How a Bill Becomes a Law.

The oral arguments of my fathers appeal were heard today by the panel of three appeals judges.

Here’s how an appeal works, from my understanding. The lawyer for the losing side finds legal minutiae from the trial itself which could possibly have swayed the outcome of the trial. He sweeps all these tiddly bits into a little pile and writes a paper proclaiming “My client deserves a hearing!” The winning lawyer write a paper that says “Naw he doesn’t, and shaddup you.”
The god of Justice comes down and disapproves less to one of these lawyers. In our case, the lawyer and his “shaddup you”ings was the more disapproved of.
At that point the onus is upon the losing side’s lawyer to write many a paper asking and begging for more time. And when whoever he is writing is finally fed up with the procrastinating, the lawyer must finally produce a brief. In this brief he a) regales the reader with the “facts of the trial” in the most ridiculously biased a way possible b) argues the main points of improper or flawed legal maneuverings from the trial and c) includes a bibliography of cases which agree with him.
Now is the time for the winning lawyer to dream up reasons for postponing his rebuttal. Months go by. After the increasingly shrill requests for more time have been denied, he too must produce a brief which includes mostly the same stuff. a) But his facts don’t bear even a passing resemblance to the loser’s facts. In fact, passers-by may be forgiven for not recognizing them as originating from the same trial. b) His central thrust will be that everything, even if not exactly properly done, was fine. c) He will include also a bibliography of cases which agree with him.
These two briefs are sent to the appellate court system, more specifically, to the three judge panel (Ohio) which will oversee said case.
And then we all sit and wait and wait and wait for the judges to come around the circuit to hear the oral arguments. More lawyers request even more postponements. The purpose of the oral arguments is beyond me. Those same two lawyers who have taken the time and effort to write down their arguments are asked to stand in front of the panel to, uh, state their argument.
Then the panel has up to six months to decide anything.

Up until today, my entire courtroom experience had been sitting in the visitors section watching my dad’s (badly mangled) trial. Today I went back for the cliff notes version of the same damn thing. It was a good thing that it lasted far less than an hours time, for my body didn’t handle it well. My heart was k-thuddering and my hands were shaking. The whole ordeal just pisses me off without providing anything to lash out at. Watching the prosecutor lie, baldly and calmly is not something I can just sit and watch. Unless of course I’m in a position where all I can do is sit and watch.

Good news is, it went quite well. The judges had some snarky questions for the prosecutor and he fumbled them badly. Our new lawyer hit all the points he needed to hit was smooth, and made sense. My family left the courthouse with small hopes of a re-trial rekindled.