Monday, September 17, 2012

Clarion-Ledger covers Westbrooks residency decision

The Clarion-Ledger has a preliminary story up on Judge Winston Kidd's decision from earlier today reinstating Latrice Westbrooks to the ballot in the 2nd District Court of Appeals race.  Westbrooks told the Clarion-Ledger that she has signed a lease to move into the district, which should make any further litigation of the matter moot.

The lawyers in the audience will be familiar with mootness, which is the opposite of ripeness.  And ripeness is what we discussed earlier in the day....  Heck, I even touched on standing earlier.  Never thought I'd blog so much about justiciability in one day.

Congratulations to David McCarty, Ramel Cotton, and P.J. Lee on winning the hearing this morning before Judge Kidd.

2 comments:

Kingfish said...

Read the statute. Says "From" a congressional district. Does that mean represent the district or have to live there.

Matt Eichelberger said...

The question is whether that means the votes come from the district or the candidate. If you compare it to other qualifications statutes, residency is addressed separately from the language found in the Court of Appeals statute.

If the Legislature intended a residency requirement, they did a poor job of drafting one. But reading in requirements that aren't there isn't the job of the courts, at least under a conservative jurisprudential philosophy. If the Legislature wants to fix it next term, they're certainly welcome to do so.