Thoughts about appeals... from a layman.

[malthaussen]

I'd actually like some feedback from legal professionals on this question.

It seems to me, as a layman fairly well educated in legal history, but not clued-in to the nuts-and-bolts of daily legal practice, that a trial should only be accepted for appeal if there is some procedural issue that suggests it was not fair to the appellant. Yet Mr Trump seems to get away with appealing all judgements just because he doesn't like the results. He's not the only one, of course, but to me that seems an abuse of the theory of appellate courts.

Higher court can always reject an appeal if they think it is without merit, correct? So why do higher courts indulge the Orange One, and other appellants who are just throwing tantrums because the trial didn't go their way? It seems a waste of the Court's time and effort.

Those who actually work in the legal profession, please feel free to tell me what an idiot I am.

-- Mal

[marybourg]

1. Because s lawyer can almost always

find a procedural issue to raise.

[malthaussen]

2. Granted, but Higher Court is not obliged to humor them. n/t

[DC77]

3. Two quick points...

1. A trial is not accepted for appeal. An appellate court decides questions of law not facts. The trial court has already decided the facts. Either a jury or judge can be fact finders (or stipulated or agreed to by the litigants).
2. An intermediate court allows appeals as a matter of right. That is, so long as the appellant (the one appealling the matter), sends proper briefs, formatted according to special rules. The highest court (in NY, this is the Court of Appeals), needs to grant permission. This is why a very limited amount of cases get accepted, really only ones they want to hear and decide to resolve conflict, or cases of utmost importance.

[DC77]

4. Two quick points

1. A trial is not accepted for appeal. An appellate court decides questions of law not facts. The trial court has already decided the facts. Either a jury or judge can be fact finders (or stipulated or agreed to by the litigants).
2. An intermediate court allows appeals as a matter of right. That is, so long as the appellant (the one appealling the matter), sends proper briefs, formatted according to special rules. The highest court (in NY, this is the Court of Appeals), needs to grant permission. This is why a very limited amount of cases get accepted, really only ones they want to hear and decide to resolve conflict, or cases of utmost importance.

[Ocelot II]

5. Depends on the state, but typically an intermediate appellate court has to accept all appeals.

The same is true in the federal system. You can appeal to a circuit court of appeals, and the case will typically be assigned to a randomly-assigned panel of three judges. In deciding the case the judges can remand the matter to the trial court for additional proceedings; decide
its own that the matter should be reheard because of a potential conflict with a prior decision; or the losing party can ask for a rehearing before the panel or before the full appeals court; or the party can petition SCOTUS for review.

In a state court system the highest court, like SCOTUS, can accept or reject an appeal from the intermediate court. The job of any appellate court is only to determine whether errors of law were made at the trial level. They will not re-decide fact issues. If the appeal claims that facts were wrongly decided at the trial level and a motion for a new trial or a judgment notwithstanding the verdict was denied, the appellate court can order a new trial if convinced that the trial court made a mistake in concluding the jury's decision as to the facts was correct. This hardly ever happens, but even then the appellate court doesn't overrule decisions as to facts - it's just telling the trial judge that the jury might have been wrong and that a new trial should be ordered.

There are some kinds of orders called interlocutory orders that can't be appealed until after the trial is over, and those would be included as issues on appeal. Most interlocutory orders can't be immediately appealed unless the issue affects the outcome or the rights of a party.

TFG appeals everything just because he can.

[malthaussen]

6. Understood as to the intermediate courts, but why...

... do the higher courts, which can refuse to hear appeals, indulge what is obviously a petulant waste of the Court's time?

-- Mal

[Ocelot II]

7. Mostly they don't. But if constitutional issues of national importance are raised,

SCOTUS usually will take the case regardless who the appellant is. That they granted cert in the immunity case isn't surprising because there are some questions in the case that have never been finally decided; the problem with it is that they didn't fast-track it like they did in the Nixon tapes case. I think they will decide the case in the government's favor eventually, which will be a good thing in the long run. But I'm not freaking out about the delays in the trials, either, because I always have in mind that a conviction in any of the trials is not a sure thing; too many people assume TFG will be convicted of something. But that is not a safe assumption, and an acquittal in any of the cases just before the election would, IMO, be a much worse result than no trial at all.

[malthaussen]

8. I'm not freaked out about the cases, either.

As for the big one, I can't see how it would be in the interests of the USSC to rule in DJT's favor, and when you get right down to it, none of the justices owe him doo-dad, as they already have their gigs. How the billionaires who own them will instruct them to rule is the only question.

I just find the appellate process tedious, especially as the appeals clearly not based on any procedural questions with merit.

-- Mal