Nesson's Team Will Seek Stay After First Circuit Ruling Against Webcast & Federal Judges Deny Expedited Request For Rule Change In the fight for Joel's Right to a Public Trial
Cambridge, MA (April 2009) - Today, Professor Charles Nesson and his team of Harvard Law students have decided to file a petition for rehearing en banc and request for stay of next week's long-awaited trial hearing on Joel Tenenbaum's challenge to the Constitutionality of the million dollar complaint brought against him. The documents will be filed first thing Monday morning, but all relevant parties have been notified. Back in January, Federal Judge Nancy Gertner approved a motion to permit the hearing to be streamed live over the internet. The music companies appealed, and the decision was overturned by the First Circuit earlier this month.
As per Circuit Judge Lipez's concurring opinion, we reached out to the Federal judges this week requesting that the district court judges expedite a consideration to amend local rule 83.3 to permit a district court judge the ability to exercise his/her discretion. Our informal request to the court is below.
"Under our understanding of FRCP 83 and 28 USC 2071(e), we believe that the district court bench is empowered to make its own rule and to defer the required period of notice and comment in cases of immediate need," wrote Nesson.
The expedited request was denied this morning.
"I have circulated your request to my colleagues and received their responses," wrote the Honorable Chief Judge Mark Wolf in an e-mail to Professor Nesson. "The District Court has decided not to take any action on the expedited basis that you request. In view of the imminence of the April 30, 2009 in your case, I am providing you this response by email."
It is unclear if the judges will consider making its own rule in the future.
"In the meantime, we are respectfully requesting a stay of this hearing," said Nesson. "It is in this hearing that Joel's Constitutional claims will be considered, and it is only right that the public have a right 'to see and to hear' as per its own Constitutional right."
"The public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of a public webcast of the trial even in spite of differing opinions on file-sharing," said the Joel Fights Back team. "Between comments on blogs and a petition circulating, we are amazed at the support for this issue."
Related sites:
http://joelfightsback.com/2009/04/first-circuit-hearing-slideshow-with-comments_part-one/
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/riaa/
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