Miscellaneous

The One Where Seth Blows the Doors off the Courthouse

And so: Seth and I triumphantly return from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seemingly assured victory; actually, Seth is doing most of the triumphantness - he's got a real job, so I'm his proxy, which means I can speak on behalf of him without modesty. Dude rocked it komodo-dragon style.

First, the Ninth Circuit courthouse in Pasadena is, like, the nicest court house in all of these lands - situated in a residential area, it'd be easy to mistake it for a rich dude's house were it not for the parking lot sign that warns, "Do not fuck with us; we have camera controlled firearms aimed at your head" (or something like that).

Seth was third on the docket, but his case came up sooner, because the lawyer for defense in the second case failed to appear, and a call revealed that the lady had decided to go on vacation this week. I have no idea what kind of massive fuck-up forgets to show up to an appellate hearing in the Ninth Circuit, but if she has a boss, she probably doesn't anymore. Sheesh.

Anyway, Seth stepped up, introduced himself, and basically rocked the foundation of the courthouse with his eloquence. Truthfully, though: He was good, really fucking good. He never missed a beat, and even when the three-judge panel tried to knock him back, he stood firm, conceded points where it was wise to do so and confidently, vociferously argued his stronger points (of which there were many), and definitely came out on top on the central issue of the case. Unfortunately, his client's first lawyer was an absolute bonehead, and the judges said as much ("There are a lot of bad immigration lawyers, but this guy is even worse."). Government counsel didn't fare as well, but to be fair, she was saddled with a lousy case and some embarrassingly awful government talking points - for a few minutes, the panel nailed her to the wall and watched her wriggle. She withstood it as best as to be expected.

By the end, a few things had become fairly clear: 1) There are a lot of really bad immigration lawyers, who in turn leave a huge mess for the clearly superior appellate lawyers; 2) By and large, the immigration law judges bend over backwards to deny asylum petitions - they will use any excuse they can find to send folks back to their homeland, persecution be damned. And 3) the Ninth Circuit (or at least this panel) seems to recognize what's going on, and they seem to looking for a good excuse to grant those petitions for asylum. And it was apparent that Seth had provided that good excuse.

The opinion probably won't be out for a few weeks or months, but based on how the hearing went, there was about an 80 percent chance Seth won. And even if he somehow doesn't, dude looked like he belonged behind the podium. It was really cool to watch.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on August 06, 2008 (boomark / email).