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Comment by hexsprite | Hacker News Reader

Their election lawsuit was never heard on it's merits, so your comment doesn't really apply.

Well... let's say the reputation of the Texas AG is more than a little stained by that stunt. I think the skepticism is well deserved.

Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah also signed the effort to overturn the election results of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (who are all absent from this action).

The overlap is interesting, IMO.

The AG of Texas is an indicted fraudster whose deputies keep quitting as whistleblowers alleging further crimes, and the FBI is investigating him for bribery.

The election stunt is a pretty obvious play for a pardon from Trump.

Can pardons be given prior to conviction?

Edit: According to NBC News, POTUS can pre-emptively issue a pardon.

[0] - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/could-trump-pa...

Maybe so, but I wouldn't be surprised if it earned him brownie points from fervent Trump supporters. It may even get him re-elected by those supporters, assuming he isn't indicted...

You mean indicted again? He's been indicted on five counts of felony securities fraud for five years and is still being prosecuted.

Ah I didn't know that he's already currently under indictment. Today I learned...

But yes, if he has something that he can point to when re-election time comes around and say "Look, I tried to help Trump out" then it will probably guarantee him votes.

I'm a Texas resident and didn't know he had already been indicted. But I tend to vote Libertarian for local and state positions so I didn't really look too much into his background.

I don't understand your comment. Did the SCOTUS not read the whole thing before passing on it?

Whether they read it or not, they didn't comment on its merits, but rather said plainly that Texas doesn't have standing. That is to say, something may be amiss, but Texas can't be the one to sue over it.

It's like if something went missing in your house, and your neighbor decides to sue because they think a thief stole your stuff and you didn't do a good enough job investigating.

> Whether they read it or not, they didn't comment on its merits, but rather said plainly that Texas doesn't have standing. That is to say, something may be amiss, but Texas can't be the one to sue over it.

Sort of. Thomas and Alito said that they would hear the case, but wouldn't grant any of the requested relief. This still technically doesn't comment on the merits (the relief requested was not really grantable), but its more than just Texas can't sue over it, even if they could the things they were asking for couldn't be done.

Wouldn't the lack of standing be an aspect of the merits of the suit? In any case, the supreme court isn't the sole judge of the merits of a case, they are just the arbiters of the outcome.

In English, yes. However, "on the merits" is a term of art that explicitly excludes procedural matters like "can you even bring this case" or "did you file on time." Standing is a procedural issue.

So while the suit was thrown out for being obviously faulty, it did not fail "on its merits." Mind you, that does not make the objection sensible. If I write "they are bad because they are a poopy face" in crayon, and then I don't pay my filing fees and the case is thrown out for that reason, I am technically correct that my case was not heard on its merits, but that doesn't make it a good point.

The case went to the Supreme Court. It wasn't tried in any lower courts because cases between states have original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court can reject a case for lack of standing (the plaintiff does not have the right to sue the defendant) or for lack of merit (the lawsuit is obviously frivolous). They can also reject it if they think the lower court ruled correctly, but that doesn't apply here.

Standing and merits are both terms of art. Merits essentially means whether one side wins or not. Standing OTOH is a preliminary matter like jurisdiction. If the court lacks jurisdiction over the defendant or the subject matter of the dispute, they kick the case on jurisdiction without reaching the merits. If the plaintiff doesn't have standing, they kick the case on standing without reaching the merits.

Your confusion is 100% reasonable because there is _conceptual_ overlap between standing and "who wins." For example, one aspect of standing is "injury-in-fact." That means "you suffered a harm recognized by the legal system." If the court says no standing because no injury-in-fact, to a layperson that's similar to saying "stop crying, go home." Which sounds a lot like saying "you lose the case."

Thomas and Alito went out of their way to say that they thought Texas had standing but would still not grant further relief

Right. If I recall correctly, their position is that the Supreme Court can't refuse disputes between states.

I know you're writing about the Texas lawsuit, but that suit was tangentially related to, among others, the lawsuit in Wisconsin, which made similar allegations that state laws were not being followed.

Generously, that lawsuit in Wisconsin was heard on its merits [0]. It was dismissed with prejudice.

The Federal judge that issued the ruling—a Trump appointee—said: "This is an extraordinary case. A sitting president who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote based on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred. This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits. In his reply brief, plaintiff “asks that the Rule of Law be followed.” (Pl. Br., ECF No. 109.) It has been."

[0]: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20423518/trump_ca...

The argument was literally that the State of Texas has an interest in the elections of other states and was rejected on a lack of standing which is an emphatic "No" to the argument.

Standing is not merits. These are legal terms that have legal definitions.

Perhaps not in formal legal parlance, but if the top commenter was asking about merits in the common understanding of the term (which stands to reason given they are a non-lawyer) then standing is definitely an aspect of the merits of a case.

"Heard on its merits" is a legal phrase as well. I think hexsprite knew exactly what they were trying to say.

That doesn't mean it was a relevant response to the parent comment, which did not use any legal phrases. They just asked if the case was any good or not.

Since 7 justices said they didn't have standing, and the other 2 said it was impossible to grant relief, it's pretty clear that the case as a whole was not any good. Using a misleading legal phrase to imply that the case had non-legalese "merit" that the courts chose to ignore is.. misleading.

No, if they wanted to deny the case on its merits they could have done so. They chose to deny standing instead, probably to avoid pissing a lot of people off. They did not say it was impossible to grant relief, they said they would not grant relief. What this means is open to interpretation, for example, they could rule that the elections were conducted in violation of the Elections Clause but that it is up to the state legislatures to decide which electors to appoint, which would actually be a good outcome for the Trump campaign.

In order to say whether the case is good or not you would have to point to something specific that makes it legally weak. E.g. controlling precedent. Standing has no bearing on the merits of the case, so everyone using standing as an argument is not making a real argument but is just playing a shell game.

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