Judge Land, in
dismissing Rhodes' TRO case, said in the "background" section of the Opinion (i.e., not in the "Discussion" portion of the ruling in which the rationale for the ruling was set forth) as follows:
Plaintiff’s counsel speculates that President Obama was not born in the United States based upon the President’s alleged refusal to disclose publicly an “official birth certificate” that is satisfactory to Plaintiff’s counsel and her followers. She therefore seeks to have the judiciary compel the President to produce “satisfactory” proof that he was born in the United States.Counsel makes these allegations although a “short-form” birth certificate has been made publicly available which indicates that the President was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. (Opinion at 3.) So - he didn't rely on it, and didn't say that it was proof of anything. He merely noted that the short form had been made publicly available. Again - this type of "aside" comment is far different from the situation where Orly, and others, have repeatedly submitted copies of blogs, etc., as EVIDENCE to support their various claims.
Basically the judge in his footnotes states a short form b/c has been made public and uses this as rational for part of his ruling in Rhodes. Yet, the very evidence he is alluding to has been brought up in multiple cases as a fake, insufficient to prove eligibility etc.
Not being a lawyer I may not understand why a judge would rely upon a .jpg on a website to reach a decision when the validity of the image is in question.
By relying on the image, isn’t the judge giving credence and authenticity to both the website and an image that appears on it without holding any hearing to determine if the image is authentic in the first place?