Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Try petitioning the Appellate Governor for clemency

From a brief in a case that's coming before the Idaho Court of Appeals:

Thus, the Respondent argued successfully that he had his rights violated under Art 1 § 17 of the Idaho Appellant Constitution…

Idaho does not, in fact, have a whole 'nother constitution devoted entirely to appeals from the regular constitution.

Further, it is not only not authorized by law, it explicitly violates the law as specifically delineated by the Idaho Appellant Legislature as explained above.

I'm not really sure how you would appeal from one legislature to another legislature.

The legislature drafted the law such that the right to refuse must be read to him [with him having the right to physically refuse, including the loss of priveleges that accompanies a subsequent refusal which is a result of the implied [legal] consent], unless there is an exigent circumstance [wherein public protection outweighed private constitutional protections such as in case of felonies, manslaughter/death to a third person and aggravated driving].

I admit to drawing brackets around particular phrases in UCC provisions to make sure I know what's going on, but the brackets in this sentence didn't help me at all.

So, the use of language isn't all that great. But does he have a good argument? Well, no. He's arguing that you can't say "no" to a police officer who wants to test you for alcohol, but you have a right to "physically refuse" the test. (Run away? Fight the officer? Throw a tantrum?) And then there's the part where he thinks that appellate courts shouldn't review the decisions of lower courts.

This would be pretty good by pro se standards, but this brief was written by a lawyer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It took me a surprisingly long time to figure out that this was a find and replace gone awry. I have yet to figure out what kind of logic the brackets are operating on.

-Jayne