Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Whoops

Today the Eleventh Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, affirmed a sentence meted out by Judge Donald Graham in United States v. Aguirre-Lopez. One of the issues raised by Aguirre-Lopez was that the 11th Circuit should wait until the Supreme Court decided Rita before issuing an opinion. The 11th Circuit said that wasn't necessary -- it need not wait on the High Court to issue an opinion in Rita because it wouldn't affect the outcome. Fair enough..... except one thing: the Supreme Court decided Rita last Thursday and Aguirre Lopez came out today. WHOOPS!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously, the law clerks who really write unpublished decisions wrote this pre-Rita, and the judges who never really read the unpublished opinions written by their law clerks, never noticed. But that just highlights the quality of what comes out of unpublished decisions.

KaySieverding said...

So does that mean that the appellate court abused its discretion and the plaintiff is entitled to mandamus at the Supreme Court or to reversal under rule 60(b)6?