Team Coleman Filing Appeal Today

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On a conference call with reporters just now, the Coleman legal team announced that they are formally filing their notice of appeal today with the state Supreme Court, and will now await an order from that court to have briefs submitted and to schedule oral arguments.

“We do believe that the district court got it wrong on the law,” said legal spokesman Ben Ginsberg, “and wrong because the Minnesota tradition and law are to enfranchise people, and their decision disenfranchises many Minnesotans, whose votes have been wrongly rejected.”

Coleman attorney Jim Langdon laid out the campaign’s hopes at the state Supreme Court — that the state Supreme Court is not bound by the same rules as the trial court, but can instead make and clarify those rules.

“We think that the contest court may have felt constrained by some of the older Supreme Court cases — 1975, 1937, some other cases — and as a lower court wasn’t about to say that the Supreme Court cases didn’t apply here,” Langdon explained. “However, the Supreme Court itself can make it clear that those cases involved very distinct circumstances that aren’t applicable here. And as a result, they don’t govern this action, and the constitutional issues — equal protection and due process — do.”

Langdon predicted that the court might set a schedule to hear arguments in anywhere from two weeks to two months. “In normal circumstances, with a typical civil case, the process could take anywhere from three to eight months,” he said. “So this is — whatever they choose will be very expedited.”

Langdon also explained the process, and how the notice of appeal will briefly lay out which issues will be appealed, which will then be expanded upon in the later briefs: “It’s essentially the same issues as were at trial, only focused on the constitutional arguments.”

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