Supreme Court

Supreme Court Curtly Kicks Lawyer In Teeth Over Extension Request

The Supreme Court doesn't care for your excuses.

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Supreme Court artsyMaybe you can get away with your 30-60 day extension in some other courts, but this here Supreme Court will not brook any of your excuses! The Chief Justice tersely denied an extension request filed by attorney Kyle Duncan on behalf the Gloucester County School Board, a Virginia school board looking to keep their god-given right to forcibly jam transgender kids into high school bathrooms where they feel uncomfortable, despite a Fourth Circuit loss.

Duncan, along with his partner Gene Schaerr, are just way too busy trying to help North Carolina’s legislators fight off the Justice Department’s attack on that state’s anti-LGBT law.

And the Court could not be less impressed.

Has the Chief turned over a new leaf on LGBT rights? Since all indicators suggest hell hasn’t frozen over, that’s unlikely. But perhaps his enthusiasm for slamming shut the courthouse doors as early and often as possible does play a role in this move.

The U.S. Law Week Blog speculates:

But the preeminent treatise on Supreme Court procedure may provide some insight.

“The pressure of counsel’s other professional commitments, such as jury trials or other appellate or Supreme Court litigation, is a frequently advanced reason for seeking an extension,” Stephen M. Shapiro et al., “Supreme Court Practice” § 6.II.7.(a) (10th ed. 2013) says.

But, because “a case considered important enough to submit to the Supreme Court should normally be given priority in a lawyer’s work schedule, only an aggravated and unavoidable situation of this nature may induce favorable action on an application,” it says.

Meet the technical rules or take a hike! This brand of brutal adherence to rule has been a definite trend over the last ten years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and while this mantra usually locks the most vulnerable away from legal recourse, this time it got turned on a conservative cause célèbre.

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But seriously, the Fourth Circuit decided this case in April, and Duncan waited until August 15 to try and extend the August 29 deadline? Weak sauce. And this is most likely the school board’s fault — Duncan wasn’t representing them below, but they can’t be dragging out the “beauty contest” of right-wing lawyers and forcing their new counsel to seek extensions two weeks out.

In the meantime, it’s back to the drawing board for poor Kyle Duncan. Looks like he’ll be spending the weekend hard at work on a cert petition while the Chief Justice settles into a weekend of My 600-lb. Life binge watching.

Presumably… that seems like something he’d watch, right?

THE SUPREME COURT DOESN’T CARE IF YOU’RE BUSY [U.S. Law Week Blog / Bloomberg]

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Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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