{"id":23097,"date":"2014-08-20T11:03:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T16:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=23097"},"modified":"2014-08-20T11:03:43","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T16:03:43","slug":"of-trump-cards-and-lawyering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2014\/08\/of-trump-cards-and-lawyering\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Trump Cards and Lawyering"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KingSome of the best and the worst of the legal profession can be seen through Socha v. Boughton<\/em><\/a>, No. 12-1598, decided by the Seventh Circuit this past week. The substance of the case involved the court\u2019s applying \u2014 for the first time \u2014 the doctrine of equitable tolling to excuse a late filing by a state prisoner in a habeas case. This required a conclusion that the district court had abused its discretion in concluding otherwise, including the catchy characterization that \u201c[t]he mistake made by the district court and the state was to conceive of the equitable tolling inquiry as the search for a single trump card, rather than an evaluation of the entire hand that the petitioner was dealt\u201d (slip op. at 19).<\/p>\n

Yet it is the lawyering that I want especially to note. <\/p>\n

The worst is explicit. The court describes how \u201cSocha\u2019s efforts to file a [timely habeas petition] were hampered at every turn, through no fault of his own\u201d (slip op. at 4). This includes \u201chis inability for more than a year despite persistent requests to obtain his case file from the [lawyer] who had represented him at trial\u201d (slip op. at 5). Perhaps it also includes a procedural assertion by the state before the Seventh Circuit that the court (through Chief Judge Diane Wood) termed \u201cfrivolous\u201d (slip op. at 11). Should not the state avoid frivolous arguments?<\/p>\n

Fortunately, while their work is more implicit in a judicial opinion, the best do not lack all conviction. That is, the Seventh Circuit is not likely to have concluded that a district court abused its discretion on a matter of equity without there having been some very good lawyering on behalf of the appellant. Socha received such representation in this appeal from Rachel M. Blise<\/a>, a recent Marquette Law School graduate (Class of 2010). Kudos to Rachel and her colleagues at Foley & Lardner for their work, on a pro bono basis, in ensuring that this habeas petition will be decided on the merits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the best and the worst of the legal profession can be seen through Socha v. Boughton, No. 12-1598, decided by the Seventh Circuit this past week. The substance of the case involved the court\u2019s applying \u2014 for the first time \u2014 the doctrine of equitable tolling to excuse a late filing by a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,36,131,123,122,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-legal-practice","category-legal-profession","category-pro-bono","category-public","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}