I was stoked on June 7. I had two arguments at the Georgia Supreme Court. For an appellate law nerd like myself, going to the Supreme Court is like getting to suit up an play pro ball. By that tortured analogy, June 7 was a double header. To push the analogy a little further, both arguments were team efforts.
My morning argument was Ling v. State. I think I wrote about this case a few weeks ago. The Court granted a certiorari petition on this case. That means that I lost this case in the Court of Appeal, and I had to petition the Court to convince them that the issues in this case. The Court gets a gi-normous number of petitions each year and grant very few of them. The Court granted this one because the justices wanted to consider just what the responsibilities are for a trial court and for trial counsel when the client does not speak English to get an interpreter.
The issue got some press right after the petition was granted, and several groups showed some interest. While I was on vacation with my son, Baxter and my father in law in D.C. to take in a Nationals game and see the cool airplanes and spaceships at the Air and Space Museum, I received an email from the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project. They were interested in submitting an amicus brief on the case along with the Employment Law Center. Amicus briefs are often submitted in notable cases where a group has some interest or stake in the outcome. Their brief was fantastic, but they offered something else just as valuable.
Being a small law firm provides me enormous flexibility and freedom, but it doesn't offer the opportunity to brainstorm and bounce ideas around with colleagues. Beyond the walls of my office, there aren't a bunch of appellate lawyers around either. The ACLU attorneys started a dialog with me over several emails and phone calls, and the collaboration culminated with a moot court on the Friday before argument with two panels of three as well as a conference call with the ACLU lawyers on the west coast who offered critiques via email later. I booked the practice courtroom at the State Bar building for free, and spent a few hours practicing argument in a simulated environment, with each of the "justices" throwing aggressive and very hard questions at me.
I walked out feeling two things: (1) prepared; and (2) resolved never to argue again without doing a moot court. I flew out to meet my family in Brunswick for the weekend, and I got an email from one of the lawyers on the west coast with excellent critique.
Monday morning, I came to court relaxed but nervous. The Oral Argument went well, and I was gratified to be part of a team effort.
Check out this link, for the video of the Oral argument. While it was just me at the podium, there was a team on the field. On another, the Fulton Daily Report has, for the past several months, posted a cameraman in the Court to record every argument for posting on its website within a day or so. They also go to some trials and record lawyers at work. They do great work, and I have found it to be a resource for me to learn from the mistakes I make at argument as well as from the many lawyers who practice before our Supreme Court.
The afternoon argument involved an inmate who had filed a habeas corpus petition. Habeas corpus is a civil remedy that convicted persons have to challenge whether they are being held in violation of their constitutional rights. The petitioner, Christopher Lucas, had filed his own petition in the county were he is in prison. The court ruled without giving him a hearing first, and he successfully petitioned the court to take on his case. Mercer Law School has a habeas clinic that takes on cases for some inmates in Georgia before the appellate courts. The professor who runs the clinic is Sarah Gerwig-Moore, a friend of mine from college who is brilliant and who cares about the rights of the accused. She asked me if I would be interested in taking Mr. Lucas's case on because school was about to recess for the summer. So, in a way, this case was a team effort, too.
Here's the link to my argument on Lucas
Both cases went very well, and the best part was that I had great lawyers on the other side representing the State, and a Court that was very informed and engaged in the issues.
I will not know the results of these cases for several weeks. Win or lose, it was a great day doing the stuff in my job I love the most.
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