Reply #94: I 'm a lawyer and I believe it will have to be broader. Here's why.

[davidgmills]

Normally persons who are non-litigants have no standing in a case to request anything. Joe Citizen cannot ask the judge presiding over a case to expedite discovery or preserve evidence or any other thing unless he intervenes in the lawsuit and becomes a litigant.

I find it hard to believe Kerry would have any standing to do anything in court or ask for any kind of relief unless he becomes a litigant.

The only exception to this rule that I can think of is an amicus brief. But the purpose of an amicus brief is to inform the judge what the interested person thinks the LAW of the case should be, and almost always after the facts of the case are known. A request for expeditied discovery and preservation of evidence pertains to discovering the facts of the case and is not a means of informing the judge what someone thinks the law should be.

I'm racking my brain, but I can think of no instance where Kerry would have standing to ask the judge for an expedited hearing or for preservation of evidence unless he becomes a litigant first.

Can any lawyers out there conceive of any way he could possibly do this without becoming a litigant? Cause I sure can't.

For what its worth, this is 27 years of legal experience talking, and way too many court cases to count.