Boies on Broward & Volusia

[Scarberry, Mark]

 The Bush briefs make the point that they asked for the Broward county (and
maybe Volusia, I don't remember) votes to be reviewed but that the court
below denied their request by ignoring it. I agree that David Boies
misstated the record, and I was surprised Ted Olson did not call him on it
during rebuttal. It was a rather important part of Boies' argument.

I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was
inadvertent. But he also keeps referring to the 215 votes that Gore
supposedly picked up in Palm Beach even though, as I understand it, either
Judge Lewis or the Palm Beach canvassing board clarified after the Fla. S.
Ct.'s decision that the audited figure was 176.

Larry Tribe would have been a better choice for the argument. Boies acted
too much like a confrontational trial lawyer, IMHO.

Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine

-----Original Message-----
From: John Rogers
To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
Sent: 12/12/00 7:50 AM
Subject: Boies on Broward & Volusia

Did David Boies misstate the record when he said [transcript at 60],

"Your honor, the de novo review is in the contest phase, and neither
Volusia County nor Broward County was a contest filed.  What the Supreme
Court holds is that you've got de novo review in a contest.  A contest
relates to specific ballots that are contested.  The ballots in Broward
and Volusia were not contested by any party." [emphasis added]

What about the Bush third party complaint in the contest action?  See
http://199.44.225.4/courtDockets/pdf/CV002808bs.pdf
<http://199.44.225.4/courtDockets/pdf/CV002808bs.pdf>
The Bush third party complaint asked [see p. 3] that "if the Court
grants Plaintiffs' request or a recount of the ballots in Miami-Dade and
Palm Beach Counties, then it must, at a bare minimum, also conduct a
recount of the ballots in Broward and Volusia Counties, under the same
standards."


John M. Rogers
Thomas P. Lewis Professor of Law
University of Kentucky College of Law
Lexington, Kentucky  40506-0048
tel. 859-257-3370
e-mail: jrogers at pop.uky.edu
http://www.uky.edu/~jrogers <http://www.uky.edu/%7Ejrogers>