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The Quarry’s Rewrite editor hunting & pecking
An old image
Quincy Quarry News tasked its Legal and Other Affairs editor Learned Hand to cover last week’s Litigation Control Conference pretrial hearing on the secretly planned statues last Tuesday, only to see the Quarry’s rewrite desk slow to write up his notes.
Wicked slow as a matter of undeniable fact.
In any event, pretrial conferences are best viewed as akin to batting practice and while not necessarily indicative of how the impending contest will go, such conferences do indicate who can probably turn on a heater and/or spank a curve ball into play as well as who is looking likely to go 0 for at the plate.
Clearly, the all female legal team for the plaintiffs had their brief and other presentations as neat, tidy and indisputable as women are oh so well-known to do.
A rough day for defense counsel?
An old Columbia Pictures image
Conversely, the two significantly older and white-haired male attorneys endeavoring to defend what looks to be indefensible were pretty much left to winging woefully haphazard arguments that had no apparent viable basis anywhere in the law.
Then again, such could only be expected as the two lead litigators for the plaintiffs are Harvard Law School graduates, not to mention that both possess solid resumes that include clerkships working for senior federal trial court judges and appellate court justices as well as other compelling experience whereas the two old guys for the defense consist of a Suffolk Law School graduate and a New York University law school graduate, respectively, from the days when both law schools were at best middling.
Granted, there is something to be said for the adage that old age & treachery can overcome youth & skill, however, the pretrial conference clearly indicated that such was likely to not be happening in this instance.
“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell” ― Carl Sandburg
Winging it about a winged angel from sacred text
Image via the City of Quincy
Key problems for defendants Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch and the City of Quincy include arguing there are no problems that one statue is of a winged angel who is only known via sacred texts tied to the religious beliefs of the daughters and sons of Sarah and Abraham and thus is clearly not a historical figure of the flesh nor where there any problems with the other as regards their placement on a public building.
Furhter, both the City of Quincy’s City Solicitor and counsel for the police and fire unions further argued that the unions’ shared counsel should be allowed full consideration to argue that unions members should be allowed to have de facto talismans that clearly have roots as Roman Catholic patron saints regardless of all manner of constitutional law, more general law, and case law to the contrary.
In turn, the plaintiffs’ attorneys had their ducks of legal precedence in a row to point out that the unions’ attorney had no basis to assert standing.
In any event, the judge took the unions attorney’s ask for status to argue for the defense under advisement and so issue his ruling shortly.
Needless to say, Quincy Quarry News’ ever-growing legions of loyal readers can count on compelling coverage by the Quarry about the judge’s ruling as soon as the rewrite editor returns from his latest stint at a Betty Ford Clinic.
