has the power to rule in those cases, he said.
Woodfill, Kubosh and Bradford all said the city would be wise to allow a jury trial in light of the recent controversy over the city’s subpoenaing of sermons and other materials belonging to certain pastors who helped organize the petition.
Funny how the “wise” thing to do at every stage of this process has been to give the haters exactly what they want. I’m not an attorney and I don’t know anything about the fine legal points at issue here. If Woodfill et al have a persuasive case, they’ll get what they’re asking for on the merits. What say we stick with that for now? The case is set to begin on January 19. I can’t wait.
UPDATE: I was not aware of this:
Attorneys for the city last month filed a motion requesting a bench trial, but the plaintiffs say they have a “constitutional right to a trial by jury.” That motion and others are scheduled to be heard today, but we’ll have to wait until the trial, scheduled for January 19, for the truly good stuff, which includes allegations of forged signatures.
So far, most of the City’s challenges to the petitions’ validity has centered around technical — and pretty boring — matters like whether a page included a blank space for a circulators’ signature. What’s really intriguing, though, is the City’s more recent contention that many names were forged, and that Woodfill “is no stranger” to fraudulent petitions.
In motions filed last November, attorneys for the City cited a suit where Woodfill — then the chairman of the Harris County Republican Party — accepted “facially valid” election petitions that “turned out to involve ‘forgery, fraud, or other non-accidental defects discoverable only by independent investigation.”
No one has argued that Woodfill knew the signatures in that election were invalid at the time he accepted them, but attorneys for the City point out that the court didn’t buy Woodfill’s argument that “the truthfulness of a circulator’s affidavit is strictly a criminal matter.”
[…]
These allegations were enough for for plaintiff Steve “Birth Control Pills Make Women Less Attractive to Men” Hotze, to drop out of the suit — something the City’s attorneys say is evidence that “misconduct and non-accidental defects are so pervasive” throughout the petitions. Listen, it’s a bad sign when your co-plaintiff is Steve Hotze. But it’s a really bad sign when Hotze drops out from fear that he may not have a legally sound argument.
My, my, my. Now I really can’t wait to see what happens at trial.