I had a lot of fun writing this amicus brief for the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers explaining why trial courts have always had the power to dismiss cases for want of prosecution, even when the litigant dragging his heels has a badge. /1
To summarize: EVERY state agrees that trial courts have the inherent power to dismiss cases for want of prosecution.
The only split is whether that rule applies to the state. And the states that disallow the practice often do so for policy reason.
/2
There IS one Texas case that many courts have come to rely on, though, State v. Anderson, which DID go into some old common law rules to find that only prosecutors may issue a nolle prosequi.
But it dealt with a case where a judge found res judicata based on acquittals. /3
Which, of course, the US Supreme Court would later okay in cases like Ashe v. Swenson and Yeager.
To summarize GACDL's argument: "if it's not broke, don't fix it."
/4
It's my hope that trial courts will continue to have the power to dismiss a prosecutor's case, without prejudice, if he insists on repeatedly showing up to court unprepared.
/f
Oh, one last point, a lot of the filings in this case claim that the first time any Georgia court mentioning dismissal for want of prosecution in a criminal case was 1978. Not so. The earliest I could find was 1904.
Moore lost because he signed a contract explicitly waiving his right to sue for the things he was suing for, even though he struck through another provision about waiving his right to sue for intrusion on his privacy, a cause of action he didn't bring.
Moore argued that he was defrauded because he thought the interview would be friendly.
But he agreed, in writing, that he was not relying on representation that the interview would be friendly.
It's kind of crazy that Autumn Jackson, who threatened to tell the press that Bill Cosby had raped her mother to conceive her, wound up getting 26 months in federal prison.
Just a little less than he did.
Oh I missed this but apparently her conviction was also reversed. The jury was never told that her request for money had to be wrongful to be criminal, only that it had to accompany a threat to his reputation.
Again, Yoo at no point shows how this harms the Presidency. Some state people asked for Trump's tax records. He claimed absolute immunity. He lost.
But Yoo doesn't seem to think Trump should have won that?
Did opponents of Trump use litigation in an "unprecedented way" to stop his agenda? Maybe for a very specific definition of "unprecedented," but we literally just had our third SCOTUS opinion about the ACA joined by every conservative AG in the country.
36 pages deep, you find COUNT ONE of the complaint against Facebook, which is that it is violating the First Amendment.
Count Two: Also please say section 230 is unconstitutional and don't use any words that rhyme with landing
And as far as legal claims go, those are it. It was extremely considerate of the former President to file a lawsuit that can be dismissed in a one page order.
For the record, it's difficult to understand a reason why the confessions of people other than the defendant are inadmissible when we have a whole category of hearsay presuming that statements against interest are more reliable.
Other than that it helps the State.
The rule at the time was that out of court confessions were inadmissible without special assurances of trustworthiness.