Confusion of the Week

[Weston White]

I am a bit perplexed on a recent post made on Lost Horizons, presumably by his wife Doreen, regarding a portion of his resent newsletter.  Now considering how much time Peter Hendrickson has spent in one courtroom or another, one would think that he would have mastered the concept of “procedural law” by now, which is essentially the rules and etiquette of the courtroom and of the civil/criminal/administrative/evidentiary (quasi)judicial process as a whole.

The presiding Judge does not write the orders, he/she merely instructs upon the context of them, either the petitioner or respondent writes them or volunteers to write them for the other party and then files them with the Clerk/Court and provides their adversaries with a copy through proper serving process (as applicable), prior to the filing date.  If an adversary has issue with the document as written, meaning, that such documents do not represent what was actually ordered by the Judge at the hearing, they may then flag that document with the Clerk/JA-Judicial Assistant and can rewrite it themselves so as to have a properly prepared copy ready to present to their Judge, then on the next court date they can raise an objection and request that the Judge take whatever action that is necessary and proper, and may also make a side-note about this discrepancy in order to prepare for appeal, if so necessary.  Other than that, the document is presented to the Judge for signing and official filing with the court at that time.

Though Mr. Hendrickson of course could have been referring to an issue that the Judge in this case, he is referring to, never actually sat on this case or that the Judge never gave these orders to begin with, though the petitioner in the case would have known that and would have been dishonest for not informing Mr. Hendrickson of this information.  Although it does not appear that this was the issue Mr. Hendrickson was raising within his newsletter.  It is more likely that the Judge was hearing the case and then got very sick after giving his orders and the respondent filed those documents on the day the Judge happened to pass, perhaps even after learning that he had passed; still in the end, the facts are still the facts.  Did that Judge issue those orders, while residing on this particular case, prior to his passing?  If so, those orders would still stand, though a review of the prior court transcripts would verify if those orders in hardcopy comply with his orders as originally given.  Otherwise the new Judge to handle the case could act accordingly at the objection of the petitioner.

RIP Judge Kornblum

Regarding LH thread:
http://losthorizons.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... 41c5f4b2d6

And the newsletter URL: http://www.losthorizons.com/MidEditionUpdate.htm


To further note, representing an action in court is much the same as participating in a sporting event.  All courts have specific rules that all within that hearing are to abide by and follow, just as all individual sports have their own established rules that the players must follow.  This type of rules system permits everybody to clearly remain on the same page at all times and thus all may concentrate primarily on the actual event at hand.  When those rules are not followed there is a person within that court that has authority to correct any wrongs committed or to force any guarantees established by the procedural rules, just the same as the players in a sporting event may call upon the referee to review a play or action by another player or team. In the end if a player or team believes that the referee or even an other player or team made bad a judgment, error, or had cheated that ultimately cost them their win or even assured them their win, they may address their concerns before a type of sports commission, just as a party within a courtroom may address a higher court on what they perceive to be a procedural error on the part of their Judge or a misrepresentation of facts or evidence by their adversary.