Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

All right, Steve Palmer here, LawyerTalkPodcast.com off the record, on the air. What's the appeal? So here's something going on here in the studio that I just want to make everybody aware of. I've got Brett from Circle 270 Media. He's our sponsor for the show. So if you need a podcast, you want think you got the chops to hang down here in the studio and you want to or you want to create your own podcast, check out circle270media.com well, Brett works with me to help produce this podcast. And every time I do an episode, and I just did one, what's the appeal? Episode on how to get into the Ohio Supreme Court or the US Supreme Court, he always follows up with questions. And I think they're probably the same questions that you guys might be thinking after you listen to this. So I'm going to start taking those questions right after we finish.

Steve Palmer [00:00:42]:

And that's what's going on now. Anyway, enough of the nonsense. Let's get to it. The question after I just talked about the Ohio Supreme Court, how to get into the Ohio Supreme Court based on discretionary review. And I sort of explained the ladder that you go up, it starts as a conviction at trial. And this is criminal, by the way. And this will be relevant in a second. So you get convicted of a crime at trial, you go to the court of Appeals on direct appeal, and then you ask permission for the Ohio Supreme Court to take a look at it.

Steve Palmer [00:01:10]:

And the question from Circle270 Media was, well, wait a minute, it sounds like that's a slow process. How are we getting all these news stories where, say, the U.S. supreme Court is looking at something that's just happened or almost right away, or the Ohio Supreme Court is checking out a funding issue and it doesn't seem like it took the kind of time that you're talking about. And that's absolutely true. There is, and here's how I think these types of issues typically get up to the highest courts, say Congress or the president or the General assembly here in Ohio or some governmental actor takes an action, maybe it's an executive order, seems to be a popular topic these days. Or maybe the General assembly is doing something like allocating funding for schools or education or whatever. Well, then you have somebody, a lot of times these are cause groups or charitable foundations or other groups will go file a lawsuit. And the very purpose of the lawsuit is to say to the court what that person is doing, what Congress did, what the General assembly did, what that government actor did violates the Constitution or violates the law.

Steve Palmer [00:02:28]:

And so this is called a declaratory judgment action. And this is how a lot of the executive orders are getting challenged and they're walking into district courts or they're walking, say in Ohio, walking into a state court and saying this violates the law. And because it's so obvious, because I am so likely to win, because, because if you don't rule on this right away, judge, if you don't do something quickly, then this is gonna cause irreparable harm that cannot be fixed. So we want an injunction. We want you to order this not to be enforced right away while we figure out the legality of it. And this is how, say the U.S. supreme Court is looking at some of these hot topic issues. And this is how the Ohio Supreme Court often looks at funding issues.

Steve Palmer [00:03:14]:

Because the trial court where the litigation happens says, either yay, I'll grant you an injunction. And in federal courts now, one of the topics is this district court is saying, not only am I going to prevent this enforcement, I'm going to prevent it across the nation. This can't be enforced anywhere. And that's its own issue. So the other side says, well, that's going to cause us irreparable harm because of yada, yada, yada. We're going to appeal you, Judge, and we're going to go right to the court of appeals and we're going to call this an emergency appeal. Because it's so important that we're going to get an emergency appeal. And we want it to.

Steve Palmer [00:03:52]:

We're going to fast track it, we're going to put it on the expedited docket, and then the court of appeals either agrees or disagrees. The other side, or your side goes up to the Ohio Supreme Court or the US Supreme Court asking them to look not at the merits of the case necessarily, but rather at whether the trial judge, the first judge properly denied or granted a request for a restraining order to stop whatever action is from being employed, or denying the request for restraining order, whichever the situation may be. Now, when I say it's not exactly on the merits, what I mean is this. When you hear that the US Supreme Court refused to review whatever action, it doesn't mean that the person on the other side of that lost or on that side of it lost, but it means that the court just refused to change whatever the status quo is of the restraining order or the temporary restraining order. One of the criteria, though, there's like a list of things they look for and one of them is irreparable harm. And, you know, look them up. There's a bunch. But one of the primary ones is something called a likelihood of success on the merits.

Steve Palmer [00:04:58]:

So it's like a sneak peek into the legal issues to see. All right, if we actually, let's say the side that wants the temporary restraining order is not likely to succeed on the merits, I think the courts are going to say, well, why grant a temporary restraining order? That's going to get us nowhere. If the side that wants the order is likely to succeed on the merits, well, then you're going to be more likely to get the restraining order. Now, again, there's other criteria, but that's a big one. So it's not exactly on the merits, but a lot of times the courts are sort of telegraphing where the case is going to go by either granting or denying or affirming or not affirming a court's decision to issue or not issue a temporary restraining order. So anyway, back to the question. That's exactly how cases often get up quickly, particularly on these hot topic issues that seem to be quick hitting and fast. So anyway, what's the appeal? Follow up questions from Circle 270 Media.

Steve Palmer [00:05:52]:

Check it out, circle270media.com if you want your podcast, not just here in the studio, by the way, nationwide consulting. So lawyer talk off the record, on the air till now.