Posted on 03/14/2009 11:09:15 AM PDT by Natural Law
Bickle is not a law clerk to a Supreme Court Justice. He is an employee of the Supreme Court's clerk's office. He is in charge of papers asking for stays. Because all of Orly's motions to stay the inauguration were denied, she is blaming him.
Is that right? Then there has been a lot of confusion about his role. I’ve repeatedly seen him called a “clerk.” In the context of SCOTUS, that’s a very confusing term to use if he’s not a clerk.
So, thanks for the heads up.
The word has two meanings in the context of the Supreme Court. Each Justice has 2 or 3 "law clerks" who are recent law school graduates and serve for 1-2 years (and then usually go on to prestigious law firms). The law clerks assist the judges in reaearching and writing their decisions.
There is also the Court Clerk's office, whose employees are (I belive) civil service employees, and which handles the filing of papers and the like. Bickle works for the Court Clerk's office, not for any of the judges. He is the "Stay Clerk," meaning he is the employee who handles motions for stays. Orly mistrusts him because she cannot believe that her motions to sstay the inauguration were denied because no one on the Court took them seriously; she is convinced he somehow sabotaged her by hiding her papers from the judges or something.
I haven’t kept up with all the details. I think at least some of these papers were diverted when there was a faked up anthrax scare, and others may have been diverted at other times as well. I don’t know specifically why Orly holds Bickle specifically responsible.
Dealing with SCOTUS appears to be a minefield. There are all sorts of technicalities that can hold things up. The regular personnel can certainly sidetrack stuff if they choose to do so. And if you complain about it, as Orly and a couple of others have done, that just gets them mad at you.
As I recall, several others have made similar complaints.
Dealing with any court can be a minefield if you don't know their procedures. Orly is, unfortunately, a lawyer with very little litigation experience, and no experience at all in the U.S. Supreme Court. She has made all sorts of rookie mistakes, and always assumes that there is a great plot against her. She needs to buy a copy of Supreme Court Practice and read it carefully.
BTTT.
Great post Natural Law - Thank you. BTTT
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