Quote:
Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Really? I read it as Reinhardt being pissed that a district court ruling he surely likes will have to be dismissed for lack of standing at the appellate level so that it cannot be given broader application outside California.
I'll wait for Atticus to weigh in, but whom exactly were they supposed to sue other than state officials, when only state officials are charged with implementing the law? They could sue Atticus's kids, but wouldn't they have been dismissed as defendants for not being proper defendants?
It seems like the strategy was entirely explicable--they knew that the state wasn't going to defend the law so you sue the defendants that you know are going to lie down anyway.
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"Waaah! I'm Steven Reinhardt, and I wish everyone would litigate their cases in the specific manner that minimizes the power of the legislative and executive branches, and makes the judicial branch the ultimate decider of all controversies of our time! Waaah!"
As for a writ of mandate, there are all kinds of abstention doctrines that make it hard to go to a federal court to order a state official to do a particular thing. There are allowances for state court writs in California law, but these also show respect for the idea that judges decide things after they happen and are very bad at directing things to happen -- something Reinhardt apparently missed in judge school. But the plaintiffs here were in federal court and can't rely upon the Cal. Code Civ. Proc. sections on trial court writ practice.
