In a post last night on the continuing legal saga of the Wisconsin anti-conervative “John Doe” probe, we noted that Appeals Ct stays injunction against Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative probe
Last night we noted Fed District Court enjoins Wisconsin “John Doe” anti-conservative investigation.Late this afternoon the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit issued a stay of the injunction, on procedural grounds which leave the District Court the opportunity to reinstate the injunction.The issue for the appeal was that a “Notice of Appeal” of certain court rulings had been filed prior to the injunction being issued. Once a Notice of Appeal is filed, it moves the case automatically to the Court of Appeals and the District Court no longer has jurisdiction, unless certain exceptions are met.So the Court of Appeal basically said the District Court Judge didn’t have the case before him anymore, and couldn’t issue the injunction.
That key exception would be if the District Court found the appeal to be frivolous.
It just did, and reinstated the injunction in an Order issued today, which reads in part (full embed at bottom of post):
To be clear, the Court is absolutely convinced that the defendants‟ attempt to appeal this issue is a frivolous effort to deprive the Court of its jurisdiction to enter aninjunction. To recap prior proceedings, the Court allowed the parties to brief certain prefatory issues in advance of a ruling on the plaintiffs‟ motion for injunctive relief. The defendants raised a variety of issues in their motions to dismiss, including, for example, that the Court lacks jurisdiction under various abstention doctrines. See generally, April 8 Decision and Order. The Court rejected all of those arguments, and the defendants are entitled to pursue those arguments on appeal. The Court‟s forbearance in allowing the defendants to raise these issues cannot and should not deprive the Court of jurisdiction to enter an injunction in this case….However, for the sake of completeness, and as requested by the plaintiffs, the Court finds that these appeals are also frivolous….Therefore, the plaintiffs‟ motion to certify the defendants‟ appeals as frivolous [ECF No. 155] is GRANTED. The Clerk of Court is directed to send a copy of this Order to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Once again, the plaintiffs‟ motion for a preliminary injunction [ECF No. 4] is GRANTED. The reasoning in the Court‟s May 6 Decision and Order [ECF No. 181] is incorporated by reference.
Wisconsin John Doe Order 5-8-2014 Re Frivolous Appeal
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