Just as debunked conspiracy theories don’t die when logic dictates that they should, so birther conspiracy theory lawsuits don’t seem to end when the courts dismiss them. Case in point is Fair v. Walker in Maryland.
This case, the long caption of which is Tracy A. Fair and Mary C. Mitlenberger1 v. Robert Walker, Chairman of the Maryland State Board of Elections, et al. (President Obama is one of the defendants), is one of the leftover election lawsuits from 2012 that I wrote about in my article “Fair gets Obama hearing.” The issue raised was whether the Maryland General Assembly members should be removed from office for voting for something that removed the requirement that candidates swear they were eligible, that the law be changed back to what it was, and Obama be barred from the ballot in Maryland forever (plus some other stuff). The case was dismissed because it was filed later than the date on which the statute required candidates for the ballot to be certified. The original suit (based on a faulty knowledge of Maryland law) was filed in time, but the amended complaint was too late. The legal term is “laches,” a burden on a party because of delay.
Plaintiffs appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals and lost; however, they have now filed for reconsideration, citing among other things, “new evidence.” One wonders how there could be “new evidence” about when primary ballots for the 2012 election had to be certified. The specific new evidence was attached to a motion for judicial notice linked below, which seems to consist of some old stuff (Vattel, etc.) This all seems to be something related to their original claim, which of course could not be heard because it was dismissed. In all fairness (no pun intended), they allege other reasons for reconsideration, and dump a very long list of cases. Plaintiffs stated at the outset that they couldn’t find a real lawyer to take their case. I would just offer one suggestion to pro se plaintiffs: do not start an argument with the words, I do not understand how….
To the best my knowledge, the decision of the Court of Special Appeals was not published.
Documents:
1Added to Birthers A to Z list.
“Birther plaintiffs say they didn’t get a Fair decision”
I saw what you did there.
“Had the SBE or the SOS told me earlier that they no longer required a certificate of candidacy and that there was none on file, I would have researched the laws much sooner … .”
An exquisite example of the legal maxim, Ignorantia juris non excusat (“ignorance of the law does not excuse”).
Doc if you’re really interested and have 15 minutes or so to waste or don’t ever want back, there is a copy of the MJN over at Fogbow in all its gory gibberish, she seems to have taken a page from Orly’s book and started copying whole pages from the innerwebs as “proof” of her delusions.
They are both incredibly painful to read.
Here is the link http://www.unslaveamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fair-v.-Obama-Request-for-Judicial-Notice.pdf
Here is the motion to reconsider http://www.unslaveamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fair-v.-Obama-Motion-to-Reconsider.pdf
And like Orly they believe that if they can convince the court of the “merits” of their case, the court will overlook the procedural deficiencies which caused the lawsuit to be dismissed in the first place.
Tracy’s biggest stumbling block, well at least the one of immediate concern, is not that she needs to get the court to overlook the “minor procedural deficiencies” of her filing, but the bigger and more pressing concern that she has exactly NO “merits”, no “facts”, and NO standing to begin with. The fact that she screwed up the basic bits just means they never had to deal with any of the rest of it.
IF, and I say big IF, she hadn’t bollixed the initial filing, she would have lost on the same “merits” that Taitz did in AL, the SOS has no duty, and no authority to remove a national candidate, and particularly not just on Tracy’s fervently held delusion that Obama wasn’t a citizen. She has NO proof of anything she claims, just a bunch of wild speculation and delusion. So either way, she would still be in the same place.
Doc wrote, ” I would just offer one suggestion to pro se plaintiffs: do not start an argument with the words, I do not understand.”
Good suggestion. You might also refrain from explaining how an official with the Carroll County Bar Association recommended you be committed: “I would first like to explain why we have come to court without representation. We are both aware that it is not a smart thing to do, to be your own attorney, however we’ve called practically every attorney in Maryland and many outside of Maryland, we called every lawyer referral service in Maryland we could find and we called every County Bar Association in the State, in which the woman at the Carroll County Bar Association, in my own county, after explaining my case, said ‘You are a nutcase and need to check yourself into a mental institution’, which I find extremely inappropriate, when they have no clue of the facts in this case.” http://www.scribd.com/doc/86426592/Maryland-Ballot-Challenge-Petition-to-remove-Obama-from-the-ballot
The numerous errors in punctuation and grammar are in the original.
She forgot “P.S. I am not a crank.”
Then I wonder where they got all the verbiage from that sounds like it comes straight from a lawyer, like
“This evidence is not in the administrative record, because it was accumulated
after the action triggering this lawsuit. The evidence is nonetheless relevant to
appellants legal points relating to remand. See, e.g., Esch v. Yeutter, 876 F.2d 976, 991 (D.C.Cir.1989) (noting permissibility of extra-record material when considering
relief). ”
Did they copy/paste that or did they have a ghostwriter?
They could have cribbed from some other case.
That is precisely what they did. It’s on page three.
https://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/protectedresources/stellers/esa/biop/final/litigation/submissions/oceanamotionforjudicialnotice.pdf
The appeals court didn’t publish the opinion, but someone (possibly Fair, herself) put it online. I might’ve seen the link to it on NBC’s blog, but I didn’t bother to bookmark it.
If anyone really cares, it’s out there.
Tracy really should have listened to the lady at the local Bar Assn, she was giving her some really good and honest advice.
She at least got part of it right when she said of herself, “it is not a smart thing to do, to be your own attorney”, pity she didn’t listen, she could have saved herself a lot of humiliation.
Then again, she went ahead and justified the above two statements when she filed this piece of caca.
I bet they thought nobody would ever find that. LOL