Thursday, July 26, 2007

I've heard of some absurd things before, but this buys the bakery

The Michigan Supreme Court, in its infinite and wondrous wisdom today ruled that a family waited too long to sue the person responsible for the murder of one if its own because the murder occurred 16 years ago. This is notwithstanding the fact that the person was not arrested until 2002 because it was only then that DNA evidence showed that the accused raped and murdered the victim.

So basically every cold case in Michigan is effectively barred from any civil litigation. Don't worry that no one had any reason to know or any knowledge of the wrongdoing before--just disregard the basic equitable tolling principles that have been at the cornerstone of our civil procedure for the past few centuries. I've never heard of such absurdity in my life. It's not like they knew who it was and then just waited around for shits and giggles. At least my homegirl Marilyn Kelly spoke up:

In a separate dissent, Justice Marilyn Kelly wrote: “The absurdity of a system that deprives someone of his or her cause of action before it can be instituted is manifest.”
The absurdity is manifest indeed, Justice Kelly. Even good ol' Betty Weaver was having none of this:
“Statutes of limitations will be imposed not on those who would sit on their rights, but on the innocent, who, through no fault of their own, have been deprived of the information necessary to bring an otherwise valid claim,” wrote Justice Elizabeth Weaver, whose opinion was signed by Michael Cavanagh.
It's a sad state of affairs when the newspaper knows exactly what's going on:
Wednesday’s ruling was the latest in which the court’s four-member voting bloc of conservative justices overturned common law, which is based on court decisions and legal principles as opposed to written statutes.
File this under "asinine." If you didn't know, that's a sub-folder under "the Federalist Society's ruining of American Common Law."

1 Comment:

MarilynJean said...

This is dumb. Did the person ever get convicted in criminal courts? Was the civil case the last resort for justice?

 

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