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What is the point of relitigating all of this again? I feel like I've had this conversation, probably with you, like 1000x since 2021. This feels like we're going through a choreographed dance.
Because there is a massive, massive discrepancy in the application of the law between these two groups of people, as well as the scope of what happened.
Because the alternative is "we looked at this and decided you lose. No we won't tell you our logic." Does that seem like it's helping? If it's going to fail on the merits, show me the merits; allow the debate to happen.
Is there? This is usually taken as an article of faith by conservatives, but no one seems to put any actual numbers out there. Based on the way Trump talks, you'd think nobody was arrested. In Minneapolis, for instance, there were about 100 people charged with felonies in the wake of the riots and another 500 or so charged with misdemeanors. That may not sound like a lot considering that those numbers represent two days of rioting during which over 100 structures burned, but the contexts of the arrests are rather similar. I'm hesitant to offer advice on how to get away with committing crimes, but I'd recommend against livestreaming your criminal activities or posting them to social media. the BLM riots took place at night and were distributed across a large area where there was minimal media presence. Jan 6 took place in the daytime, had a lot of people in a concentrated area, practically none of whom were trying to conceal their identity, and the area itself was swarming with media. The people who got arrested in Minnesota were largely those who decided to livestream looting or post their hauls on social media, and the same was true of virtually everyone who was arrested in connection to Jan 6. In an emergency situation, the police have higher priorities than arresting individuals. Practically nobody was actually arrested on Jan 6, but identifying he perpetrators was like shooting fish in a barrel. Not as many BLM protestors were quite this stupid, but the police didn't ignore those who were.
The other thing that makes this line of arguing particularly vacuous is that, even if the number of BLM protestors convicted is proportionally lower, I have yet to hear any Democratic politician suggest pardoning any of them.
I think you're confused about how the legal system actually works. First, I'm not sure if your complaint is that the cases should be heard on the merits or that the courts aren't issuing written opinions. If it's the latter, be aware that being told "you lose" without explanation has nothing to do with standing and is the norm in litigation; written opinions are very rare. Some motions are filed strictly to protect the record and won't be challenged if the opposing party indicates that they're going to contest them. In these cases the court won't even formally deny them. If we decide to argue a motion, we'll get some sense of the judge's reasoning based on how he responds during oral argument, but most judges don't say anything during argument and don't rule from the bench. A week or so later you'll get an order granting or denying the motion and that's it; you move on with the case. And yes, this includes motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment where the judge is practically ending the Plaintiff's case, at lease against one defendant. And, not that it applies to the election cases, but jury verdicts don't offer any more insight. You either get a defense verdict or a bill, with no further commentary except in unusual situations.
Now, in some cases trial courts do issue written opinions, particularly in cases where there are novel issues and the court expects an appeal. In those cases, the court will occasionally write a brief opinion that isn't published and has no precedential value, but is in the records for the appellate court to look at if they want to. I agree that some of the trial courts could have done so here. There are two problems with this, though. First, these cases were all asking for emergency relief. You can't expect the court to act fast but nonetheless have time to issue opinions detailing their reasoning. The second problem is that this wouldn't do anything. The standing objections were obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity with the law, and there was plenty of commentary available. The court issuing an 86 page opinion that acts more or less as a primer on standing and why this Plaintiff doesn't have it would have done nothing to shift public opinion.
Now, if it's the former, and you really want the cases to be heard on their merits, then it gets even worse. First, I don't know what you mean by wanting full discovery power. Most of these lawsuits didn't involve any factual disputes. For instance, Texas v. Pennsylvania (which is what I assumed you had in mind when talking about dismissals based on standing) didn't involve any disputed facts. The question was whether actions taken by various state election officials violated the Constitution; no one was arguing that these actions weren't taken. An "on the merits" ruling by in trial court in this case would have likely been "there were no constitutional violations, you lose". Would that be a better outcome? Would a 120-page opinion explaining why state legislatures are allowed to delegate ministerial responsibilities really satisfy the people alleging MASSIVE FRAUD?
And what do you expect to accomplish with this discovery, anyway? None of the lawsuits, save Sidney Powell's, made any actual allegations of fraud. "Full discovery" is essentially asking the court to let you go on a fishing expedition. Where are you even going to start? If you file the day the election is called for Biden, you're looking at a few days for the defendants to respond, and for the judge to hear motions to dismiss. If he denies these motions and sets the case for trial, you're normally looking at a discovery deadline around May 1, over three months after Biden has been sworn in. Of course, there's no way you're even making that deadline, because you're going on a fishing expedition, which means you need to conduct discovery just to get to the point when you can begin conducting discovery. What are you looking for? Do you want emails? Are you going to request emails involving official election accounts in all the affected jurisdictions? You better plan on giving them ample time to sort through these emails to get rid of irrelevant information. Or since you don't trust them to do that you can sort through them yourself. How many emails do you think this is? How many of them do you think you'll actually want to use as evidence in court? How much time and money do you expect it to take for you to sort through all of these yourself? How many depositions do you plan on taking? Who do you plan on deposing? How much do you think this is going to cost? Given the breadth of the allegations, two years seems like an optimistic timetable for discovery completion, and that's before you get into all the other stuff. With any luck you might uncover the fraud and get your verdict before the next election. Assuming there are no appeals, Trump might actually be able to serve a few days of his term before being constitutionally ineligible.
I think this is an underappreciated point. I am an interested layman when it comes to law but it was still pretty easy for me to find actual lawyers going through these complaints on social media and explaining the specific deficiencies with them. These are the same deficiencies a court would inevitably point to when they did issue a decision dismissing the case or granting summary judgement. The idea that all the judicial decisions had a partisan motivation seems contradicted by the fact that third party observers could identify the outcome and explain why that would be the outcome in advance.
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You've had a debate (presumably on the merits of the claims) a thousand times and you remain unconvinced, yet you claim that everyone would be ok with it if the court would just listen to arguments? Seems more likely that people will just say the court is biased and keep believing.
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